Saying Goodbye to Eliza

I apologize if my blog is bringing up past hurts for anyone, and feel I should post a disclaimer warning the following post contains sensitive content regarding miscarriage. I process my emotions through writing, and I’m dealing with a lot of big feelings due to the recent miscarriage of our baby, so you can expect lots of writing on the topic for a little while…

The night I started miscarrying I kept calling my midwife over and over because I had never experienced anything like this before and was totally confused and overwhelmed. I needed someone to walk me through what was going on, and she was so calm and reassuring.

At one point I remember us talking about me feeling weird about flushing my baby down the toilet, yet not being able to fish it out. She told me to try to save some of the baby’s tissue and find a way to memorialize the baby – bury it, put it in the ocean, just do something so there’s a place and time to mark the existence of this baby… I liked that idea…

Suddenly I was gushing tissue and blood again, so I found a little container in my cupboard and caught some of it, put the container in a baggie, wrapped it in paper towel and put it in the back of the bottom of my fridge until we could deal with it together as a family. That was in the wee hours of Thursday morning.

Today was the day we planned to take the baby to the ocean and say goodbye… My boys were going to town to pick up a few things from the health food store for me and run a few other errands, so I suggested we go down to the ocean first and then I would take them to the ferry. We picked a spot on Berry Point Road because that is where Brent proposed to me, and also where we got married. It’s a particularly special spot for our family.

When we got in the car, I told my son what we were going to do, and he started crying and saying over and over how sad he was. I felt myself tearing up. Then Brent, who was driving, suddenly burst out laughing and when I looked at him like he was an insensitive buffoon, he grinned sheepishly and said, “I saw some guy holding his hand to ear like he was talking on the phone. It was funny. Sorry.”

The waves are not usually very big here because our little island is sheltered by Vancouver Island, but today the wind was gusting and the waves were crashing unusually large and wild. There were two cars parked at “our spot” when we arrived so I suggested we walk down the rocks a bit for some privacy. Brent had our camera and I warned him not to get it wet.

I found a small inlet that looked like a good place, and just before I unwrapped my little package to release the baby, a huge wave came crashing in, soaked my feet and legs, I slipped on the slippery seaweed covered rock, and Plop! I landed on my butt in the ocean. We all burst into laughter. WOW, it was cold!

I scrambled to my feet and moved out of the wave’s way, found a different spot nearby, and released the baby.

The waves moved the tissue and blood in and out, in and out… and it slowly unfolded like a crimson flower. It was strangely beautiful – the most vivid red imaginable.

On the way back to the car my son and I held hands and giggled about me falling in the ocean.

“Mom, we didn’t even get to find out if it’s a boy or a girl,” my son started sobbing in the backseat as we pulled on to the road.

“Which do you think it was?”

Without hesitation, “A girl.”

“Then a girl it is. Should we call her Ellie?” (the nickname we had picked out if our baby had been a girl)

“No, lets call her Eliza. Mom, I’m so sad right now.”

Brent was silent and didn’t want to talk, lost in his own private thoughts.

We went back to the house so I could change into dry clothes, and when I got back in the car M said, “Mom, I figured it out. Sometimes there’s life, and sometimes there’s death.”

“Yes, and you are life, and we will always hold Eliza close in our heart and will never forget her.”

Life often strangely twists the tragic and hilarious together in a way that brings hope and joy back to our hearts.

A GCM Statement: It is Time to Speak Out Against the Teachings of Michael and Debi Pearl

As a long-time member of Gentle Christian Mothers (GCM), I would like to publicly support the following statement released this week by the admins of GCM. (Source: Facebook GCM Page)

This statement may be re-posted in it’s entirety.

The admins of Gentle Christian Mothers (GCM) have felt led at this time, as we mourn the loss of seven year old Lydia Shatz[1], to issue a statement of disagreement with Michael and Debi Pearl and their child rearing methods. Not only are their methods extreme and outside the realm of normal and healthy child rearing practices, but the doctrinal foundation for these methods contain a level of heresy, including denial of the Christian doctrine of original sin[2][3], which leave them without biblical basis and at odds with the truth that all are in need of salvation which has been provided through Jesus alone[4].

Though the Pearls affirm the value of relationships in parenting in their attractive “tying heartstrings” message, their harsh teachings are in diametric contrast to building healthy relationships. They advocate “training” and “chastisement” of children, starting in infancy[5][6], using methods and means not described in Scripture — including using ¼ inch plumber’s supply line as a spanking instrument[7] and claiming that a “proper spanking leaves children without breath to complain”[8] — for stated purposes of absolving guilt and cleansing the child’s soul[9].

The combination of an adversarial us vs. them mindset where the parents must “win,” physically “disciplining” children until they surrender their will and show total submission, and false doctrine makes the Pearls’ methods dangerous. They present a very distorted picture to the world of what it means to be a follower of Jesus and a Christian parent in the world today. It is time for Michael and Debi Pearl to be held accountable for their teachings. We urge other Christians to join us in speaking out against what Michael and Debi Pearl have been teaching for far too long.

References

1. Godly discipline turned deadly: A controversial child “training” practice comes under fire — this time from Christians themselves, Lynn Harris, Feb. 22, 2010
2. Second Council of Orange (529)
3. Teaching tape on Romans 5:12-21 by M. Pearl
4. Michael Pearl on Original Sin: An Analysis, Catez Stevens, October 11, 2005
5. To Train Up a Child, M. Pearl, D. Pearl, chapter 1
6. “In Defense of Biblical Chastisement Part 2,” M. Pearl, October 2001
7. Ibid.
8. “Angry Child,” M. Pearl, August 1998
9. “In Defense of Biblical Chastisement Part 1,” M. Pearl, May 2001

Back from my blogging break…

After four months on our healing cleanse I started getting a regular period, and had three regular cycles in a row. I felt really hopeful, but after misreading a positive pregnancy test right before Christmas, we realized that we weren’t doing ourselves any favors sitting around waiting for the impossible to happen. We started discussing other options for adding to our family, and decided that foster care was the best fit for our family. We took the first step in the foster care approval process just before the New Year.

Then the miraculous, the impossible, the last thing we expected, but the most hoped for thing, happened. A faint line. A very very very faint line. So faint I was sure it was my imagination. It had to be an evaporation line. We had been back to see the fertility specialist who operated on my husband and the results were dismal. No change. So even though I was having a normal period, my husband’s low sperm count and mobility meant the chances of conceiving were next to nil.

I waited a couple hours and peed on another stick. That faint line was a tiny bit darker. Still in denial, I called my doctor’s office. My regular doctor was out, so I saw his fill in. She confirmed it. Positive! Pregnant!

I came home and just about died, the minutes until my husband’s clients would be gone ticked by so slowly it felt like time had stopped. And then he was done. And I told him. And then our son was home from school. And we told him. The first words out of our 6 year old’s mouth was “can I watch the baby come out of your body, mom?” A child after my own heart!

The joy in our home when I shared the news was indescribably amazing. Miracles don’t happen often in one’s lifetime, and here I am getting my second baby miracle. I shouldn’t have been able to get pregnant with my first son. I had only had three cycles in a full year, and they told me I don’t ever ovulate. But I defied the odds and had a miracle baby.

And now we’ve defied the odds again, and I’m carrying a sibling for my son. Unbelievable.

Here’s our “official” pregnancy announcement, with my mad photo editing skills. Not. But we thought it was cute.

This “bun” will be fully baked in September.

(PS If you want to make this costume for Halloween, here’s where I found the pic.)

Foster Parenting

We have been facing a hard reality lately, and have had to accept the fact that we will probably not be able to have any more birth children. For the past few months we have been considering different options for adding to our family, and the one option that we kept coming back to was foster care. There’s a huge need for normal loving families and we definitely fit the bill there.

Each child that enters the foster care system has experienced some level of trauma in their home life. Addiction, neglect, abuse, abandonment, and the list goes on and on, none of it good. So we asked ourselves, if all we want and need is more children in our home, why not provide a home to children who really need a home?

Flashback to August 1988. I was 12 years old and my parents were unofficially fostering a baby girl. She was full blood Blackfoot, and absolutely the most beautiful baby girl I’ve ever seen in my life. She had eyelashes that were so long they brushed against her chubby cheeks when she blinked. She had enough shiny black hair to tie back into two little ponytails. She was quiet and gentle and she stole my heart from day one.

Her birth mom was battling an addiction to alcohol and my mom was caring for her baby while she was in rehab.

This tiny little baby had a lot of health issues. She had been severely malnourished, surviving on skim milk powder water in a bottle and oreo cookies, sometimes abandoned for hours in a trailer on the reserve while her parents went on drinking binges. Complications of her malnourishment meant she was often sick with ear and throat infections. Her little body’s immune system was shot. I remember her fever spiking so high a few times that she would go into convulsions. It was terrifying, but she was resilient and eventually her health started improving with proper nutrition. She soaked up our love and adoration as much as we soaked in hers.

Her birth mother never overcame her addiction and eventually my parents adopted her and she became my sister. The picture above is my grown up sister today with her own daughter, and I’m proud to say she has broken the cycle of addiction in her family. I couldn’t be prouder of her. I just wish she lived closer so I could be Auntie April to my adorable little niece. Aren’t those little cheeks just dying to be kissed?!

My heart has longed for a daughter ever since my baby sister came into our life, and I am thrilled that my husband and son are just as passionate as I am about foster care. The hardest part will be the inevitable good-byes, but we know they will always be family in our heart.

Just before Christmas I did a google search for BC Foster Care, found the number to call, and we have now been referred to the ministry. The adventure begins!