Christmas always comes anyway. (And our Christmas letter.)

Christmas is in two days and I am not even close to being ready. The last of my Christmas cards went out yesterday, thank goodness, but I still have several presents to buy. Davey still cries most of his waking hours and after a few days of only waking two times at night(!!!), he didn't really sleep at all last night and I'm feeling a bit worn. I had planned to write a gift guide for friends/family who have had losses and even lined up a few great giveaways, but it just never came together in time. I'll still write it and there will still be great giveaways, just sometime in January...or February...or whenever.

The good thing about Christmas though is that it comes whether we are ready or not. We all need Christ in our lives, even if we don't know it or haven't prepared for Him, and perhaps He comes more for those who are unprepared than anyone else. That's not to say that we shouldn't ready our hearts and our lives for His return, because that's definitely part of what Advent is about. But if you never got around to lighting the Advent candles even once (but I got them out! That counts for something, right?) because you're busy serving His kingdom in other ways (*ahem* nursing and changing the diapers of one of the precious children He loves so much), Christmas and it's joy are still coming for you just the same, as long as you allow yourself to see that joy despite the earthly imperfections of the celebration.

Last year, I felt equally unprepared for Christmas, though for much different reasons. I'd just had my fourth consecutive miscarriage less than a week before. I was feeling sick and tired and heartbroken. But Christmas came anyway and there was joy in it even though I didn't feel it at the time. Mostly I felt the pain and heartache of my losses, the absence of the babies would who be celebrating their first Christmas and the babies who would have been still in my womb.

Even though I get to celebrate a special little son's first Christmas this year, I still keenly feel the absence of the two others who would be celebrating their first Christmas and the two who would be celebrating their second. I miss them. It's much easier to feel the joy, but the heartache is still there too. This is what "bittersweet" feels like.

Anyway, what a difference a year makes. Last year, I shared on the blog the Christmas newsletter I didn't send because we had no good news to share. This year we did send a Christmas letter because we had lots of good news to share. (And we received more cards than ever, starting very early in the Christmas season! It was a good year all around!) I didn't write everything I wanted to write. I wanted to share that we'd made it through two more due dates. I wanted to sign the names of all our children on the card. But I didn't. Because not everyone we send cards to knows about our losses and, for some, I'd like to keep it that way. And because there is a part of me that want to be "normal" again, that wants to pretend like those losses never happen and know what it's like to just send out a Christmas letter with only happy things to share. Of course, we can never go back to what it was like before our losses and I think they've changed us is both negative and positive ways, but sometimes it's nice to purposely forget for a while.

Without further ado, here is our Christmas letter 2015 (with just a few edits from the version we sent out to maintain some privacy):

Dear family and friends,

     2015 was a big year for us! In June, we moved back to Colorado. We greatly miss the friends we left in North Carolina, especially our communities at our parish and David’s school, but are grateful to be back near family.

     David found a job as a Field Application Scientist at a small company in the area. He is enjoying the opportunity to be back in the lab and his new job requires him to travel.

     Our son, David Newton Richards, Jr., was born on November 11. He made quite the (quick) entrance and was delivered by his daddy in the car! Despite the circumstances, both baby and mama were perfectly healthy. Little Davey was baptized on November 22 in the same parish where Lucia was baptized and we were married. We are delighting in our baby boy. Lulu loves being a big sister and spends the majority of her days kissing and cuddling him.

     Lucia turned four on December 5. She’s a very active girl who rarely keeps still! She is interested in learning to write and loves to dance and do crafts. She keeps busy in a ballet/tap class and gymnastics.

     We have also gotten involved in activities in our new community. David joined the Knights of Columbus at our parish and Mandi is part of a Catholic moms’ group. We’ve especially enjoyed rejoining our friends in the Catholic couples group we attended here previously.

     We are currently under contract to buy our first home! If everything goes well, we’ll be closing at the end of January.

     This year, we also welcomed a new niece and attended the wedding of Mandi’s best friend and the Church wedding of David’s cousin. Lulu was a flower girl twice!

     It has been a year of great blessings for us and we hope it has been the same for you and your family. We pray that God bless you this holiday season and in the new year to come!

With love,

David, Mandi, Lucia, and Davey

 


Photo by Dandy Little Lens Photography

Contemplating depression, faith, loss, and hope in the new year.

Yesterday, I spent hours crying. 2014 has been a horrible year for us and I'm certainly not sad to see it go, but when I tried to imagine 2015, I just couldn't muster up anything but thoughts of the upcoming due dates and first birthdays that will haunt us. (One each in May, June, July, and September make the middle of the year particularly dreaded.) Also, the knowledge that 2015 won't bring us the birth of a child seems to strip it of hope.

But after a few hours of crying for the babies we'll never meet, I felt a bit of a relief and room to think in a more positive light. The past week has been extremely trying and probably even more difficult than any of the days I've actually miscarried or the due dates we've struggled through.

I struggle with depression even during the best of times. Days in which we have nothing but blessings to be grateful for, I still fight despair. So when we have moments of incredible grief and hopelessness, my depression is truly unbearable. Since my first miscarriage, I've also struggled with nightmares which make sleep nearly impossible and anxiety that has only increased with each subsequent loss. Obviously, the few months after each loss are the hardest and then things get back to being very manageable. But I always have to be very vigilant to get have a very regular daily routine, eat well, take my vitamins and minerals daily, (try to) get adequate sleep, and plenty of sunlight.

This past week has been the perfect storm - a recent loss (with both the grief and hormonal instability that accompanies it), the holidays (which make even a more distant loss more difficult), and being away from home which makes it nearly impossible to keep up any sort of routine, eat healthfully, exercise regularly, etc. Just realizing that how I'm feeling is the result of so many outside factors has been such a relief and allowed hope to creep in. I'm very confident that once we get back home and can control several of these factors, that the deep despair I'm feeling will melt away.

Sometimes, at times like this, I begin to blame myself for not trusting God enough, for not being faithful enough, or having a better relationship with God. I read stories of people who've struggled with mental illness or eating disorders or substance abuse who are suddenly "cured" when they come to know God. But I know that's not how it works for the most of us. There are Saints - Saints! - who struggled with these issues all their life, who knew God profoundly and served Him well, and never escaped these afflictions. These issues are real physical and psychological ailments that cannot be healed simply by loving God and feeling His love for us, at least no more than someone with a chronic illness will be healed simply by faith - sometimes miraculous healing does happen, but most often, we're left to nature and the natural weakness of our bodies and minds.

My relationship with God is stronger and deeper than it was before my first miscarriage. Each subsequent loss has brought me closer to Christ. I don't believe that God caused my miscarriages in order to bring me closer to Him or to make me into a more humble person, but that is what has happened. (I thoroughly believe the cause is something natural and God simply allowed it to happen, as He does with most of nature.) I believe that He is able to use all things for good and He has worked in me through our heartbreaking losses. By allowing Him to do so (for you have to give Him that invitation), I am able to be a sign of my children. They may not be visible to this world, but their existence has meaning if I let them transform me into who God created me to be. Obviously, I am no Saint. I have a long way to go. But I am closer to holiness than I was before they were conceived. And so I know that this depression is not a lack of faith, because I have grown in faith even during the most extreme periods of depression I've ever felt.

It is Satan that tries to make me feel like my depression is due to my spiritual failings. And I know I cannot give into him, for if I did, I am sure I would lose my faith. Though certainly I hope that someday I'll be cured of depression and anxiety, I assume that they will be burdens I will carry with me my entire life. And if I were to go through life thinking that if I were only truly faithful to God, if I only really believed, if I only prayed more or did X better, I would be cured, I would go through my whole life feeling like a failure. Nothing I would do could ever be good enough because mental illness is not simply a matter of faith. And at some point, I would break, give up, turn my back on God. But the truth is, it is only God who can free me from this, if not in this life, then in the next, when our bodies and minds will be whole. In the meantime, I need Christ with me to help carry this cross. I need to unite my suffering with His so that it has meaning, so that it bears fruit.

I walk daily with these crosses of depression and recurrent pregnancy loss. Sometimes they seems so cruel. Sometimes I cry out to God, "Why do you allow repeat miscarriage to happen to someone who already struggles with depression?" Because certainly, it's easier to deal with either one or the other.  But there are no answers, and as of yet I've been able to cope. I've been given the graces to survive this, even if it seems like I'm only barely surviving. Some days I'm even able to look to the future and say, I can do this again. We can try to get pregnant again and if we miscarry again, I will survive, and not only that, it will be worth it.  Other days, I struggle with how to just make it to tomorrow.

Every morning I wake up needing time to pray and to rework through these thoughts. To remind myself that I am strong and that I have Christ beside me. To remind myself that my depression is separate from my faith. To remember that my depression will get better and I can take steps to control it. I think about the children I've lost and how much I love them and how their short lives were purposeful. And I thank God for my husband and daughter and the many other blessings I have in my life. I often have to go through these same prayers and thoughts many times during the day to make it through. But I do. Each day I make it through and it's this very conscious, purposeful reasoning gives me back hope. Faith and reason, right? I need both.

Today, on the first day of 2015, I'm able to count my innumerable blessing, all five of our children among them, I'm able to see the good things that this year might bring for us. Even if this year does not bring us a viable pregnancy, I have so much else to look forward to. Fertility struggles tend to give those who experience it tunnel vision so that the only purpose in life is in another baby, the only thing worth looking forward to or working toward is another child. But my life is so much more than that. Another year with my wonderful husband and daughter is a blessing to look forward to in itself.

Trying Again.

Yesterday (Christmas) was one of the hardest days of my life. Everywhere I looked amongst the family celebrations, I saw the ghosts of our missing children. When the cousins played together, there was one missing. When we took family photos, they felt so incomplete. My stomach felt so small and flat and empty. I mostly thought of the first child we lost, Francis, the one who would be seven months now. I wonder if next Christmas will be just as hard. Which child will I think about then? Francis or Julian, who would be celebrating their second Christmas then? Or the little ones who would be born in the next year, Adrienne or Christian, who would be celebrating their first Christmas? Knowing that it's not even possible for me to hold a baby in my arms next Christmas made the day even more bleak. I felt robbed of Christmas past, Christmas present, and Christmas future.

Maybe this year is just so hard because I miscarried less than a week before Christmas? Although maybe I'll miscarry a week before next Christmas too. Or maybe I'll be pregnant then, far enough along that I'll be feeling confident, and not  the deep despair and fear that early pregnancy holds for me now. I can only pray that is the case, I can't even hope for it anymore.

What this last, fourth miscarriage has finally done that the first three were unable to accomplish was strip me of all hope. One, two, even three miscarriages in a row can be explained by chance, bad luck, even three different random, unrelated occurrences. Four is...heavy. There is the weight of an underlying cause there. So far, my doctor hasn't been able to find it. I'll have surgery next month to check on a few more things, all which are fairly unlikely anyway, but if my doctor doesn't find anything then that's it. There will be no more treatable causes, everything else would just be an answer with no solution. And I don't feel the desire to know just to know; if there is nothing I can do about it, the knowledge has no meaning to me.

I'm still young (though repeat pregnancy loss has aged me in ways I can't really explain; I feel so old inside) and potentially have many more years of fertility before me. We'll keep trying, over and over again, knowing that there is some possibility, no matter how small, that I will be able to give birth to a living child. Lucia is proof of that. How we got lucky with a healthy first pregnancy, I'll never know but I'm so grateful for that. We'll try again as soon as I'm physically well enough, emotionally healed enough, and get the go ahead from my doctor.

While I have some friends who struggle with hyper fertility who look at their future years of potential fertility and count how many children that could possibly mean, I think in terms of how many miscarriages those years can bring. Unless I'm coming straight off a miscarriage (which is apparently a very fertile time according to studies I've read and my personal experience), it takes me longer than the average woman to get pregnant, but not by much. I can get pregnant. Four pregnancies in less than a year and a half prove that. Four miscarriages in 14 months. Even if my fertile years end early and fertility decreases over time, I could still have 20+ miscarriages. The odds for that are small, of course. In 20 pregnancies, I'd most likely bring at least a few babies to birth. But, when I see my future, 20 miscarriages is one of the possibilities I can visualize. I can no longer visualize an outcome where there is a baby in my arms. My mind just can't conceptualize that anymore.

As Catholics, we believe that pregnancy should only be postponed (using Natural Family Planning) for serious reasons. Those reasons vary by couple of course and the Church does not have a list of reasons. Personally, David and I can't justify postponing pregnancy based on miscarriage risk alone. As long as I am (physically and emotionally) healthy enough to get pregnant again, we won't prevent it beyond the few months my doctor asks us to wait after a loss. (Whether to wait to not, and how long, after a miscarriage is controversial as there are studies that show getting pregnant again right away has better outcomes and other studies show the opposite. We've decided to give my doctor the benefit of the doubt and follow all my doctor's instructions for the time being. I've gotten pregnant right away and I've waited and both had the same outcome anyway.)

The idea of not charting and not specifically trying to get pregnant but just letting it happen when it happens is very appealing to me, because the trying is very stressful in itself. But as long as my doctor still has hope that we can find a treatable cause and that catching a pregnancy early will give the baby a better chance of survival, I'll suffer through it. Charting seems to force us to specifically try to get pregnant each month because we know exactly when our fertile days are and we have to decide whether we will have sex then. Since we want a baby, we feel like we can't not use those days. If we didn't chart and didn't know which exact days were most fertile, I don't think I'd end up a puddle of tears every time my period came because I wouldn't know if we actually tried to get pregnant. It wouldn't be a disappointment, another proof that my body doesn't work quite right. There wouldn't be that expectation that we did everything right, we'll get pregnant this month, oh please, oh please, oh please.

Coming to terms with recurrent pregnancy loss (RPL) and what that means for the long term for our family means coming up with a new perspective on life, a new way of living. Even if we having another living child, even if it's our very next pregnancy only a year and some months away, that probably won't end my RPL. I'll probably have more miscarriages after that. Of course, I don't know the future, but most likely whatever is causing this isn't going to disappear or ever be completely "fixed". And so that means that we will for the next 10-15 years have cycles of trying to conceive, pregnancy, miscarriage, recovery, trying to conceive, miscarriage, recovery...

And I can't go through those the way I have done in the past. The past year and a half hasn't been living, it's been surviving. I've just tried to get from one stage to another, thinking at some point things will change and we'll regain our lives. It's been living with the pain of trying to conceive thinking, It will all be better once I get those two pink lines. And then living with the stress and fear and utter despair of pregnancy thinking, It will all be better once I see that heartbeat. And then the heartbeat isn't there or I start bleeding and I think, If I can only make it past this miscarriage. And then the bleeding stops and I start thinking, If only I can make it through the next few months of testing and waiting, then we can try again. And it starts all over. And in the meantime, my life is on hold. There is no joy, there is no moving forward. Everything waits. Everything is at a standstill waiting for the baby, the one we want so badly, the one that will restore a little bit of joy into our family.

I need to find a way to restore that joy without that child, for who knows if that baby will ever come. I need to find a way to truly live in the meantime. And so I've been working on humility, on saying, It's not about me. Nothing is about me. It's never been about me. I am only here to do God's will. No matter what I want or I don't want or how much pain I suffer , I can always serve God every situation. It is not about me. It is not about me. It's only about Him. I am only about Him. It is not about my babies that will never be born. It is about The Baby who was born so long ago. It is not about me. And it's helping. Most days, this is what gets me out of bed in the morning. Most days, it allows me to focus on the big picture, what really matters. Because it's when I focus on the details of my small insignificant life that the pain becomes crushing and I become frozen in the pain and anger and fear.

Christmas Newsletter

I love Christmas cards. Every December, the walk to the mailbox is my favorite time of day. I love sending and receiving mail (my love language is gifts, surprise surprise, but getting cards is even more anticipated than opening gifts Christmas Day) and it's the one time of year when I'm almost guaranteed to have something non-bill, non-ad like in the mail every day. Except this year, it wasn't. After our horrid ultrasound on December 9th, I've gone to the mailbox everyday thinking, "If only there is a card there, it will cheer me up." And for the next week and a half, we got exactly 2 cards, both on the same day. Lots of bills though. Of course.

As Christmas gets closer, the cards are finally coming in, several each day. But there are still less than we usually get. As sad (or perhaps unstable) as this sounds, it really feels like insult to injury. Like the universe is conspiring against me. It's like I can hear this little voice, She's dreading Christmas, but the one thing she's still excited about the holidays is receiving Christmas cards, so let's make sure she gets very few. Let's destroy what little joy she has left, eh? I know, crazy right? The people that usually send us cards are just a little behind this year. Or the post office is. You know, real, simple, non-conspiratorial explanations. But I can't help feeling a little hurt. This is what they mean in all those pregnancy loss books when they say you might feel a little crazy. (They also say, Don't worry, it's normal. So I'm not going to worry.)

I love sending cards too. This year, instead of a photo card, I decided to finally start using all the boxes of Christmas cards I've hoarded over the years when they're on major clearance after Christmas and just tuck in a picture of our family. The picture includes one of our babies, the one we lost most recently. You wouldn't know by looking at it (in fact, I didn't even know yet when it was snapped) but I was very newly pregnant in the photo.

When I wrote out our cards, I so badly wanted to include a family newsletter. We've never written an official newsletter, but last year we had fancy photo cards made with pictures and captions inside that shared a bit about our year, so that was a newsletter right? I tried to think of something to write in one this year and I just couldn't scrounge one up. We've had no moves this year (first time since we were married); Lucia, while being absolutely adorable, is still young enough where she's not in many activities to note and everything else comes off as something a proud mama wants to share but very few care to read ("The way she says purple and turtle and circle are so, so cute it's unbearable."); and truly the only thing of our last year that feels notable is that we conceived three souls. But nobody wants to read about miscarriage in a Christmas card, right?

When we send out our cards, I was still pregnant. But it was too early to share the good news. How badly I wanted to sign them from the little baby too. I thought about waiting until after the ultrasound, thinking if we saw a heartbeat we'd be confident enough to include the baby, but I had the foresight to know that if we didn't see a heartbeat (which was the case) I probably wouldn't feel up to finishing our cards. So I reconciled myself with the fact that we could send out cute little photo Valentines with Lucia kissing me belly and a real corny little caption like, "love multiplies" or something like that. Yep. Well, we'll see if I get St. Valentine cards out this year without breaking down sobbing.

This post is about nothing really, but it's a pretty accurate depiction of how in the wake of loss something as seemingly insignificant as Christmas cards can be the cause of so much thinking and overthinking and analysis and pain. It's like no matter what I do or think of, I can somehow twist it into making me cry. Some days, the losses take over my life, paint it all a very blood colored hue.

Anyway, if I were to write a Christmas newsletter today and share what I really want to share, this is what it would look like:

2014 was a difficult year for our family. We conceived and lost three more souls to miscarriage. In May, we made it through our first due date by going to Mass, visiting Francis's grave, and spending a day as a family at the beach. This gives us hope that God will give us the grace to get through the many difficult days that 2015 has in store for us. We pray that we will have a new baby to celebrate in 2016.

We finally spent a whole year living in one state. David is still loving his teaching job, Mandi worked her way through the Anne of Green Gables series and C.S. Lewis's Space Trilogy, and Lucia loves being a mama to her baby dolls.

May you feel the love of Christ at Christmas and may your 2015 be blessed.

Love, 

David, Mandi, Lulu, Francis, Julian, Adrienne, & Christian

When a Christmas stocking brings you to tears.

Two years ago, on the day after Christmas, I ordered beautiful, handmade, fair trade Christmas stockings. I loved the stockings so much that I knew that these were the Christmas stockings I wanted not just for the next year but for every year for our family. I agonized over how many to buy, wanting to be sure that we would have enough stockings for all of our children. I finally settled on seven; if we had more than five children (which I hoped we would), we would just have to find coordinating stocking for my husband and me. Enough for seven children seemed like it would probably be enough.

When we moved a year and a half ago, we left much of our Christmas decorations (and other things) at my parents house with the thought that we would bring it all out when we finally bought a house. So we packed only the bare minimum.  I brought 4 stockings - one for my husband, one for me, one for our daughter, and one for the baby I hoped I would be carrying come Christmastime. We were already trying to conceive before we moved in July and so I had every hope we would be joyously expecting a child by December.

Well, conceive we did. And then we miscarried. When I opened the Christmas box last year, the sight of that fourth stocking brought me to tears. I couldn't bring myself to hang only three stocking up, so we hung up none. We were flying out of state for Christmas anyway, so they weren't exactly necessary.

This morning, I opened the Christmas box again. Again, I saw that stupid fourth stocking. Again, we have no one to hang it for. This year, there are four babies it could have been for. Two of those little ones would be celebrating their first Christmas. Two of those pregnancies would be announced this Christmas. All four I would have joyously hung a stocking for. Instead, I force myself to hang only three stockings.

I know some families who have lost children during pregnancy who hang stockings for their missing children. Who honor them in big, beautiful ways in their homes. I feel like we don't really have that choice. It becomes a little too much when the number of family members who have died outnumber those who are living.

And then the reality hits me. I will probably never have enough living children to use all those stockings I ordered. But if I were to hang a stocking for each member of our family, we would already need each and every stocking. We are a family of seven. I have five children. Four are dead.

Recurrent pregnancy loss denies me the right to fully acknowledge and memorialize each child, to incorporate each soul fully into our family. I already have trouble remember the names we've picked out for each and the special dates for each one - dates of conception, those positive pregnancy tests, when I miscarried, their due dates. It's better to forget anyway, by this point it seems like every week or two brings another once, but no longer, significant date. More thoughts of what could have been, what should have been. We can no longer celebrate each due date as I'd like. My husband just can't take off that many days and I can no longer think of special ways to remember them.

Apparently I'm not the only one who thinks about stockings and loss: The Stocking That Was Never Hung