Wednesday, November 2, 2011

Declutter

So my stress level for the year has gotten to me. I have had shingles for almost a month now. Too evaluate what has been going on, I have to back up a couple of months.

September was probably one of the hardest months in our marriage. We went through some really rough stuff and the Lord helped us through. We had another miscarriage and we both were at opposite ends of the spectrum of how we felt about it.

When we suspected we may have been pregnant, I was scared. I cried ugly tears. How could I be ready for this when our daughter is still so young? I was emotionally not ready for this at all. I was still trying to adjust to our girl because we have had a roller coaster of a time with her. I felt like I was spinning out of control.

Please don't get me wrong. I had settled in my heart that if we had another baby so soon, we would love and accept it. But my initial reaction was panic rather than joy. I hate even admitting that, but I am human and I am not perfect. In a perfect world, I would have been overjoyed at the surprise. And please know that I have settled all of this with God as well.

So I took three tests, the second one having a faint blue line. The other two nothing. I don't think my hormone levels elevated enough to register for a solid yes. So two weeks after my missed period, I miscarried at church. That was a surreal experience. I had no idea what to feel at that point.

I got home to my hubby and baby and told him what happened and cried on his shoulder. I was not relieved, I was sad. I felt guilty for having fear over having another baby so soon. I felt crushed. I did not know what to do. But this miscarriage was different in the fact that the time I had to grieve was in short increments. My daughter needed her mom so I had to proceed with business as usual and when I got the time, I could cry and process.

My husband on the other hand, was less affected. Which upset me. I know it shouldn't as men tend to process and accept things differently. I know all these facts about "a man doesn't feel like a father till the baby is in his arms", "men don't process a miscarriage the way we do because they don't feel the same bonds we do", etc... I had a hard time telling him how I felt when I wanted someone to say I know how you feel (which is highly unrealistic since he could never really know how I felt), I know your hurting, I feel the same way you do (again, not realistic), etc. I also felt like he blamed me for the miscarriage since I did not react so favorably to the idea of being pregnant again. Guilt has a way of making you feel that everyone around you is mad at you.

We finally worked it all out, but it took a few weeks to get there. We were able to express how we felt and what we needed from each other in times of crisis. Which is a great thing and it has helped us communicate better on other levels.

In the midst of all of this I was working on my second craft fair inventory and rushing to meet deadlines. I got sick in the middle of it with a sinus/upper respiratory infection. The stress of the miscarriage/marriage trial, craft fair, crazy deadlines, and illness exploded the day before the craft fair. My right shoulder and right side of my neck were ON FIRE! It felt like pins and needles shooting flames under my skin. I went to the doctor that Monday afterwards and turns out I have shingles. YAY! Not so much.

Shingles takes a long time to heal and you can't be around people who haven't had chicken pox or the vaccine. So I have not been out of the house (except walking with the hubby and daughter) in almost 4 weeks. I'm heavily involved with the kids at church and can't risk giving it to them...unless their parents want them to get chicken pox. Then they can come to me, lol.

So what have I used the past four weeks to do: Get my life right with the Lord. And deep clean/purge my house. All this busyness, stress, and distraction had left a huge whole in my life. I had not spent time with the Lord. I had let so many other "obligations" take over my time, that I had forgotten what was important. This was manifested in my home life. I was not communicating with my husband, our house was literally a wreck, I was spending less time with Zoe so I could do other things, but mostly I wasn't praying. We weren't praying as a family.

The Lord in His exceeding graciousness, found a way to get my attention and bring me back to my first love... Him! So that's where I have been and now where I am going. Back to the beginning.

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