The Worst Move With Some Great Help

So, I told Jon that having a miscarriage in the middle of moving across the country and then to another country pretty much makes it the worst move ever. There are many thing about this move that have been so complicated--selling a lot of our stuff on Craig's List, Ebay, and a yard sale and doing all the sorting, sorting, and more sorting before that. I did find that it is very freeing to get rid of stuff. I kind of liked that part. I think I'll be much more aware of buying thing and making sure I really need it.

After passing the baby on May 29th, I had some friends come over to help me price things for the yard sale that we were having the next weekend. The day before the yard sale I started running fever and didn't feel too hot. Saturday morning of the yard sale I was still running fever but managed after taking some ibuprofen. My good friend Lauren, came over early in the morning and helped run the yard sale. She sacrificed her whole day and worked my yard sale while I tried to take it easy. Another friend, Kelly, came in the afternoon and I took Isaac to the movies. We figured that sitting in the movie theater was probably going to keep me from doing too much at the yard sale. Our friends, the Corns, took Ewan fishing with them for the day.

I ran a fever from June 5th until June 16th when I ended up in the emergency room because I had some major, major bleeding. I had finally scheduled a sonogram to double check and make sure that there wasn't any tissue left from the pregnancy. Running fever for several days isn't normal and I was convinved that the fever was related to the miscarriage somehow. The fever never got very high until June 13th or 14th. I had already lost a lot of blood the day I passed the baby so I was concerned at losing copious amounts of blood again. I called the midwife on call and she told me to go ahead to the ER. Oh yeah, did I mention that this all happened the day we were loading the moving truck? And did I mention that we hadn't gotten as much done as we needed to because I'd been running fever for so many days? I could manage the fever during the day with Ibuprofen but by the night time I was toast and the fever was back. So, I could do some packing during the day but I was not full of the amount of energy I normally would be. I felt like I needed to monitor the fever so I would know if it was getting above 100.4.

Anyway, the bleeding was so bad that everytime I stood up it was like a faucet of blood leaving my body. I started getting light headed and had a friend take me to the ER. Jon was gone getting the moving truck when I went to the ER. He didn't even know until he got back. Jon's mom somehow managed taking care of all 3 kids, doing some cleaning, and even a little packing.

During this time I was running fever (before the bleeding) Jon is working double time packing, managing kids, and applying for our Visa to England. Holy cow, that was a lot of paperwork that needed to be done. So, so, so many details to be done--I can't even remember all of them now.

While I was in the ER I passed a large something that we think was probably the placenta. The theory is that my body was trying to attack it to get rid of it. After I passed the clot the bleeding slowed down significantly. By the time I got home from the ER I was a little loopy from the blood loss and was told to do nothing but sit on my hind quarters. I enjoyed dinner and took a shower and managed not to do very much Tuesday night. I wasn't supposed to do anything on Wednesday either except save my energy for the plane flight with Graham later that evening. Well, that didn't happen. There was still SOOOOO much left to do because of all my stupid health complications that I HAD to help finish packing. Jon's mom did pretty much all the cleaning, except for our bedroom, which I did. Somehow, by God's grace alone we got mostly everything done that day. Jon dropped Graham and I off at the airport on Wednesday night and because of severe weather, I had to get rebooked on a flight at 6am the next morning. Jon came back to the airport and picked me up and we all stayed up until midnight cleaning and finishing all those final details of packing. Then it was up at 4am to get ready for the airport. Jon, his parents, and the two older boys were heading out laterthat morning in the moving truck and our Honda.

Thankfully and seriously, the easiest thing about this whole moving experience was that plane flight with Graham. He did very well and I was able to keep him entertained. Neither of our planes were full so he had plenty of room to run around and could sit in the seat next to me.

We had a LOT of help from our friends. I had friends bring over meals after we passed the baby (which by the way we named Keeva (Gaelic for Beloved) and we had a little family burial service for the baby too), friends come and help do some packing, run the yard sale, price yard sale items, pray for me, take the boys, or come over and entertain them while we got work done. We could not have successfully made this move if we didn't have the help of our community. Thank you to all of you who were persistant in asking if I needed help, offering your time, resources, and food. We truly needed it. God provided everything we needed just in time.

I was so thankful to finally get to Texas because the hardest part was over. At the same time, I feel the most emotionally disconnected from how I'm feeling about this whole experience. I haven't had very much time to emotionally process the loss of the baby or moving away from some very good friends. Everything was such a rush to get out of the house and make our moving schedule happen on time that I didn't even have a moment to stop and say goodbye to our house, our neighborhood, and our community.

I'm finishing this blog post several days after I started it.  I went back to the ER this past Wednesday after passing out at a church event.  I whacked my head when I fell and my nexk hurt.  I had about an hour of heavy bleeding earlier that morning and don't think I drank enough fluids to cope with the blood loss.  With the heat I just passed out.  At the ER I got a CT scan to make sure there was no brain injury or broken neck.  They also did blood work to check my blood count, which was lower than the previous week.  Basically, I'm working at 60% of my blood volume and need to take it easy so my body can heal.  That is pretty hard to do and not feel guilty about it all the live long day. So, I do more than I should which at this point isn't working out so well.  

Jon just took Graham to the ER after he fell off the kitchen counter.  Someone should have been closer by, but turned around for a second and off he fell.  They are waiting to be seen right now as I type.  I am beginning to think that our family is under spiritual attack.  Jon is scheduled to be ordained in a little over 2 weeks and I'm wondering if the enemy is not liking that too much.  I am asking all my friends and family out there, who read this and who pray, to pray for our family.  We need the protection of the Lord during this time.