This blog post is part of a series that I began for telling our story. You can read the first post here.
The story of our loss of Jonah didn’t end with the doctor’s appointment. Because I was 30 weeks pregnant, I had to go through labor and delivery. The doctor gave us two options: schedule to come into the hospital to be induced, or wait it out. The second option required that I have weekly bloodwork done to make sure infection didn’t set in. It was a pretty easy decision for us – I couldn’t bear the thought of holding onto this pregnancy indefinitely, waiting for the day when my body naturally decided it was done holding onto our dead son. Nope, we wanted to get things rolling.
So we reached out to both of our mothers, who flew in over the weekend, and we headed to the hospital bright and early Monday morning.
Wait! I almost forgot. Because both the moms were coming in, we were nervous about the state of our house. And two lovely friends came and helped clean it. Not a quick job, because at the time we were renting a 5 bedroom monster of a home from a church. In fact, the pastor of the church lived on the same property, just on the other side of the church. He was the one we called when we got our terrible news.
The day we learned about Jonah’s death, he came with us back to the house and sat with us for a little while. Then he went over to the school (this church had a school affiliated with it) where his wife was a teacher, and he sat in the classroom with her kids while she came to sit with us.
God placed us in that house, near that couple, for a reason. They had children closer to our age. But twenty years before, they had experienced the loss of a child in almost the exact same way. Having them near us to walk by our sides through the process was a gift from God.
I remember sitting in our living room, talking and even laughing, and feeling like we were doing something wrong. How could we talk about ordinary things? How could we laugh at anything? The whole world had gone wrong.
But healing from any loss takes a weird, winding path through tears and laughter and grief and joy. In the early days, when you’re just in shock, it can be comforting to talk about the mundane. It brings peace.
When our dear friends came to help us clean, they were THOROUGH!!! Nicole and Beth scrubbed our house from top to bottom, even dusted the insides of the light fixtures (which I am certain we had never bothered to do). I remember being in awe of their kindness to us.
Next post coming tomorrow, when I will share about our experiences at the hospital.
Blooming Joy! 