I have been on a mission to “catch up” at work, which is probably impossible given the volume of stuff that accumulates on my desk in a given day.  I have learned that I can only do one thing at a time well, so while I have been working my duff off at work, my house is a wreck, I haven’t exercised on a regular basis, and my writing has been nonexistent.  This laser beam focus is great for the one area of my life receiving all the attention, but it is wholly imbalanced and wreaks havoc on everything else.  So for the last two weeks, I have achieved breathing room at the office while simultaneously suffocating under a mountain of laundry and dust bunnies.

I’d like to say that I will eventually become a well-adjusted individual, devoting balanced amounts of time to marriage, family, friends, home, work, church, and hobbies.  It’s just not in my personality, though.  Balance is a struggle for everyone, and for me it’s usually an all-out war.  I have learned, however, that I have limits, and I have learned that I tend to overestimate what I can accomplish in a given time period.  I have learned that I can say no and that it’s okay to say no even when what I’m being asked to do is a worthy task.  I just haven’t learned to pace myself very well.

I have learned that Philippians 4:13 (I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.) is not an appropriate rallying cry for multitasking.  While I can, and certainly do, do all things through Christ who gives me strength, I have learned that this has much more to do with the spiritual tasks I face every day: loving my neighbor even when I’d rather kick them in the shins, communicating said desire to kick my neighbor in the shins to God and asking him to change my desire, treating the people around me with the love and respect due every creation of God, surviving the day when I’d rather give in to depression or anger – these are the things that I can only do through Christ, whereas a trained monkey could do most of my to-do list.  The spiritual tasks are the ones that elevate us to reflections of the image of God, and they can only be accomplished well through the strength of Christ.

I tend to evaluate my success based on the things I have accomplished from my to-do list, but realizing that those things are really just trained monkey business helps me remember that I too easily get wrapped up in temporal goals while ignoring what’s truly important.  It also makes me laugh to imagine a monkey vacuuming my house – that would really get the dogs going.

After over a month of weirdness, it feels great to getting back to “normal.”  I never claim to be normal for fear my family will call me out and publicly present evidence to the contrary.  After almost six weeks of sitting on my duff, I am finally back to daily life and work and (occasionally) housework.  It’s amazing how long it has taken to get back into shape just to complete a full day, not to mention exercise.  In case you hadn’t already guessed, the Frantic Frog is off the table this year, but we are going to try a few running events between now and January, including the Turkey Trot – my family’s new annual tradition before we eat pancakes and pose together in our t-shirts.

I have been so blessed by so many of you who have been praying and checking in on me.  It is a tremendous gift to have your support and your prayers; I only hope to do half as well when you need the same support in return.  You have lifted my spirits and my heart in tremendous ways, and I am so grateful God has put each of you in my life.  Now that I am catching up, I should be keeping up with the blog better than the last few weeks allowed, and I hope to have some details in the next week about a Birmingham area prayer/memorial service for October 15th Pregnancy and Infancy Loss Remembrance Day.  First, I have to find my desk under all the piles that accumulated in the last month!

Yesterday I shared words that other people can use, but it’s just as important for butterfly moms to know how to react when someone hurts their feelings.  We can either be constructive and repair those hurt feelings, or we can lash out and create more hurt feelings.  I’ve done plenty of both.  When you feel tremendous pain, physical or emotional, it’s really tempting to hurt someone else.  I guess misery really does love company, maybe because we don’t know how to ask for help and end up acting out like kids do.  Whatever the reason, it solves nothing to drag someone else down with you, and it usually adds guilt to your emotional dogpile.

It’s a fact that someone is going to hurt your feelings; this is true in all of life, and dealing with a miscarriage tends to amplify that factor.  My whole life I have been pretty bad at confronting hurt feelings with any level of maturity.  I’ll let things pile up until I explode and do the stereotypically female historical rendition of every wrong, real or imagined.  No good has ever come from my method.  When I actually act like an adult and have a conversation about what’s bothering me, it’s usually resolved without any crazy emotional outbursts (although, I will cry – that’s a given) or assistance from the History Channel.  When I respond the same way when confronted by someone I’ve wronged, we can both move on with a stronger relationship.  That said, there are good times to just let things roll off and ignore them.

I have a rule that when someone hurts my feelings, I will speak with them about it if it’s a relationship I value.  If it’s someone I do not deal with on a regular basis and do not care to deal with on a regular basis, I just let it go.  For instance, someone I speak to once a month in the hall really won’t care about the situation for more than a few seconds, and confronting them is likely to cause more harm than good.  A friend that I would like to spend more time with is worth the effort it takes to share my feelings, and not talking to them is likely to cause more harm than good.  Anchored by Hope offered this as a possible way to confront the hurtful words: “Thank you very much for your sentiment, but let me tell you that this wasn’t really what I wanted to hear right now. I know what you mean, but it still hurts me more.”  This is a great way to start the conversation, or you can just stop there if you don’t want to or can’t explain more about why it hurt you.

Another rule I made for myself is to sit on the hurtful comment or incident for a short span of time, like a few hours or a few days.  If it still pops back into my head, then I know I need to address it; if I can’t really remember why it upset me, I let it go.  If I let it go for more than a few days, then I have to let it go forever.  It’s kind of like training a puppy: if you don’t address the bad behavior when it happens, then they have no idea why you’re punishing them later for something they don’t remember doing.  However, it’s good to wait a short time to address a problem until you can control your emotions and therefore your tongue.  If you can speak rationally in the heat of the moment, you are to be greatly admired and should begin counseling me immediately.  If you are human, then you should probably cool off before you tell someone they hurt you; you’ll be able to “use your words” and avoid further injury to either party.

Avoid using your loss as a weapon.  It is possible to bludgeon someone with bad news: someone bugs you about working on a project or ribs you about dropping out of Zumba, and you give them enough rope to hang themselves before you inform them that you had a miscarriage and were unable to keep your normal schedule.  I’ve done it, more than once.  It doesn’t matter if the person was being a jerk, I should know better than to take someone down a notch like that.  There are fair ways to take someone down a notch, but a surprise verbal assault is cheating.

Recognize that most of the time, whoever hurt your feelings by saying something insensitive really didn’t intend to hurt your feelings.  If you accept that they meant well, you’ll be able to forgive and forget much more easily than if you go off half-cocked with only the thought that they hurt you.  Also recognize that sometimes, there will be no right thing for anyone to say to you.  Miscarriage is the loss of a loved one with all of the grief that goes with it, and it carries the added weight of hormonal mood swings and actual physical symptoms that are often painful.  Just surviving physically, mentally and emotionally is a feat of strength worthy of honor.

In the interests of being honest, today is a really stinky day.  I was supposed to see the doctor at 8:30 this morning and get my blood drawn to check my hcg level.  It had dropped to 7 as of Monday, so I really expected it to be nothing today – the doctor visit was so that I could complain about the ongoing low-grade fever and weird pains that haven’t gone away.  Apparently, they didn’t actually schedule that visit on Monday like I thought.  Maybe the nurse was irritated with me Monday and just told me to come in so I would shut up.  So I rushed to an appointment that I didn’t actually have.  I agreed to wait until the nurse called back with my lab results to try to see the doctor since “he’ll want to get the results first, anyway.”

The nurse actually called earlier than normal to tell me that my hcg level is officially negative at 3 (it just had to get under 5), and the doctor said that if I still feel bad and am running a fever, then I should go see my g.p. to get it checked out.  It’s frustrating (I really feel more strongly than that, but there’s no adequate word) to be told that a symptom is medically irrelevant for three weeks and then to suddenly be told to go get someone else to check it out because now that the pregnancy is technically over it’s a symptom.  Given that everything but the fever is still a gynecological issue, I’m trying to figure out which doctor, if any, should poke and prod.  My Ob/Gyn will most likely tell me the same thing the specialist did – “It’s just your body trying to get rid of the pregnancy and get all of your hormones back to normal.  You just need to have a period and then everything should go back to normal.”  I don’t know that I could see my internist about this tomorrow without breaking down in his office, most likely leading to the same answer as the Ob/Gyn and a possible psych hold.

And we’re going to the beach for a week with my husband’s family.  I am tired and frustrated, which doesn’t help with packing and trying to tie up the loose ends for work and housekeeping.  I would normally love the beach, but this week it just sounds exhausting and frustrating.  I still can’t really swim right now (girly details that don’t bear typing), and the idea of sitting outside roasting makes me want to hide in a dark closet and sleep for a year, which I’ll have to do if I want to take part in any of the few planned activities this weekend.  A break would be really nice, but this won’t really be a break for me – it will be transporting the angst to a sandy location.  Although, as I told my mother-in-law earlier this week, I can feel like poop anywhere, so I guess it might as well be at the beach.

I actually tallied up the days and weeks of this whole event last night: six weeks of spotting and bleeding with assorted aches, pains and cramps (ongoing), three weeks of fever (ongoing), and five weeks from the hcg nosedive until it finally dropped to negative.  The nurse pointed out that my whole case has been unusual, so there was really nothing they could have done differently.  I feel badly for venting even a little at the nurse because she was just doing her job, but it’s frustrating (again, there should be a more emphatic word) to only be able to function at less than half capacity for almost a month while we waited for things to resolve only to be told to start over with a different doctor.  I think I’m going to wait for a little bit because I’m just as sure as the doctor is that if my hormones will just settle down, everything will go back to normal.  I just don’t remember what normal feels like right now.

Today stinks.  It reeks of frustration and exhaustion and a whole sweaty gym locker full of emotional aromas.  I will be fine, and I know this will end soon enough.  Today at least will end at midnight, so that’s a bonus, and my best friend has impeccable phone timing and got to help me pick up the pieces.  God has given me exactly what I need, when I need it, so I’m going to stop complaining. 😉

A friend at Anchored by Hope (there’s a link to their site on the right side of this page) posted two comment threads yesterday on FB that I thought might be helpful information.  The first asked mothers who miscarried (“butterfly moms’) to share the hurtful things people had said in an effort to comfort them, and the second asked for the most helpful and comforting things people said in response to their loss.  If you’re on FB, you can see the actual responses (and get a little more info about a very sweet and nurturing ministry), but you might have to befriend Anchored ByHope.

I’ve written before about some of the hurtful things people say, and if I am smart enough to figure out the link, I’ll try to re-post it here.  Seeing what other women have heard makes me realize that most of the “wrong” things to say are pretty universal.  Among the worst, in my opinion, are: “You can always have another baby,” “You’re young – you can try again,” “Well, at least you know you can get pregnant,” and “It’s good that it happened so early if there was a problem with the baby.” (That one sounds cruel to me just typing it, but I have heard it too many times to count.)  Among the “churchy” responses, these are some of the hardest to swallow: “God wanted another angel,” “It’s just not God’s will right now*,” and “Have faith.”  The thing about the statement that it wasn’t God’s will is that it is a true statement, and it’s something every butterfly mom will have to accept, but hearing that immediately after a loss really only hurts.  The first few weeks and maybe months after a loss are the times that you need the love of Christ and the support of the body of Christ so that you can gently accept that your plans weren’t his plans.  Beating someone about the head and neck with the will of God is not a constructive way to show your love.

“Have faith” is still the one that kills me.  This one has become my least favorite thing to hear and is not likely to elicit a measured response from me.  I take comfort in the stories that other women have told me about their own experiences, most of which involve eventually having a child.  These women have been brave enough to share their own pain in an effort to help me heal, and I love them tremendously for that gift.  We share a horrible experience that not everyone can understand.  And then there are the people who feel they must share the story of their great-uncle’s friend’s daughter who had a lot of miscarriages, began the process of adopting a child, and then got pregnant with twins, “So don’t give up; God can do anything.  You just have to have faith.”  This conversation nearly ended with the early demise of a choir member last night.  I will at some point talk to her about it and explain why it was hurtful, but I knew I couldn’t control my emotions last night.  I will listen all day long to the people who have actually experienced this kind of loss; I am quickly frustrated by those who are throwing miracle stories at me.

Part of my reasoning here is selfish, and I know it: if God can do these tremendous miracles for all these other people I keep hearing about, then why can’t we just have one normal pregnancy?  But the main reason the “Have faith” people frustrate me is that they are unintentionally undermining my faith.  Obviously, God’s plan for these other people was to have a baby; what if that isn’t God’s plan for me?  Having faith requires that I be willing to follow God’s plan no matter where that leads me, and there’s a better than average possibility that my plan won’t involve a successful pregnancy.  It may involve adoption; it may involve ministry opportunities that children would hinder; it may involve anything God can imagine.  I have faith, do you?  Do you believe that God can do anything, including NOT giving me a child of my own flesh and blood?  If I didn’t have faith, I would not likely be attending church or participating in any ministry activity; if I didn’t believe that God can do anything, I wouldn’t be at church at all – I wouldn’t believe in God at all.  Telling a demonstratively active church member to have faith is a lot like telling a homeless person, “Take care of yourself.”  It’s completely useless and likely to incite a riot of negative emotions.

One sweet friend did tell me to “hang on to Jesus,” and I think that is a different statement altogether than “have faith.”  Hanging on to Jesus to means actively seeking shelter in the storm.  It may not be something that everyone would appreciate hearing, but it was a great gentle reminder to me to keep my focus steadily aimed at the author of my faith.  Based on the feedback on the Anchored by Hope post, most butterfly moms agreed that simpler is better where words of comfort are concerned.  Most of the women who responded said something along the lines of, “I’m so sorry for your loss.”  Several comments included that people should stop there, especially if you’re not sure what to say.  “I’m praying for you,” or “I’m here if you need anything at all,” are also good things to say.  There were some particularly sweet comments that people had heard, but most of us really aren’t that eloquent when we’re thinking on our feet.  We don’t need to be wordsmiths or fabulous orators to convey our sympathy; it is enough just to express our sorrow.  It seems that most butterfly moms (me included) just want to know that someone remembers.  It is totally acceptable to say, “How are you doing?  I know this must be a tough time for you.”  This is good to ask at almost any point after a loss, but especially on anniversaries, lost birthdays, Mother’s Day, and other holidays that tend to be child-centric.

The bottom line is that we want people to express their sympathy, and most women will overlook the occasional foot-in-mouth episode.  If you’re not sure what to say, keep it short and simple.  Do not veer off into weird territory just because you want to say something special.  There are really no words you can say that will provide comfort; comfort is derived from effort and time it takes to express your sympathy, not from any specific combination of letters.  Comfort comes from the love your words convey in between the lines.

I am an obnoxious perfectionist, and I have been pretty adamant about coloring in the lines since I realized there were lines and that they had a purpose.  I like lines because they give me the freedom to create within a defined space; they provide definition and function as a way to measure what’s acceptable and what’s grossly inappropriate. (If I color Cinderella’s skirt on her head, there will be nothing covering her legs, but if I give her a multi-colored skirt, I am still being creative and no one is facing indecent exposure charges.)  I find that this love for the lines has carried over into my adult life – I work best when I have a set schedule and deadlines, I have to-do lists everywhere (including rough drafts that were scrapped for a better line-up of the same tasks), and I flounder a bit without an agenda.  I tend to make my own rules when there are no other apparent guidelines.

A good bit of this need for lines has grown out of the last five years and my need to have structure as a way to hold some bit of control over my own life.  God, of course, has laughed at these attempts, and not a single bit of my manmade delineations survive more than a week before something blows up: the late-night phone call from work that throws off my schedule the next day that kinks up the rest of my week that snowballs into a month of frustration over not finishing a single day according to my schedule or to-do list.  So I just keep moving and stick with “Just do the work.”

I have no idea how to do this with grief or with the frustration I am feeling with my body right now.  I have held the line on not grieving “as one who has no hope” (1 Thessalonians 4:13); I think I’m well inside the lines there.  But where are the rest of the lines?  How can I be angry about my loss without stepping outside the lines of faith?  What is an acceptable expression of angst over a miscarriage that drags on for a month, and when have I ventured into grossly inappropriate in the eyes of Christ?  When does the necessary venting of emotions turn into complaining?  Where are the lines that tell me the dimensions of my safe space so that I don’t wander off the reservation?  I am struggling with working through the grief in ways that honor God and that don’t push me away from him.  It is hard to say on the one hand that I trust him and on the other that I am angry to be in this situation again, this time with a bonus round of seemingly endless complications.  I don’t know how to reconcile those two disparate feelings.

Maybe losing any loved feels this way, but I think miscarriage is a tougher pill to swallow where anger is concerned.  I attended a child-loss support group one time that was somewhat helpful, but most of the parents had lost older children.  They had a target for their anger: cancer, drug addiction, car crash.  I have no real reason for any of our miscarriages; blighted ovum in the first pregnancy is the only one that had a distinct medical diagnosis, and that diagnosis is a little nebulous – at some point the baby stopped developing, and we don’t know why.  I have no direction for my anger – there is no one and nothing to blame.  It is an active fight, bordering on the scale of all out war, not to be angry at God.

This brings me to another line I struggle to find – when is acceptance just fatalism?  People of faith tend to say things like, “This must be God’s plan, so I just need to accept it.”  I don’t disagree with this, but I wonder if sometimes we are using this as an avoidance tactic.  If I say I just have to accept it and move on, I avoid working through the grief by just marching on unless I intentionally confront the emotions, but confronting the emotions means dealing with feelings that may color outside the lines.  Back to looking for the lines again.  Maybe the lines are a little blurrier than I want them to be.

Maybe coloring in the lines of emotion has more to do with how we actually express the feelings.  I can feel anger and express it appropriately by talking about it or screaming as loud as I can when I’m alone in the car, but I shouldn’t take it out on someone else.  I can be sad and depressed and express it by crying or talking, but I can’t drop out of my life and avoid everything.  I think I’m coloring pretty well right now, but it’s hard to be sure without knowing exactly where the pesky lines are.