Having sent from on high, O King of all, and taken the blessed infant, like a pure bird unto the heavenly nest, O Master, Thou has saved this soul from snares of many forms, and has united it with the souls of the Righteous who are enjoying the delights of Thy Kingdom. ~ From Jacob's memorial service

Purpose of my blog...

And so here I am...10 months post my son Jacob's unexpected death and writing a blog. I am not sure what I think about this but I do know that as everyone lovingly, yet haphazardly, always asks how I am doing this is the only way to sincerely and honestly let everyone know without spewing it all out each time. In person, I usually say the standard and most comfortable for others "I'm fine...how are you?" but here I can truly be honest. This is all very personal but I have found that an event such as the death of a child is still such a taboo in this society that people have lieterally no idea what this experience is like or how to react, help, or handle it when it happens to a freind, loved one, or even themselves. Selfishly, this blog is also a way for me to find my way through the fog of this year and try to figure out where I am. I have hesitated writing this as I don't want to be thought of as self-indulgent or a total bitter woman but I pray that in sharing, for someone, it will make it easier to understand how this experience has affected and continues to affect me and our family and maybe help someone out there to be a little more compassionate and kind to someone that they know that finds themself going through the same thing. So, for those of you that are still reading to this point and really want to know...well, here it all is...

Jacob's Story ~ Chapter 3 ~ Jacob's Birth

~ Jacob’s Birth ~



61 minutes 
what is happening….he’s not breathing…
                          
                 Dan go and talk to him…the nurses have him, he’s getting there…
                                  what is happening…It’s been longer than 5 minutes….he’s not breathing…
                        he will be handicapped in some way, that will be our life..................................
                                                                                             he’s not breathing, it’s been too long…
                                       what are they waiting for?....
                                                                          
                                                                                               what is happening…..
Imagine standing in a beautiful forest. It’s springtime, it's warm, the birds are chirping, sun is shining, flowers are blooming, everything is just perfect.  Now imagine standing on a lovely old wooden bridge.  Ahead is more beautiful forest.  In that hour, waiting for a definitive answer as to what would become of Jacob, all I could envision in that seemingly endless hour was seeing this bridge in my mind, my path in life that had, up until that point, been set out in front of me, finally after all the hard times we had been through in the past 5 years, Jacob's birth would bring a sense of completion to our family, for me at least.  It was all I could see before me and slowly, over that hour, the warm, picturesque wooden bridge I had been standing on was turning into a heavy, metal, mechanical, cold, bridge, moving to the right, into a complete and consuming darkness, away from the perfection I had been anticipating virtually all my life, towards sadness, black, empty space and despair.  Not once did I question God, not as much as everything did not make sense…my legs were shaking uncontrollably the whole time.  My brain was virtually frozen except for the passing thoughts, seemingly light years apart and every few minutes I would just scream in my head…in terror…with every ounce of my being “WHAT IS HAPPENING”.  There was no answer, just a bridge, my life, my future morphing in my mind, against my will.  I could not stop it from moving, there was no fight even, I could feel the life draining from me, all the hope, everything I'd been preparing for, anticipating, just vanishing into the emptiness ahead and the heavy knowledge that in that space our lives were being altered in a way so enormous the thought could not even form…no words…no furry of thinking or life passing before my eyes like one million still images from my 33 years of life all spliced together in a matter of a few seconds…just a moving path, my path, moving away irreversibly from the life I had known to a life unknown.  

 We all think we know what our life will hold and it is a blessing, the blind faith I think we all have that we'll be okay, we won't be one of those mom's that loses her child, that only happens to other people. Who would want to know this ahead of time?  How would one live life until that point knowing this dark day was just lurking in the future?  I couldn’t have.  I didn’t want to know it now.  I didn’t want this, but it didn’t matter. This was the card we were being dealt, nothing could change it.  There was no Aslan to breathe life into our Jacob.  We were not going home with him.  The kids would not get to hold him and kiss him like we had been preparing them for for 9 months.  It was all for naught.  The labor, the pain, the weak muscles, the sleepless nights, the peeing every 5 minutes, the washing and organizing of all his clothes, the rearranging of our bedroom to make a sweet space for Jacob, give me a place to nurse, change diapers, etc.  All of it, wiped off the slate.  We were going home without a baby, without Jacob and would never bring him home.    

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