When the Worst Happens

I’m not sure how many of you have noticed my absence but I’ve not written since February. It seems like longer to me but it hasn’t been. We recently went through some really hard times and to be honest it was all I could do to keep my head above water. Our spring homeschooling schedule and my writing definitely took a backseat to everything else.

At the end of February at a routine pregnancy check up, we got some terrible news. I had been having a hard time with my pregnancy and we knew that there was a chance that our baby was going to have Down Syndrome. We were ready to have a child with Downs but my appointment on February 24th was the worst we could have hoped for. At an ultrasound, we watched as our little baby’s heart stopped beating. The technicians were confused and continued to watch and hunt for the heart beat that we knew we had just seen. Although it was very slow and shallow it had been there. Suddenly though, it was gone. After what seemed like a lifetime we were told that our little baby was gone. That day my life took a spiral downward.

We decided what was best for us was to wait to see if my body would go into labor and if it wouldn’t I would take medicine to induce labor but we would have our baby at home. One week later, on March 2, I was induced and gave birth to a beautiful and so very tiny baby boy, Joseph Isaiah.   You see at 4 months along the baby is so small but perfectly formed. Never in my life have I experienced such pain and joy all in the same moment. Here I held this tiny baby boy in my hand and my heart was aching so much but it was also rejoicing that God had allowed me to be a part of something so much bigger than myself. If you’d like to read more about my experience you can do so at my blog.

What happened next though was something I wasn’t prepared for. Life for me just stopped. Sure, I did the things I needed to do like feed the kids, clean the house, go to church, go to the grocery store, but all the rest of the things that I needed to do, I didn’t. I honestly thought that I could continue on with homeschooling, with writing, with taking kids to their extra curricular things, with watching tv or reading a book. I found out quickly that I couldn’t. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to do those things, but I just couldn’t. I’m not sure I was in a depression but I was trying to figure out how to grieve, how to take time for myself when there were so many others to care for and to find a new normal for my everyday life. It was hard.  Harder than I could have ever imagined. I was thankful for those who helped me in those first weeks.

It turns out that after about a month (maybe a little less) others are starting to move on, they forget that you have just gone through something so life changing (and life affirming) that they move on. It’s not that they are uncaring or unkind but it’s not something that is constantly on their minds like it was mine. After about 3 to 4 weeks, no one asked anymore if we were okay. No one thought to come over and just sit with me or ask if I needed help. No one said they were thinking or praying for us anymore. It was very lonely thinking that only we were missing and grieving the loss of our little boy anymore. I know that wasn’t the case but it sure felt that way. Feeling alone made it easy to not want to do anything.

My kids were wonderful during this process. Of course they were grieving too and I knew they needed time to heal as well. They were not home when I had the baby but came home a few days later. They came home with the swine flu. Suddenly they were very sick on top of being so sad emotionally. It was a hard time for all of us. Still, the sickness abated and they started to be a little happier. They didn’t nag at me to start up school again, just helped each other when they found something to do. Without their cooperation I think it would have been much harder to get going again. I feel bad because I know they missed out on some things we really wanted to cover during the school year but they took it in stride and said that they will learn it when I’m ready to teach. What great attitudes to have! What a blessing that homeschooling is in our lives!

I am still healing but I am getting better. Some days are much harder than others but we get through them. We normally take off school during the summer but we are planning a few fun ways of learning that should help the kids not only with learning what we missed out but will keep them from having that attitude that summer school stinks!

I’m not sure how well I would have handled all of this had my children been in public school during this time. I’m thankful that homeschooling afforded us the time we needed to grieve as a family. It provided an opportunity to teach our children about life and death. It helped us provide and environment where we could be a family who just needed to be with each other without tremendous expectations or agendas. I’m certain that having my children with me each and every day provided me with the best remedy to heal.

Homeschooling through something so terrible is hard, in fact, it can be impossible. The wonderful thing about homeschooling is that we can stop and just take a big breath when we need to. We can learn some of our most important lessons through life experiences. We can pick up where we left off and we can come out ahead. If you find yourself in a situation that is so trying and so utterly life changing take the time you need to heal, to grieve, to get your life back together. Schoolwork will always be there and can wait. Healing can not and should not.

It is still such a long road that I am on but I am now to a point where I am looking at the trees and the flowers and the rocks along the path and thinking about how I can incorporate those things into my homeschooling day.

You can share in Michelle’s life as she  writes about the ups and downs  her family experiences at her blog Pass The Flu Bug Please.

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Tagged as: Family and Faith, mortality, written by Michelle