Heaven

I think about Heaven a lot.

I think it's an awfully big place.....

I hear in my mind the laughter of children and their singing as they come freely to Jesus.

I see the sunshine and I feel the breezes, laden with the scent of the Rose of Sharon.

My mind can't comprehend just how vast a place Heaven must be!

It must be truly massive to hold all of the babies killed by abortion since time began.

It must be a large country to hold all the children who died of cancer and things like that.

I think it must be a limitless place to hold all the babies who have died of SIDS, or miscarriage, or stillbirth. I think those babies are fully realized people there.

I think the weather must be perfect there. I always see green hills and technicolor grass and mountains, and over it all, the sun is always brilliantly shining.

My heart aches today, for all the mommies whose babies are there.

I often contemplate what my Janie looks like, or how old she is. What color is her hair? Does she have blue eyes like our other children? Curly hair or straight?

For some reason, I always picture her with dark, gently curling hair.

I wonder what our three babies are doing up there! I think they're playing, and running, breathing and whole, worshipping Jesus as they walk along with Him, holding His hand.

I often think about Heaven, but it's so hard for me to be homesick for it. You see, I think I have a slice of Heaven here on earth, being surrounded by such treasures in my 6 earthly children and my dear husband.

It's so hard for me to want to leave all of this for an unknown land. Some would say I'm too earthly minded.

I know how much I think about Heaven. It's different when you have loved ones there, isn't it?

Don't get me wrong, I do want to go to Heaven and do look forward to that trip someday........

But I've been allowed to live Heaven here.....and I'm blessed beyond measure, and though my heart is battered and bruised by a God I do not profess to understand, in my feeble way, in my limited heart, I choose to worship Him and to thank Him for the loan of these children I know here in my arms and beside me, and even for the babies I did not get to know.

Lord, please accept my clumsy attempt at worshiping You in the way that I can. I truly do surrender all that I have left to You, and as small as it is, I offer myself to You for whatever You would use me for. I choose to thank You, praise You, and use the voice You have given me to glorify You in spite of heartache and deep wounds.

Thank You for my life, Lord. Thank You.

Waking Up My Girls

I would have posted last night but I got hit with a migraine!

So, I'm making up for it and posting today, in my jammies and before my shower.....hey, whatever it takes to get a slice of our life to you people!

I just found myself yelling at my girls, "I'm tired of yelling at you guys to get out of bed!" I had to chuckle, because I sounded just like my mom!!

All of my girls sleep in one large room, and we keep sort of late hours at night, I mean, Daddy comes in and prays with the girls at about 10:15 or so.....hey, don't shoot me! We do things a little differently here......

I used to be a fanatic that the kids had to be prayed for and lights out at 9:30. I nagged my husband TO DEATH about it too. I would pout and stew and simmer and just get mad when he didn't get in to pray with everyone by my time.....

Now that I'm becoming, I decided to let it go! My husband actually said one day that it drove him crazy to hear me constantly nagging at him to pray with the kids every night. So, from then on, I decided to just let him fly by the seat of his pants with bedtime.

It was tough at first. I'd lay in bed and bite my tongue and yes, stew and simmer and get mad, but I held my tongue!

Now I realize what a blessing he is to me! I mean, he brushes the little ones' teeth every night! He makes sure everyone's in bed! He takes it upon himself to pray with the kids each night.....and he gets his silliness and tickles in too! What more could I ask?? I can lounge in bed and let him take over!

Who cares what kind of schedule he wants to keep?

It's one less thing that I have to do......especially at night! I'm NOT a night owl!

So........my mom would say to me, after she had tried and tried to get my brother (who was far worse at getting out of bed than me!) and me out of bed.....

"You'll understand when you're a mom!"

Funny thing is, I looked at my mom the other day....

And I said....

"I understand!"

Please Pray.

Everyone out there, please be praying for Chickadee, aka Melissa over at Familiar Path. Please.

Wow, I guess that kinda came out of nowhere! No, it didn't. She's on my mind a great deal today. Read her most recent post and get the story.

So, I think that's what my post will be about today.

Prayer.

I want to ask for prayer for me too.

I'm in the midst of a myriad of doctors' appointments right now.

The doctors think I may have an autoimmune disease of some sort.

One of the symptoms/consequences of having an autoimmune disease is sudden fetal death at any time during the pregnancy.

Oh.

Um.

I see.

The thing that started me on this road is that I was referred to an internal medicine specialist back in April after seeing a new naturopath who was concerned enough about some symptoms that I'd been having to refer me to a friend of his.

The thing is, I'd been having these symptoms on and off for about two years. Or longer. Who knows how long I've been living like this and just thinking it was normal? I can't remember feeling well!

I can't remember feeling well!

I went to doctor after doctor and received a pat on the hand and the attitude like it was all in my head, yet I still continued to have debilitating symptoms.

I've had extreme fatigue, a rash on the right side of my face, chronic, every day feeling like I have the flu, achiness, joint pan, poor vision, insomnia, blue fingernails, lips and toenails, I'm extremely cold all the time, headaches, sores that do not heal, etc, etc, etc....This has all become normal to me and I just do what I have to do as a wife and mom to soldier through.

Nobody ever listened. Until now.

My internal med specialist listened. He examined me and questioned me for two hours and flat out said he thought it looked like an autoimmune disease, like lupus or something. He was surprised and angry at all of the doctors I'd seen who ignored the cumulative symptoms and didn't do further testing for me. He was upset that I had been suffering silently, thinking what I was feeling was "just me".

So now I have a team of doctors working with me. I have an ob/gyn, who suspected something out of the ordinary when I had two miscarriages in a row. I have an internal med specialist, a naturopath, and now, the newest team member, a rheumatologist, who I will be seeing June 18th.

I hate to be a complainer. I hate whining and pity parties. That is not what I want my blog to be about.

I do want my blog to be a forum for prayer. For a while now I haven't asked for you gals to pray for me, I was just too afraid or didn't want to or whatever.

But now I'm asking. I want the doctors to be able to diagnose me. Because there is help for me if I can get a diagnosis.

I'm tired of feeling like this all the time and I want to begin to feel normal. I want to run with my kids and ride bikes with them! I want to be able to go on a hike with my husband and kids! I want to sleep through the night! I want to be able to eat!

I want you gals all to know that my life is a testimony to God's complete and total faithfulness.

He is the ONLY REASON I have been able to function. He is the ONLY REASON.

And I give Him all the glory for being my reason, my strength, my endurance.

Quirky? Me???

I bet you're just dying to know the 6 most quirky things about me, right?? Oh good, because I'll tell you!!

• I like my van to be spotless on the inside. You'd never be able to tell we have 6 kids by looking inside my van!
• I love arugula. Most of you probably don't know what arugula is! It's lettuce. I adore it!
• I never, ever wear stripes of any kind, and I seldom buy striped clothes for my kids. Stripes play weird tricks on my eyes, and I just don't like the way they look on me.
• I'm totally addicted to pens and paper and Dixon Ticonderoga pencils, with a good eraser on top and sharpened to a point. This is a long time addiction for me. I only like the good stuff though. No Bics for me! My current fave pen is the Pentel EnerGel in purple. At least this silly obsession won't make me fat!!!
• I love my cupboards and my pantry to be spotless. I hate boxes of any kind in my cupboards! Whenever I can I'll use baskets and containers. It just makes me happy to see order whenever I open my cupboards. (I'm a bit militaristic about it too!) Hey, I never said I was normal!!
• And the grand finale: I'm terrified of down escalators. So much so that I've actually frozen up at the top of an escalator and almost had a panic attack several times. When faced with a down escalator, I force myself to use it anyway. It's that whole "confront your fears" sort of thing.....this one has never gone away no matter what.

So there you have it. Six things you were just dying to know about me!

What about you?? What's weird about you? Tell me in your comment or post about your quirks on your blog!

Thank You, My 'Bloggy Sisters!

I want to say thank you to each of you who hung in there with me during the past few days, as I reminisced about my Janie.

I want to say thank you for your supportive comments, but most of all, for your diligent prayers on my behalf. None of us can walk this path without each other, and since I've started blogging, I must say, you all have been incredibly wonderful to me!!!

I really want to acknowledge my dear friend Gayle....she and I have sort of reconnected over the past couple of months. Gayle, you and I have known each other for quite some time (remember that first apartment???) and I count it a privilege to see how you have grown and changed and blessed God and your husband by supporting his dreams and becoming truly one with is vision. Your becoming doesn't go unnoticed with God......keep pressing in, keep looking up...Thanks for all your support and prayers and your great listening ear, and of course, all of the Mushroom Brie Bisque!!!

I want to say thanks to Laura too......I really wish we could come up to see you guys. Thanks, Laura, for being a good, strong shoulder for me to cry on....I'll call you someday soon, I just guess I get too busy (forgive me!) and don't want to bother you too much.....You've taught me how to let things go, sort of a don't-worry-be-happy approach! I love that about you and I'm glad we're still friends. I'm sending you a package of love, so look for it in your mailbox as soon as Dave brings me home a *BIGGER* box!!

And Marsha.....what can I say?? You're muy bueno.....tres bien....fantastique....you've become a slice of sanity, a source of steadiness, in my merry-go-round world. Thanks for hanging in there with me. Our several times a week emails are really special to me.....I CAN'T WAIT TILL JANUARY!!!!!

Okay, you guys are the best bloggy friends a girl could have! You all are like my favorite brownies, warm from the oven, with melty chocolate chips all throughout, and a good heap of peanut butter frosting on top!!!

I LOVE ALL OF YOU!!!!

Happy Birthday, Janie

Today is Janie's birthday.

I was going to post a picture of her tiny little feet, but I tried to upload it and it just wouldn't work. Apparently there was an error somewhere...

No matter. It's okay if I don't have a picture to go with this post.

Janie's birth was just like all of my other births, easy and relatively short at 8 1/2 hrs.

I was induced via a pill called myselprostin. You'll have to forgive me, I don't know how to spell it. I was given two very tiny, very significant pills in a paper cup after checking into the hospital and getting all hooked up to the contraction monitor and the IV.

Two little pills. Not even as big as Tylenol. The smallest pills I've ever seen, really.

But they did their job. We had waited four days in hopes that my body would kick into labor naturally, but it didn't.

That day was actually a very peaceful day. There were no worries or fears. My favorite nurse was on that day and attended me exclusively. That really helped. She really is the best nurse there is and we've actually had her many times during our other births.

At about 5 pm, my mom and husband both decided to go down to the cafeteria and get something to eat, since nothing was really happening and we didn't know how long it would be yet. I labored with my friend Shawna in the room, just her and I. She had also had a stillborn baby, and was a very close friend who had let me pick her brain about her experience and who agreed to come with me that day, to have someone who understood nearby.

It happened that, at about 5:30, I started to have some really tough contractions. I knew birth was imminent. I had one painful contraction, and didn't even push, and she slipped out very gently.

My mom and husband both missed her birth.

Anyway, the staff and my nurse at our hospital really came through for me. They treated her just like any newborn and told me I could hold her as long as I wanted. There was a tiny white gown, with her name hand embroidered on it in pink, and a tiny diaper, just for babies her size. She had her own little bracelets..........

My nurse made a plaster cast of her footprint for me to have forever, and snipped some of her baby fine, barely-there black hair for me to keep too. I have her tiny bracelet, and it's almost the size of my husband's wedding ring!

Looking back, I wish I had held her longer. It was very difficult for me. You see, she was absolutely perfect. No physical abnormalities. Perfectly formed......but her little face was crushed. That's the sad, hard reality. We didn't get to have any serene, airbrushed black and white pictures of her....no pictures of me holding her surrounded by my family.

That's why I didn't hold her for long. I just couldn't. Because she wasn't a C-section baby, and because her delicate bones were so fragile, coming down the birth canal actually crushed her face.

I need to tell you that.

I need to give cold, hard facts.

It helps me to absolve myself.....

I did a lot of beating myself up over the fact that I didn't hold her for long. She was a breath, a barely-there weight in my arms, and I will tell you the truth: I wish I had held her longer. I've never told another living soul that except my husband.

I was thinking about what kind of post I wanted to do today. I know that my posts have grown incredibly long. I'm sorry for that.....My heart is incredibly full.....

Anyway, we wrapped her in a pink fleece blankie printed all over with red cherries and we kept her with us till about 9 pm that night.

We did have a memorial service....

What I really want to say, and what I really want you to know, is that I survived. I didn't only survive, I have thrived. I really have. I'm not even a shadow of that person that I was that day.

Thank God.

Happy Birthday, my angel.......

I remember you, Janie Rose Gilchrist.
Born on May 13, 2004
1 lb 12 oz
14 inches long
My Angel Baby
I will never forget.

Finding Out.

So I bet you can all guess what happened that day when I went to the hospital for an emergency ultrasound.

Yes, our baby girl was asleep.....

She had gone to sleep that morning in my womb and woke up in the arms of Jesus.

We learned that she had passed away, probably that Friday, judging by how my amniotic fluid had significantly decreased.

My husband was at work when I went to the doctor that day, and I had the kids with me at the doctor's office.

On the way over to the hospital, for some reason, my van made a beeline, seemingly of its own volition, to my church. I jerkily parked, stumbled out of the van (leaving my kids in there) and staggered into the office, barely coherent. I collapsed in a chair at the front desk and basically went into hysterics. Pastor and his wife heard me and, after trying to tell them that I was expected at the hospital, they totally took over.

Pastor's wife said she'd take the kids, someone called my husband, and my friend Kim took me to the hospital so I wouldn't have to drive.

Shortly after I got there Dave got there too.

The ultrasound was done and Janie's death confirmed.

We were given the option of inducing labor right then. But my favorite nurse was there and she said I could have the baby on Thursday when she was on shift.

I chose to have Janie on Thursday, May 13th.

I don't want to belabor the story further. It was a sad, seemingly hopeless time for me, a time in which I truly almost had a crisis of faith. I was so freaked out, leading up to May 13th. The time was surreal in its total nightmarishness and its total misconstruction.

Somebody told me that day that in God's plan, there is no such thing as premature death. All of Janie's days were written for her before she was even thought of, and she lived the appointed number of days that God alloted for her.

I know now that God didn't take her away from me because He didn't like me. I know that nothing I did or didn't do caused her death. I know that she wasn't in any pain, that she went from a supremely safe place to the safest place in creation.

My friend told me that she was absolutely certain she had heard from God and that God had told her He was going to heal Janie. She was totally devastated and embarrassed when she learned that Janie had died. But I held no offense toward her, because my spirit never witnessed to what she said. However much I wanted to hold on to Janie, I knew in my heart that she had died and flown to Heaven.

He did heal her. She lives now, totally perfect and totally at peace. She sees the face of the Ultimate Father, and gets to hold the nail scarred hands of her Best Friend and walk in the fields of Heaven with Him by her side. What more could a mother want for her baby? What better Father can a mother ask for for her baby?

It was a very hard Mother's Day that year, as Janie was born right before Mother's Day.......but I'm so much fuller and richer since having her. I thank God for every day I had with her, short as they were. I still miss her and sometimes wonder what she looks like and how it would feel to be able to kiss her tiny feet and smell her hair again. But God has done such a work in my heart and spirit since she was born.........

Janie Rose Gilchrist's birth was one of the best things that ever happened to me.

It was my awakening to Who the Lord really is.

It was the start of my becoming.