Lord, please take away my desire to have children.

My husband and I have had eighteen failed pregnancy attempts in our roughly two year marriage. That means there were only about six months where we were not trying to get pregnant. After eighteen attempts and three pregnancies that didn't last into the second trimester I walk into every Doctor visit waiting for the words “I'm sorry, but you'll never have kids.” In some ways I wonder if that might be easier. I could cry and be depressed and ask God “Why?” and get it out of the way.

I always end up hopeful instead. I believe every time that “today's the day!” until it starts getting closer to time to take a pregnancy test. Then I start to try and be reasonable. I tell myself the test might be negative. Or the test might be positive and we might lose another baby. I tell myself to be prepared for anything, not to be surprised or anxious. I tell myself not to get my hopes up.

Then when the test is negative I'm crushed. I immediately start to think I'm never going to have kids, or maybe I was pregnant but I had a really early miscarriage, or I don't deserve to have kids, or sometime in the next ten years we'll try to adopt.

It's getting harder to keep living this way. I can't just think “it'll happen someday” because I've been taking fertility drugs and ovulation tests. I'm constantly having to pay attention to trying to get pregnant again. I'm always either hopeful or ready to crawl back into bed and cry.

So the other night while I was crying when I should have been sleeping I started to pray. I wanted to ask God for children, but I've asked Him before to not let us get pregnant if we're going to have any more miscarriages. Lord, your will be done? What if His will is for me to remain childless?

Then Lord, please take away my desire for children I can't have.

I don't want to worry that helping out in the nursery will send me into a depression. I'm tired of having hope that doesn't do anything but break. I'm tired of hormones and ovulation tests and blood draws for no reason. I just want to mourn the children we lost, not children we haven't lost yet. 

What it comes down to is this, I want to be content with the blessings God has given me and live my life that way.

My name is Eustace

My name is Eustace.

2013 was not a very good year for me. It was my first year of marriage to my wonderful husband and  was filled with happiness in that regard. We were growing closer together and enjoying being able to be completely open with each other. The world continued to move though, and the world is a broken place.

I had never really encountered death before, so I was horrified when I suddenly miscarried last February. After that it seemed like death would not stop coming. An elderly friend of mine passed away not long after the miscarriage, and then only a few weeks after her funeral a young man my husband knew was killed in a motorcycle crash. We had another miscarriage, and a month after that I found out that a girl I had been praying for had been raped and murdered.

When I had the second miscarriage I began to have trouble coping. I was afraid of death, not for myself since I know that I am looking forward to joining God in Heaven. I was afraid of losing someone close to me and started having nightmares about my husband being killed.

I also started to have body image issues, which I had proudly said I had never dealt with. I simply could not feel pretty in a body so broken it couldn't even keep my children alive.

Through much of this year I found it very difficult to pray. What was the point of talking to God when all I wanted was my children back and I knew I could not have them? I knew that I should rely on God, and I wanted to. I desperately wanted Him to give me peace so I could stop feeling so utterly broken.

I don't think that was the point though.

We were talking with friends the other night about the lie cycling around that God will not give you more suffering than you can take. We read an article (And I can't remember what the article was or I would cite it) explaining that comes from the verse 1 Corinthians 10:13.

“No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.”

The verse is not talking about suffering, it speaks of temptation. The Bible is filled with great suffering. The early church saw many martyrs who we look up to now as great examples of faith, but realistically they died terrible deaths. At the end of Job it skims over him getting everything he had and more, but he lost so many children and I can't imagine that not continuing to hurt him. Even Jesus suffered. Not only did He suffer physically (one more stroke of the whip would have been considered a death sentence) but He took all of the guilt of all humanity, everything that has or will ever be called sin and laid all of the blame on Him and His heart.

My name is Eustace. I'm not used to this.

In the Chronicles of Narnia The Voyage of the Dawn Treader there is a boy named Eustace. He started the story as the one everyone loves to hate. When I was reading the story with my mom we used to call him Useless. Halfway through the story Eustace goes off on his own, steals from a dragon's hoard, and is turned into a dragon. Before the story ends he meets Aslan and tries to remove his dragon skin on his own, but no matter how many layers he sheds he remains a dragon. It is not until Aslan digs in His own claws, and Eustace goes through that pain, that Eustace is turned back into a boy.

In my own way I believe that God allows us to suffer beyond what we can cope with until we are completely broken before Him. Not because He likes to see us in pain, but because we have to know that without Him we are completely helpless. We can say it all we like but until we loose everything that gives us more comfort or security than we rely on God for, we are clearly not relying completely on God. I would go so far as to say anything we rely on more than God becomes our god, our idol.

I had been trying to just be okay. The days when I crawled back into bed crying felt like defeat. When I prayed I asked God to give me peace and help me make it through another day. It felt like those prayers were not being answered, I still felt broken and some days I still feel crushed with sadness. However, God knows what I really need. I don't need anything like I need Him, children, health, sanity. If I need to be stripped of everything to finally say that God is truly all I need, then God in His mercy is taking it away from me.

My Name is Eustace.

Crafty Girls Introduction

Evil Scheme:

1.Get the Crafty Girls to let me on their server (check)
2.Build something amazing (check)
3.Worm my way into their hearts (check)
4.Become a Crafty Girl (check)
5.Build amazing things (to do)

I'm a Crafty Girl now! If anyone is new to this the Crafty Girls are a group of girls spread around the world who play Minecraft together and make youtube videos.

Stef, the leader of the Crafty Girls (after she fell for my evil scheme) allowed me to join up. Then she told me I had to blog once a week and I started having second thoughts...

So far I've built a couple of things for the Crafty Girls. The Diamond Tower of Light to mark donations from fans.

Tower of Light

The “office building” on their Holiday map, and a market just down the street.

Building with Stef

And I have plans to build so much more.

My Fail Name Chart

There are times working at the Phunny Pharm where I and my coworkers find ourselves wondering just how to spell a customer's name. Let's see if you would have guessed these fail spellings. (Just a note, to qualify for this list the customer had to tell me the name without offering a spelling and make me guess, or be offended when I asked for the spelling.)

Heard        -    Spelled

Heather    -    Hethar
China        -    Chyna
Miranda    -    Myranda
Kathy        -    Kathi
Micha        -    Myka
Christine    -    Khristine
Karen        -    Charon
Marissa    -    Maryssa
Cody        -    Kody
Martin        -    Maarten
Vanessa    -    Anessa
Karen        -    Karyn
Amber        -    Kamber
Tia        -    Tiha
Jordan        -     Jordyn
Cosi        -    Cocy
Jeremy        -    Jerimie
Sydney    -    Cydneigh
Abigail    -    Avigail
Kelly        -    Kayleigh
Leah        -    Lia
Erica        -    Arica
Antione    -    Annetwan
Austin        -    Austyn
Megan        -    Meaghan
Denzelle    -    Denizilye
Donita        -    Dawnita
Autumn    -    Autymn

And some names that just makes you wonder what their parents were thinking.

Raishaun
Charisse
Priscah
Tyrek
Kelleen
Lika
Pevis
Jaquavieus
Brandice
Jermonie
Rowshawna
Nathaly
Shaquala
Sunshine
Dazhane
Marquisa


The fails aren't so much in the spellings here, the fail is expecting me to already know it.

I love my friend Stef'ney because she knows to spell her name for people.

(Also! Watch Stef in Crafty girls! Shameless plug! XD )
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_AIIjpg0JE

How I Feel Now: Miscarriage and Abortion

The mythical Children of Lir

I was planning this blog entry to be very different. I was planning on announcing how excited and a little nervous I was about a new little life coming into the world. We were going to have a baby, and he would be my baby. He was about 10 weeks along.

I lost my baby on the thirteenth of February.

I think that was quite possibly the worst day of my life. And it wasn't until the next evening that my husband and I could sit down and just weep together because we were no longer going to have our child.

Through this whole nightmare I've learned two things. The first is that it doesn't mean that God is less in control, and it doesn't mean that God doesn't love our child. I still struggle with why He took him, especially at work where I watch one specific, pregnant, customer smoke and drink and stuff herself with a drug cocktail that makes it seem to me like she wants her child dead. So why does she get to keep her children when I was trying everything to keep my child safe and still lost him? I know it's not a good thing to think, but it does cross my mind when I see her.

The second thing I've learned through this is that a staggering number of the women I know have had miscarriages. My mom never had a miscarriage, and we live in a modern age with great medical... stuff, so I never really believed I could miscarry. I think God did try to warn me about a month or so before the wedding, but I didn't really listen.

I'm wondering now just how many women have lost children in the womb. Out of all the women I've spoken to only four have told me for certain that they have never lost any children, and two of them are pregnant as I write this. Most of the women who I've spoken with have said “I lost two before I had my oldest.” or “I lost one between these two children.” or even “This child was a twin but we lost their sibling.” For some reason I hope I never understand, the last one seems to be the most heartbreaking.

The day I miscarried my doctor sent me to the emergency room where they rushed me into surgery before my husband and I knew what was happening. I kept thinking “I don't want to have surgery, I just want my baby back.” I knew enough not to say anything and ask the impossible of the nurses.

They brought me into the pre-surgery room and so many people were running in and out taking blood and hooking me up to machines and asking questions and robotically saying “I'm so sorry for your loss.” I was lying in a hospital bed having papers put in front of me to sign. They had already taken out my contact lenses so I couldn't see, but the nurse read off “This just says that we're finishing an incomplete abortion, sign here.”

I started crying but I signed it. My mom asked them if they could write in “Spontaneous” in front of “incomplete.” Randomly enough the doctor who took out my ovarian cyst just so happened to be working in the hospital that day and was prepping to do this procedure on me. She knows me and agreed to write in “Spontaneous.” That did make me feel a whole lot better, but it got me to thinking.

Why would anyone anywhere ever have an abortion?

But! Rape! And Incest! And it's a woman's body!

I Don't Give A Crap.

I don't have a great intellectual argument here, but this has been on my mind ever since I lost my baby. Out of all the women in the world who have been pregnant how many of them, I wonder, have lost a child? How many of them lay awake at night wishing they could hold their child for just a moment, like I have. How many women have been sucked into believing that their child is so worthless that they're better off dead?

Abortion is marketed to girls as an easy way out of an uncomfortable situation. It was even marketed to me that way, and I thought abortion was wrong before my miscarriage. Now my only response is,

“How DARE you.”

Who are any of us to decide if a baby lives or dies? Who are doctors to decide it? Who are court judges to decide it? Who are mothers to decide it?

How dare anyone willfully murder a child who would have otherwise lived when my child is dead?

Several people have said things to me like “Maybe it was a good thing, now you and your husband can be alone for awhile,” or “Maybe it was a good thing, you must not be ready for a child.”

Shortly after we told my husband's family about the baby my brother-in-law asked me what it was like to “not really be alone” when I was alone. I didn't know how to answer, but I don't have to think very hard to notice an emptiness now. I'm sure that whatever God's plan is, my child's very brief life was a part of it. However, telling me that it was good for my child to die is wrong. Accepting abortion as an option is wrong. Thinking that removing a child from their mother removes the woman's motherhood is dead wrong, no matter if they wanted the child or not.

I have a good friend who had multiple abortions before she was a Christian. She was fifteen and abortion was marketed as the answer. Abortion did not give her the freedom it promised her, it gave her time in a mental institution. The people telling her that it was a good thing to abort two children did not have her best interest in mind. They will probably never understand the harm they caused in her life or the guilt that she still struggles with.

If anyone still reading has had an abortion I do want to take a moment to say that God can forgive anything if you ask Him. He forgave my friend of her two abortions and many other things she won't even speak of with me. I'm confident from verses like 2 Samuel 12:23 (Where king David says that he will go to his dead son someday.) that my child, along with all of the aborted children and other miscarried children, are in Heaven, and that God is keeping them all safe. The point of Jesus dying on the cross was to take the blame for the shameful things we all know we've done. Because He died you can be forgiven and not even God will remember what you did before.

I'm tempted to sit and think things like “If I hadn't had the cyst maybe this wouldn't have happened,” “If I hadn't gone on birth control before the wedding,” or “If I had only gone to the doctor sooner.” I live with thoughts like that which I can set aside knowing that God was the one in charge of my child's life.

I cannot imagine the guilt that must weigh on the mind of a mother who knows beyond a doubt that she gave the order for her child's execution. I cannot imagine how doctors and judges and lawmakers and voters can help to make it possible and still sleep at night. I cannot sit by and watch it continue.

And that is how I feel about abortion now that my child is dead.

A Married Woman's Blog

A Married Woman's Blog

Yes, the wedding is over, but the marriage has only just begun. Other things are beginning too, but I'll save some things for later.

So how's being married you ask? It's a lot more fun than I thought. The Honeymoon was lots of fun because we were always together. We spent almost the entire week talking and talking and talking because suddenly we felt so much more free to. Now we get to watch whole movies together too, I don't have to leave and go home because I'm already home. Plus, our apartment doesn't have a couch yet (We have a futon frame but no mattress yet.) and now that we're married we can sit in bed together and watch movies. (I know, so risqué!)

Being married to the Captain has it's interesting sides too. Like, I asked him to start the dishwasher the other day while I was at work. There's this little cup thing for dish soap in the dishwasher that I usually put one or two drops of soap into. He filled it to the top.

Apparently he was carting foam out by the bucketful.

Also, no one warned me about his sleeping habits before the wedding. (I have received a full apology from his brother already.)

So, we're on the honeymoon and one night at about 3 am he sits up and starts saying something. (I wish I could remember what it was, it was probably hilarious) He had mentioned shortly after the wedding that sometimes he talks in his sleep so I asked him

“Are you talking in your sleep?”

“What! No! No I'm not! I'm wide awake!”

“Ok, well, can you go back to sleep?”

I didn't understand just yet. But after the honeymoon we came home and started settling into our apartment. One night about 3 am when I was deep in sleep he woke up, and started shaking me.

“Hey, hey, wake up.”

“huuuuuh?”

“Are you hungry? Lets go get food!”

“Whuut? What time is it?”

“Three in the morning! It's always three in the morning when we wake up and we're hungry! Lets go get food!”

“I don't wanna go get food, I wanna go back to sleep!”

Then, about a week ago, I was sleeping peacefully when he suddenly sat upright and started drawing with his finger on the blanket.

“Sweety?”

“Yeah?”

“What are you doing?”

“I'm making an unbreakable fuel tank!”

“Oh... can you lay back down?”

“In a minute!”

So the moral of the story is ask important questions before you get married like “What do they do in their sleep?”, “Do they call scrapers 'spatulas' and really confuse you in the kitchen?”, and “Is there anything weird I should know?”

Because there is, just, nobody really thinks about it until you're finding it out at three in the morning when he wants to sleepwalk up to the Lido deck for brunch and there is no Lido deck because you're already home from your cruise.

But seriously, being married is a lot of fun. I like taking care of our apartment. I like getting to see the Captain all the time. I like getting dragged off into his crazy schemes. I like showing him off to everybody... ^_^

One more thing though. I was getting dressed for church a week or so ago and yanked a pair of black pants out of the closet. When I went to put my phone in my pocket I recall thinking “These pockets seem a lot deeper than the pockets on my black pants...” but I ended up wearing them out of the house. We were halfway across the state before I thought “I'm not sure these are my pants. Are these really my pants?”

Ask the important questions people, they were not my pants.

The Tale of the Cyst

Why would a bride have surgery a month before her wedding? Not plastic surgery. Though, I might need that to put my bellybutton back the way it was...

The tale of the cyst begins almost four months ago when the stress of wedding planning and switching Phunny Pharm's was only beginning. I started complaining about odd pains in my hip. About a month later I couldn't even come in to work unless I had filled myself with over the counter pain medicine.

One night at work I convinced myself I was having a side effect from the drugs I was taking and my dad took me to the Emergency Room. I felt ridiculous since I wasn't actively in pain, but I didn't know where the pain was coming from. They did a CAT scan and left dad and I in a room while the Captain changed his tire. (He was amazing through this whole entire thing.) The Captain came in just before the doctor did and the doctor informed me that I had an “Ovarian Cyst.”

My response was something like this face O.o

Nice sterile picture of the HORRORS going on inside my body. Seriously, do not image search ovarian cyst.

The Captain went home because it was nearly eleven o'clock and he had been working all day, and my dad did some research on his phone.

“They say that if it's more than five centimeters across it has to be surgically removed immediately.”

“Ok, well, the doctor doesn't seem worried so I guess mine must be pretty small.”

I went to my doctor the next week. The doctor wasn't in, but I was asked if I wanted to be seen by her nurse.

“I don't care, I just want someone to look at this.”

“The CAT scan shows it's about four centimeters across. These things rupture on their own, but it will really really hurt when it does.”

“Alright, then what do I do?”

“Oh, just wait for it to rupture, but just to let you know it will really REALLY hurt when it does.”

“...”

“See you in six weeks!”

After about three weeks I had to start taking the pain medicine the ER doctor gave me, and two weeks after that I could barely stand up at work. To make it more interesting, the pain killers were running out.

The doctor wrote me a new prescription and I made it through the last week to my next appointment. The Ultra Sound tech looked around for about a minute before I saw a huge black mass on the screen above her.

“It's about six centimeters across now.”

YIPE!

“You're not scheduled to see the doctor today, would you like to?”

“Yes please.” o.o

“I'll go see if she can fit you in.”

About twenty minutes later I got to see the doctor. She said it was still likely that the cyst would pop on it's own, in six or seven weeks. My mom pointed out that the wedding was seven weeks away.

“Well, now we could start to consider surgery.”

She held up a chart showing two little metal sticks pointing at an ovarian cyst. It looked fine. One goes in and pops the cyst, the other sucks all the mess out, they close me up and I go home cyst free. Sign me up!

The day before the surgery I was elated. In my life I think I have only ever been more excited about my wedding. Why was I excited? I had no clue what was about to happen.

The Captain came over the morning off and he and my mom drove me to the hospital. I sat down with them in a waiting area for about a minute before a nurse came and walked me to another room with a cot.

My doctor came in and went over the plan again. This time with more detail than when I had been in her office. “We're going to put air in your abdomen so when you wake up your shoulders might hurt, it seems strange but I don't want you to be frightened.”

Okay...

“And I don't plan on taking your ovary out but in case I do I don't want to have to wake you up to ask your permission so please sign this.”

Okay...

“And in no time you'll be all healed. Are you going somewhere warm on your honeymoon?”

“Yeah a cruise to the Bahamas.”

“You'll be able to wear your bikini and show off your belly, it will look fine.”

Cool. I don't have a bikini, but cool.

Then the doctor left and the nurse came back. The first thing she asked of me was a urine sample. I forgot to mention that every time I went near this place they would find a reason to draw blood and give them a urine sample.

“It's for a routine pregnancy test. I just need four drops.”

I don't like to be trouble but I had to say something. What came out was “Oh, I... um... I'm not. I'm... ... a virgin.”

“It's just policy.”

Okay...

I hand off another sample and in no time at all I'm laying on the bed in a hospital gown covered with about six pre warmed blankets. I could get used to this surgery stuff.

I forgot about the IV.

I hate needles. I cannot stress my fear and loathing of them enough. My arms were already bruised from all the times in the last few weeks that I had been really really good and let them draw blood. My poor little arms had had it.

I had a plan though. I was going to think about the Captain and I wading through the creek shortly after we had first started courting. I was going to think about how happy and calm I was then, about picking shells out of the water, about watching the Captain pick up little critters in the water. This nurse had other ideas.

“It just won't advance.”

ADVANCE!

My hands and feet went numb and I started to squirm. Even thinking about it almost a week later I'm still starting to squirm and my breathing is getting short. (Doesn't help that I'm still all bruised up both arms.)

“Don't pass out on me.”

No, it would have been easier for both of us if I had just passed out. But I tried to calm down, tried to go back to that nice autumn day in the creek.

“So when is your wedding?”

She was trying to help I know, but I had decided I didn't like her so much then.

When she finally got the stupid needle in my arm she let mom and the Captain in. They started chatting with me and I was fine until I felt something in my arm and remembered the needle. I started squirming and crying and panicking and my fingers and toes got numb again. But then the Captain was there. He stood up next to me and kissed me on the top of the head. By the time they came to get me I had calmed down to my mostly reasonable self again.

Mom took my glasses and I remember them wheeling me through the halls into a big cold room where I could see big blurry metal things. They moved me into another bed, one that wasn't very wide. I was afraid of the IV pulling and my arm wouldn't quite fit on the table. I voiced my concerns and a nurse made more room for my arm.

“My elbow feels cold.”

“That's the doctor putting you to sleep. Don't worry, in no time we'll have you back out and you can see your mom.”

I remember saying “The Captain is here too.”

An hour and four incisions later I woke up to them moving me back onto the cot. They moved me into another room and I slowly became aware of where I was. And pain.

“How do you feel?” a nurse asked.

My entire middle hurt, my throat was dry and ached, my legs hurt, and both of my shoulders felt like I had been carrying boulders on sticks for a week.

“... ow...”

I wasn't much better when mom and the Captain came in. Before I even really knew what was happening the nurse and my mom had me sitting up trying to dress me. The Captain had fled because the nurse had started uncovering me in front of him.

I was freezing the entire way home. Everything hurt and I was shivering, which shook all the things that hurt. I ended up throwing up all the water they had given me in the hospital and shooting it all over the car, and myself. When we got home mom helped me in and got me cleaned up. While she did that the Captain cleaned up the vomit in the car. Then he sat with me the rest of the day, making sure I was warm and had water.

So now it's a week later and I'm healing. I found out that the cyst was caused by endometrial tissue that crawled up into my ovary and my ovary went "AAAAAHHHH! MUST GET RID OF!" and tried to get rid of it by turning it into a cyst. However, if that had popped it would have been bad and surgery was about the only way to go. Oh, and I got to keep the poor abused ovary.

 The wedding is coming up and now I'll be cyst free and able to enjoy all the festivities. The best part of it all (besides knowing that God is in control) is knowing that I'm going to be marrying the most wonderful man in the entire world. He cleaned up my puke! Guys don't just do that! Besides, he's been amazingly caring and concerned. Other than nearly tearing me apart at the seams by making me laugh.

Also, surgery is not fun. Do not be fooled! O_O