After the months of depression and fear following my miscarriage and IIH diagnosis, I finally began to feel hope. February 2010 brought me great emotional and mental healing—and renewed the healer/helper energies in me, as I began helping others find faith and hope in their own lives.

Watch my YouTube video using the following link below, or read chapter 15 below.

 

15. February 2010

Monday 8 February 2010

This was a pretty good visit to Mom and Dad[’s house]. …

Yesterday, we went to [a] party. A bunch of people asked how I was doing. It made me remember again just how loved and cared for I am. …

I miss these members of my extended family, these people who get together to see each other regularly. …

And there were so many kids at the party! … [They] were running and playing and jumping, and they were beautiful. And I loved it and couldn’t stop watching them. I loved watching how everyone in the place interacted with the kids. They all acted like family. … All the parents watching out for all the kids, not just their own. … [W]e all cared for the kids.

It wasn’t until the night was almost over that I realized I had been watching [the kids] all night and interacting with them like a mother or a sister … rather than feeling awkward and not knowing what to do with them. And I hadn’t once looked at them and thought wistfully or sadly about how I didn’t have a baby. I think it was the first time since the miscarriage that I haven’t looked at a … child and felt sorry for myself or thought that I will never have a baby. I am still concerned … about us being able to have a child … but I finally didn’t get upset. I’m glad of this further sign of healing. …

***

It’s apparently a sad evening for me. Not long after we got home [from visiting my parents] and got our things unpacked, I broke out into tears. I had been feeling glum most of the drive home, as I often do when we leave [there], but then as I was crying, I realized it wasn’t just a little glum. I didn’t just miss Mom and Dad, I miss the entire feeling of family and support that I have down in Southern Indiana. I have so much family there, so many people who are willing to support me, who want to know how I’m doing, who are concerned, who would jump in to help if I needed it. These people who have cared for me for all or most of my life. I miss them. I think that’s why I’ve wanted children so much, because I miss that feeling of family, of support, of closeness. …

I’ve always known how special the extended family I have is, but especially since everything that’s happened in the past few months, I’m more sensitive to it, needing it more and more. I miss it so much. Perhaps it’s because I need so much help. Not necessarily physically, but just to help Mike, so he doesn’t have to be EVERYTHING to me. …

And I’m still glum. I [saw a] yoga book, for anyone. The picture of the cover showed someone in the position Downward-Facing Dog, and I started crying because I can’t do that position anymore. Well, I can, but afterward, I’d get headaches and pain. I’m so angry that I have to be worried about doing activities I never would have thought twice about before. … Everyday household tasks give me pause now…or cause me pain afterward. I have to pace myself on normal activities. I’m not even 30 years old, and housework now worries me. What’s going to happen if we DO manage to have a kid? How can I properly carry and care for our child and pick up after him or her? This isn’t right. I just want to be healed. I’m afraid I’m not strong enough to carry this burden the universe has put on me.

 

Tuesday 9 February 2010

Still feeling a little mopey today. Didn’t want to get up this morning. … I just feel sad. … It’s … not a horrible day, but I definitely feel down. …

I just want to be normal again. Normal for me, that is…back to who and what I was. I miss me. I miss the happiness I felt when I was pregnant. I miss the closeness to my husband, not feeling annoyed every time he tries to touch me or kiss me.

I want my vision back.

I want my relationship with my husband back.

 

Thursday 11 February 2010

Upset about so many things regarding my IIH, especially limited physical capabilities (vision, exertion, etc.) [so I did a] 3-card Tarot layout:

Past Influences—8 of Wands
Present Situation—The Star (VII)
Future Possibilities—2 of Wands

[My understanding of that:]

The determined purpose & delicate balance of Strength were joined with the fiery action of the Wands. Things were set to happen & happen quickly. I was waiting for an outcome.

Peace, calm, and hope. The woman [of the Star] represents perfect faith. Unity of thought and spirit. The mechanisms of the heavens are working perfectly; everything happens in its proper time. Replenishment and faith—know that after a hard time, a better time will follow. Give over to it. Know that your heart will be refreshed and your faith renewed. Be aware of lack of faith, giving in to despair, giving up.

You (will?) face a difficult decision, a fork in the road. [You are] Conscious of the future & want to make best decision, but not easy when the choices are so similar. The differences lie off in the horizon. Must tap into deeper level of knowing. Too many unknowns to make a logical choice. This is [about] inspiration & courage—follow your gut and move ahead bravely. This is not a time to stand still.

 

Sunday 14 February 2010

Gee, happy Valentine’s Day to me. I feel better this morning physically than I have in several days … but my vision in my right eye is really poor compared to what it’s been. … I’m trying not to let it get me down too much, as I’ve found that I have good days and bad days, even visually. … It’s just that (visual) days like this don’t give me hope for future days, and they make me worry that perhaps my vision is slowly getting worse instead of better. …

On the upside, I had a dream last night that I was driving and that I was doing as well, or better, perhaps, than I had before my vision had suffered any problems. That was a first for such a dream. Since all this has happened, I have often dreamt of driving, but it has usually resulted in me having great anxiety while driving or someone criticizing my driving, telling me I should never have driven in the first place with such vision problems.

[T]hat was a decent start to the morning, [with] the lack of physical pain. But combine my … right-eye vision [being] poor today with completing [a] questionnaire about my history of IIH … and it gets a little glummer. And then throw in me … running across [a] folder of information … about mourning and miscarriage, and I’m sadder. Then I remembered a comment Mike made last night … about how we should be having our own baby sometime next month but things REALLY haven’t gone according to plan. Yeah, [with all those things], … I’m downright melancholy today. My beautiful, beautiful baby. My wonderful gift of sight. I should have both, and right now, I am mourning them both.

I’m tired of mourning. Tired of being sad. I want to be happy again. I have placed my faith in the Divine, that my vision will be healed, that my body will be healed, that the IIH will be gone, or at least under control, that I will be able to have a baby. But the days, weeks, and months creep by, too slowly, but too quickly all at the same time. I have faith, but sometimes it’s utterly tested. Sometimes I doubt. In the first place, I lost our child from my womb—the child we had waited so long for. And in the second place, as if that weren’t enough, I lost so much of my vision. I feel like Job. But he lost so much more. It’s so hard to love such a beautiful world when you can’t see it so well. And still a little hard to see the reminders that someone else is going to have a baby while we sit here, alone in our house together, in this house we bought so we could have children, on land we bought so we could have room for children to play, looking at an orchard and berry patch we planted so we could feed a family larger than the two of us. One that I don’t know how well I’ll be able to help tend with my health issues. Why is today the test of faith for me?

I believe the Divine loves me. I believe in a higher plan. I believe I have a purpose, although I may not know yet what that purpose is. I believe my vision will return to me. I believe I will bear my husband’s child. I believe the Divine has great things in store for us, no matter how dark things may look right now. I believe we are going through trials so we may be reborn. I have faith that the Divine is caring for us. Whoever the Divine may be, the Divine is watching over us, protecting us, ensuring our survival, strengthening us, preparing us. We are loved. We are cared for. We are children of God. We are tended and protected and provided for. These things, my spirit knows. Perhaps my guides tell me, but I have a hard time hearing them. But peace filled me as I wrote this paragraph, as the words flowed through me. I did not think them, I did not write them. God-in-me wrote them.

***

I’ve been doing a lot of back-and-forth in one of the PTC support groups today because I posted my introductory email. Mostly, the emails have been supportive and encouraging. One of them, though meant to be supportive, has lowered my spirits (not hard to do today, admittedly) a bit more—a lady who had ONSF surgery in October of 2006 and hasn’t driven since. That nearly crushed my heart. I still have faith that I will be healed, but that fear still grabs my heart and squeezes. And that little nagging doubt whispers in my ear, “What if God decides not to heal you? What if you never drive again?” I push it away, but it is persistent. And I just pray more.

 

Monday 15 February 2010

Last night … I had another dream of driving, and of it going well. It was fully sunny out, and I was doing well enough that I was driving down to Mom and Dad’s house on my own. … I felt a little trepidation, but my vision was great and it was sunny. Oh, if that could only come true…!

As I lay in the recliner preparing for sleep last night, I was shown a beam of light extending down from the heavens, the Healing Light of God, and I was to bathe in it and it would heal me. I stepped into it and looked at myself and saw myself only as a spiritual being. I was a little worried about this, because I want physical as well as spiritual healing, so I envisioned my naked body lying in the light, absorbing its intensity and being healed by it. I hope this was a real thing [shown] to me by my spirit guides, that it will lead to real physical healing.

 

Wednesday 17 February 2010

[S]omeone on one of the support groups today or yesterday posed an interesting question about hormones and IIH. Specifically, she wondered if anyone had had their hormones tested. Apparently, talk of hormones and IIH symptoms comes up a lot in the forums, but the doctors just keep pushing weight loss. The problem is that there are so many people with IIH who lose weight and still have symptoms, and there are even people who have never been overweight but have IIH, so she’s going to actually have her hormones tested. … I mentioned that I have tracked my symptoms on a calendar and have found that … when my vision seems to [get] grainier and a little more limited, it happens when I believe I might be ovulating. … When I mentioned this … as a reason for her to go for it … someone else said she has the exact problem with her vision and pain spikes WHEN SHE OVULATES. (And she’s never weighed more than 150 when pregnant.) It’s so good to know I’m not alone… And that my observations are actually showing me something worthwhile. (Also, this second woman had thought of mentioning the hormone link to her doctors … but now that I’ve mentioned my issue, she DEFINITELY is going to bring it up at her visit this spring.) …

I may not be able to do much on my own, but I’m planting seeds and encouraging others, and maybe we really can get somewhere in knowledge about this condition.

 

Saturday 20 February 2010

[Today I had a revelation.] … I realized in all the time I was pregnant, I prayed … that, if [the baby] should be born, it be healthy. … [A]lthough we had planned and prepared as though the baby were going to be born, I had doubted. All of this [revelation happened] within a tenth of a second.

I began sobbing. I couldn’t breathe. I wasn’t thinking. I was simply grieving. I grabbed my chest, wanting to hold my aching heart directly in my own hands. I put my hand over my abdomen, above my womb, longing to feel it full again. My beautiful, beautiful baby. … I wanted to pray for strength, to pray for another child, to pray for comfort. But there were no words. I was crying too hard to bring my hands together, or to even raise them up to the heavens.

Finally, I was able to kneel, to lean against a chair for support and rest my arms and head on the seat, letting the upholstery muffle my sobs. And then I heard, “I’m here, Mommy, don’t cry. Please don’t cry, Mommy. I’m here. I’ll be with you soon.” It was a child’s voice—very clear, too young for me to tell if it was a boy or girl. But it’s the spirit who will be my child, so I thought fleetingly that a child’s voice seemed silly, but then I realized that the childlike voice was for my comfort. The soul is waiting, waiting to be my child again, and it is near me, and will be with me again. The voice kept repeating, “I’m here, Mommy, don’t cry,” as my sobs went away as quickly as they had come, leaving my body shuddering as I struggled to return to regular, even breathing.

Thank you, my child, for the blessing of your presence. I love you already, dearly, though I have yet to meet you embodied.

 

Tuesday 23 February 2010

Frustrating lately because in some ways, I feel my vision is better, and in others, I feel it is worse.

I try to bide my time, not getting worked up about anything, not running to the doctor … but also trying not to let it go too far if it really IS a problem (but how can I tell)? But … a few times over the past couple of weeks, I’ve dreamt of waking up blind. [My fear] lasts only a split second…when I’m waking from sleep and open my eyes to find that everything has gone dark and I can’t see anything, then I blink once more and everything is “fine.” I find myself wanting to sleep because in my dreams, I can see everything perfectly, as though my vision was never damaged, and then the letdown of waking up… but then there’s the chance now that I’ll dream of being blind.

I know the Divine will heal me, if the Divine sees fit to heal me. And I do my part to care for my eyes and my body. … But still the worry remains. The fear. The doubt that the voice in my head telling me that I will be healed and my vision restored was only my voice and not a message from the Divine. But the more I am quiet and [I] open myself—truly open myself—to the Divine, the more I get messages that bear out and that tell me I should be trusting those voices. The [voice] that told me to be a wife to my husband, to simply be there for him, and listen to him and comfort him bore out just a few hours later, when Mike came to me with a small concern, and because I responded the way I was told, so much more was addressed. [I’ve been told to do two other things.] Both are things that are still on my to-do list, but things I will do. I have so much to do, and so little energy some days. I hope the Lord doesn’t mind if I put off occasionally.

It’s so hard to be proactive when reacting is the first thing I can do each day and it takes so much energy; it leaves me with so little opportunity to be proactive, to call doctors and friends and insurance companies; to do research; to write my book.

But every day, I pray to God for strength, for help, for healing, and to be an instrument of Divine Will, through Divine Peace. “Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love. Where there is injury, pardon. …” It is all I can do. Most days, I never leave the house, so the opportunity I have to help others is limited, but I pray in earnest. If all of my energy goes to the Will of the Divine, then at least I have accomplished something.

 

Wednesday 24 February 2010

E-mail to a friend:

Oh, honey, I know the feelings you’re talking about. In 2008 and early 2009, it seemed like every girl I was friends with in high school or worked with was pregnant or announcing a child. That feeling in my stomach just ate at me. It had been happening for 2 or 3 years … while everyone was getting pregnant, but it was like it all came to a head last year, like everyone who hadn’t yet had a kid suddenly did, and I was left out in the cold. I was constantly comparing myself to them, wondering why on earth I couldn’t have a child, too, when I want so dearly to be a mom, when there are so many people in the world who don’t want kids … but have kids anyway. And all I want is to have kids and be a good mom.

But then I know the good feeling you’re talking about, too. After my miscarriage, one of my friends announced that she and her husband were finally pregnant. … It seemed odd to me, given that she and I have almost done everything together, and seemed to be almost in competition to get things done first, that instead of feeling jealous of her, I simply felt overwhelming joy. Every day, I’m thankful that her baby is growing inside of her. It brings me almost more joy than my own baby did to me. I can’t explain it, but I welcomed that feeling, because I hated so much feeling jealous every time I heard of someone else having a baby. …

I am so sorry about your family losses in the past few years. I know they are never, ever easy. … Nothing makes it easier except knowing that you’ve made it through before and you’ll make it through again. It’s like you have a hole inside your being and it makes you unable to breathe, and it forces out tears, but those tears can’t fill up the hole. You wrap your arms around yourself to protect yourself, but that doesn’t work. You lean your head against a window and rock back and forth against it, and that doesn’t work, either. Nothing helps. But we somehow survive, usually with the help of the other loved ones we still have in our lives. They are the blessings that make life worth living.

As I’ve gone through the past few months, I’ve felt beaten, utterly defeated. I’ve felt anxious, depressed, sad. All of these physical symptoms hit so soon after the miscarriage that I didn’t have time to grieve for my lost baby. So sometimes it just hits me, in the middle of something I’m reading or writing, and I fall to pieces: My baby’s gone. And when I think I might die from the pain of it, I remember one night when I was so upset and I apologized to my husband for being so self-absorbed that I had never asked how he was dealing with everything. And he told me, quite simply, that he had faced his worst fear that night he took me to the hospital when I was bleeding so much from the miscarriage and I … passed out. He thought I had died right there. Now, dealing with the miscarriage and my other issues, they aren’t so difficult, because he’s faced his biggest fear already.

And that makes me remember how important I am to others, that sometimes even when I think my life may have no meaning or is not as important as I’d like it to be, my very EXISTENCE may make all the difference to others.

Please remember that when you start to feel bitter about your life and how it hasn’t gone the way you’ve wanted. Remember that you can make changes to your life at any point and that sometimes you make choices to stay behind because someone else’s happiness is more important than your own, that sometimes your happiness is greater because you helped their happiness. And other people’s lives are better simply because YOU EXIST and LOVE THEM.

Stephanie

 

Another e-mail to the same friend

I HOPE I can help you feel better. I know depression is no walk in the park. …

I know it’s a bitch of a beast, it really is. … Mike and I have found that activity and diet play a big role in his depression. He’s been jobless for a year again, and he has bouts with the depression, but nothing like he did before. … Part of it is fighting the beast and finding something that you KNOW is worthwhile in your life, and sometimes it’s also getting the medicine to give you that extra boost to help you be able to see the worthwhile thing. And, again, diet plays a big part. We have been changing our eating habits … and we now eat completely differently [than in 2006] … largely because we were trying to get pregnant. Aside from getting us pregnant right away, it made us feel tons better. … (We eat very few processed or prepackaged foods. When we do buy packaged foods, we get canned and frozen foods that use as few preservatives as possible. We try to get things that use real sugar rather than high fructose corn syrup, whole grains rather than white flour or even whole grain flour, no salt or sugar added, etc. And we eat tons of fresh fruit and vegetables.) …

And please don’t think of yourself as someone needing fixed. You … as a human being, are perfect. Deep within you resides a pure, beautiful soul that struggles with the challenges presented by having this body, this frail and very challenged and challenging vehicle. Know that if you search for yourself—your true self hidden in there, the self that thirsts for God in whatever form you perceive the Divine to be, the self that is in contact with that higher power—you will find strength and love and support that can get you through anything. Find that part of you, and through it, find the Divine … and you will find the comfort and strength you need. Trust in it, and it will lead you through.

Blessed be,
Stephanie

 

Friday 26 February 2010

This morning, in one of my online support group emails, I saw [a particular] message, and I felt hopeful. …

But after reading [about] people’s experiences, I have felt a little doubt. I have had far too many things happen in the past few days and weeks making me really, TRULY trust “that voice” that speaks to me … for me to doubt, but I am only human, and reading all of the things that others have gone through always makes me think I’m less likely to beat the numbers.

But maybe I will. I have been promised that my vision will be restored. I have been told that repeatedly. I wanted to believe but was afraid to. But in the past few days … I have opened myself up more to trusting the messages and actually setting aside time in which I’ve said to God, “Okay, I’m listening, I will hear anything you have to say, without comment or question.” One instruction was to contact [a friend]. I did, thinking she had a message for me, and it seems, instead, that it was the other way around. I’ve been an emotional support [to her] … over the past few days. An amazing blessing [to be able to provide her some support]. Another instruction was to simply be a wife to Mike when he needed me. … I had to go against my immediate reaction and do what I had been told to do, and it helped Mike (and me) much more than my initial response would have. These things all lead me to more trust in that voice. That trust … has always been one of my biggest challenges, and I’m making an effort now to really trust it again, like I used to [when I was young]. But when it was an instinct, it was easier for me to follow, when it was a “gut feeling.” Now that it’s a “voice” using distinct words, that’s a bit harder, because I tend to think in words too, not just images. …

Praise God, from whom all blessings flow. Praise Him, all creatures here below!

 

Sunday 28 February 2010

[A friend’s] baby shower … was yesterday. I had a nicer time than I expected. …

I teared up as I was trying to tell her that … I have felt nothing but wonderful happiness for her … through all this. I don’t know how many times we hugged … and told each other we pray for each other. I thank God for [the] blessing of this child [for her]. …

For me, it was a healing day. …

I got to see several friends I hadn’t seen in… so long that I can’t really remember how long. … Like at [the party earlier this month], I was told, without provocation, that I “look really good.” I’m still confused by this, because I don’t know if it’s because people expected me to look poorly after all the stuff I’ve gone through or if I look healthier/happier/thinner … since they’ve last seen me. I just accept the compliment with a thank-you and move on, then ponder it later. I think a lot of it has to do with the glow I have now. Just before my vision troubles, while I was pregnant, I would have said I was the happiest I’d ever been in my life. And that’s true—I had my wonderful husband; a house we like; a garden and lawn and orchard that we enjoy tending and surviving from; a baby on the way; I worked from home, and business was booming.

But now, I don’t know if I’d say I’m the happiest I’ve ever been, but perhaps the strongest. I’ve been tested, I know what I can make it through, and I’m still being tested. I know I can have a baby and that the effects may be hard on me but that I can carry a baby while having IIH. I’ve been successfully losing weight—slowly, but consistently for several months, which is far more than I’ve ever done before. I’ve still got my fantastic husband and this house and land. Times are challenging, … and I worry still about my pain and vision and learning how to live with this condition, but my faith in God is stronger than ever. With these things in my life, I move courageously forward—sometimes scared, sometimes a bit hesitant, but always with the love of my [family], faith in God, and hope for the future.

***

From a Facebook conversation with a friend about her upcoming surgery:

When I first started having my problems with the headaches after my D&C, I was having some neck pain, and the doc told me it could have been because of the struggling after the surgery. Apparently, when I first started waking up from the anesthesia, I was thrashing around and trying to get up, and it took like 5 people to hold me down … until I calmed down. [Remembering] that actually sent me almost into a panic attack when they tried to put the gas mask on me when I went in for the eye surgery. … I was afraid I was going to have problems with it. But I quickly asked them if they could give me a minute, and they did. They waited until I was ready, until I had taken some deep breaths and sent my prayer up to God to keep me calm and to watch over me and the surgery team, and then everything went beautifully, and the surgery was done almost as soon as it began.

Just pray when you start to worry. Pray, and know that others are praying for you and you are being watched over. It will help calm you, and maybe it will even influence the situation. 🙂

After all, five or six months ago, I probably wouldn’t have urged anyone this openly to pray and put their absolute faith in God. But much has changed in the past few months, and God, more than simply acting in my life as always, has SHOWN ME CLEARLY the responses to my prayers, and spoken to me when I haven’t even been expecting a voice. And it’s those times, when I’ve been spoken to outside of prayer and meditation, that were so hard to trust, but they have been proven over and again to be right. That never happened that I can recall before my miscarriage started, that voice “in my ear,” in my soul, and it has worked a (minor?) miracle in me that is still at work in me. So maybe God started you talking to me for a reason.

Pray, put your absolute faith in God that you and your family will be taken care of, that the people performing your surgery will be at their peak performance and will be guided by the Spirit of God in all they do.

 

 

***

Thank you for allowing me to share this part of my journey with you. Please let me know what you think so far and if you want to hear/read more of my story.

If this is the first chapter of my story that you’ve read or listened to, you can catch up by listening to all of the episodes on my YouTube playlist, starting here.

 

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