a simple song can take you back...

 I'm right, aren't I?

 A simple song can take you back?

 Mambo #5 brings me right back to the high school gym for Prom. 

A Sublime song brings me right back to the backseat of a car as we drove to the store to pick up toilet paper. This was NOT in 2020, but the early 2000's for some toilet papering of houses. :) 

Clearly, you may guess, I didn't really grow up listening to Christian music. 

Music has always spoken to me, though. I think the memories surrounding the instances around the songs are louder in my mind, though. Clear memories run through my head as the lyrics play. 

Back in October I stood in our church and the memories came flooding as the lyrics to the worship song were song by our worship team and church. 

Jesus be the vision...

...be the fire in my heart

...be the wind in these sails...

it feels like a lifetime ago, and in some ways it was...

we stand in the pew of the church. about half way back on the lefthand side of the church (when you're facing the pulpit) the same familiar people sitting to the left and right and front and behind us. 

I stand with my arm around Shaun and his around me. I stand silently weeping. Tears streaming down my cheeks as my voice tries to sing the words.

What my voice isn't shouting, though, my heart is.

...be my source

...be the reason that I live...Jesus.

Just 48 hours earlier I lay on a table and heard the words "the baby looks to have died six weeks ago."

Words that I wasn't prepared to hear, who really IS?

Words that will stick with me for the rest of my life. 

Words that knocked any sort of wind right out of my sails.

As I stood, with that dead baby still in my womb, hearing and singing "be the wind in these sails" my heart slowly started to heal. Just a tiny bit. It wasn't at all my wind that needed to be guiding my sails. It was HIS. It was HIM. I NEEDED Him to be my wind. 

Because, in less than 24 hours I'd be laying on another table.

Another table that would change my life forever. 

A table that I lay on and my precious baby being taken from my womb. A baby that hadn't been alive for at least six weeks, but my body didn't get the memo.

A baby that was already in the presence of the Jesus I needed to rely on more than I ever had before. 

I don't remember my thoughts during this procedure. But, what I do remember, is a million times worse. 

I remember every noise. Every. Single. Noise. Do I describe them to you? I don't know. I don't know if i can. If I ever truly have. If I even SHOULD!

It has been 19 years and the vivid memory of those noise are is if I were laying on the table right now hearing them.

This past summer I talked with a friend about her abortion she had before becoming a believer. I looked her in the eyes and asked "Do you remember the noises?"

She stared me in the eyes and straight into my soul and said "Yes. All of it."

My heart shattered. I shared with her my experience with my D&C and how since then I had always prayed for women who had abortions. Not only did they have to live with knowing they killed their baby, but to also carry the noises with them for the rest of their lives.  

My friend simply said, "Don't stop praying."

And with those words, I knew she could still hear the noises, too. 

I still struggle. DO I share? Part of it, I think, is that I don't want to create something "bad" for you, too. 

At the same time, my experience and sharing it, isn't going to "give" you the experience, but may help you understand it more. 

I'll say it was horrible. Absolutely, positively horrible. The suction. The sucking. The absolutely all of it. The knowing the noises were the taking away of my baby. The baby I wasn't going to be holding in September. The baby that really surprised us with their life, but we wanted so much.

It's funny, though, here I am trying to share this...and I cannot even find adequate words to do it. I can't find words that even begin to describe the experience in its totality.

I can tell you, though, the first time I walked into a dentist office after this experience was the most accurate sounding noises of my experience. 

I can tell you that in 19 years I can probably count on one hand how many times I have gotten myself dental care. 

Not because I don't care about my teeth, but because of the PTSD of the noises. They paralyze me. Just thinking about hearing the noises brings me right back to that small room on the 3rd floor of the Madison Center at St. Elizabeth's. Because of that, I don't go. 

Truth be told, we also don't have dental insurance, which means-it's even easier to not go. 

Throughout the years, I've taken my kids to a local dentist a few times. They do a "free day" that makes it nice to be able to go! The local dental school also does cleanings for cheap, but I've mostly avoided that. 

Last March, though, we had a bit of a dental emergency with Glori. A dental visit was beyond necessary and we eventually ended up at a local clinic that serves un-insured patients on a sliding scale. 

Heather, the dental hygienist, quickly became Heather, my therapist! This dental stuff came one week after Shaun's seizure and fall off a ladder. 

I started pouring everything crazy that had been going on and all of a sudden I found myself telling her how "those noises" as I pointed to the door at the noises, even though muffled still could be heard loud and clear in my head, affected me. I told her about the D&C and how those noises were the same and it's hard. 

She listened to me and with compassion filled eyes said "If you're comfortable and she's comfortable with us, you don't have to come back here. We will take good care of her." 

I am not sure why, but those words freed and strengthened me. To be heard and understood and not judged in the least did SO much for me. Maybe it's because I explained it to someone who could hear what I heard when I was telling them made it different than ever before. She, nor I, had to imagine them. We could hear them. 

And, I guess, I really do know why--the strength of the Lord. It maybe took me almost two complete decades, but I finally relied on His strength to allow me to share with someone in the dental field the main reason why dental care lacks in our home. I unashamedly could admit it-in a judgment free place, that absolutely could have been a judgement FILLED place.

I've been with Gloriana and the rest of my kids to the dental clinic multiple times in the last year. ((Heather also became a source of information and we were able to secure ALL of our kids dental insurance!! Praise God!))

I've been to the rooms with Glori and Fletcher for all of their dental appointments. The small room filled with familiar sounds that used to hold a power over me for a really long time, not longer does. 

Instead, now, I sit engulfed in the most horrible noises and I can speak power over the enemy. Not because I have some sort of magical power, but because my Jesus DOES. He gives me the strength to stand in that power--HIS power. I can hear those horrible noises, because THAT fact hasn't changed...but instead of being filled with fear I can be filled with peace.

Knowing that the One who gives me the peace that passes all understanding is the same One who holds my sweet babies of February 2004, May 2009 and August 2009. 

♡ap

**this post has been sitting in my journal since October of 2022. I'll admit, I wrote it out and then never read it until today, when I finally decided to type it out. It's hard to relive these moments. Even if they aren't ones that bring me "down", they're hard to remember and relive. 

I can take you back to that ultrasound room at St Elizabeth's and picture myself listening to the sweet ultrasound tech as she said "I'll print a picture, I know you may not think you want it, but you might." She was wrong, though, I wanted that picture. I have a scrapbook I made for this sweet baby and look at the ultrasound picture each time I flip through the pages. I smile when I think about when we told people about this baby I would say "the honeymoon WORKED!" as I rubbed my nonexistent pregnant stomach. I smile when I remember how Shaun kissed my stomach after I told him about this surprise. We were married a month when we found out about our first baby. I remember pulling my cousin aside at Christmas telling her I was expecting and how excited I was to tell someone. I remember telling everyone on New Year's Eve that we were having a baby. 

This baby's life never existed outside of my womb, but was filled with a lot of joy before the sorrow. This baby was loved from the moment we found out about it and every second after. As I gagged from my "unscented" face wash the entire weekend before my D&C, I cried and willed myself to stop, but couldn't. I stood in the bathroom staring at my hard stomach, because my womb didn't realize the baby quit growing and I was actually starting to look 12 weeks pregnant. I couldn't believe this was happening to us. BUT it was.

And, 19 years later, it doesn't hurt any less...but the baby is loved the same and more. The baby's short earth lived life is remembered daily and talked about often in our family. In my heart I feel the baby was a boy and I'm honestly super excited to "see" if I was right when I get to meet them in Heaven someday. Our baby of May 2009 I felt was a girl and we were able to find out that our baby of August 2009 was a boy. 

My arm bears a tattoo with arrows. 7 up and down to represent our 7 earth-side babies and 3 going across those diagonally to represent our 3 heaven-side babies. Anytime someone asks about it, I proudly share all about our 10 babies.**