Helpful hints for dealing

On the heels of my "Words" post, I got to thinking about what was and wasn't helpful (both words and actions) during my miscarriage, that happened exactly two months ago today. Before I had mine I knew a few women who had one, but up until our good friends had one weeks before us it hadn't hit anyone super close to me and I didn't really know how to "deal with" those who had one. I've read similar blog posts about how to treat someone who has lost a child, how to talk to a family with children via adoption, how to best help someone who has cancer, and most recently a post like this from a Blogger I read who also had a miscarriage. All of these posts have been extremely beneficial for me to read, as I didn't know that the words I was using or the actions I was (or wasn't!) doing were potentially hurtful and not helpful in someone else's tragic situation - the last thing a well intentioned person wants.

Here are my thoughts, and just MY thoughts, on what was and wasn't helpful for me during our hard time. This may not be the case for all women who are part of this "club", but such was the case for me. I hope this doesn't come across as harsh or anything, and the reason I have this list is because most people in my life did the DO's and not the DONT's during my hard time - I am so lucky!
First of all, know that it’s OKAY to not know what to say! You can say just that. “I’m so sorry, friend. I don’t know what to say. I hate that this is happening to you and I wish I could make it better.”

• Do say "I'm sorry for your loss" because that's exactly what it is - a loss. 
• Don't speculate (especially aloud!) as to why it happened, as if it were a disease, horrible medical condition, or something that could have been helped.

• Do send texts and emails and leave messages. I can't tell you how much it meant to have people checking in via text to say "I love you and am thinking about you."
• Don't expect those calls, texts, and emails to be returned right away, but know they are much appreciated. Checking in is good, but give the person some time and space to grieve and they will get back to you when ready.

• Do send a card. We got a flurry of cards in the mail right after it happened and people started to find out, and reading each one (especially from people I least expected it from!) made me feel so loved and brought a smile to my face. The fact that people took the time to write, address, and stamp a letter to mail meant a lot. It will certainly make me better at sending cards to those experiencing tragedy as I know how much it helped me!
• Maybe even send flowers - I got four bouquets and let me tell you, they brightened my house up and brought such joy in time of sorrow.
• Don't ask "how are you doing" in the few days following the loss because the real answer is "crappy" which no one actually says, and it takes effort to make up a response other than "fine".

• Do offer to bring a meal, if you want. My mom brought over a meal and it was so nice not to have to worry about cooking or have to eat frozen pizza, but to have the comfort of a nice meal. Offering up help in any way was so appreciated, and we had many offers from friends who wanted to bring ice cream, wine, clean our house, etc. We didn't really take anyone up on it but just knowing my friends and family cared that much and offered their time and help was an awesome feeling.
• Don't say (at least not right away) "You'll have another one" because you don't 100% know that, and it minimizes the current loss. Getting pregnant isn't easy, and immediately after the loss isn't the time to think or talk about the trying again.

• Do offer up success stories of pregnancy after miscarriage, when you feel the person is ready to receive it (and this depends on the person if they want to hear it). I had many people tell me about their or someone they knew's pregnancy success after loss and though every story is different, hearing those gave me hope.
• Don't say "I know how you feel" unless you've also had a miscarriage. Even if you've lost a close family member, this kind of loss is different than any I've experienced so though you can sympathize, don't try to empathize unless you, too, are a part of the "club".

• Do be a listening ear if the person wants to talk, but
• Don't ask too many questions. Sometimes it was really helpful to talk about it, but when I wanted to be done talking about it, I wanted to be done talking about it.

• Do offer up distraction when the person is ready - dinner out, a movie, shopping, something to get their mind off of things and get them out of the house.
• Don't bring the person somewhere where there are a lot of babies or pregnant women. Now I know that's hard because they are everywhere! I avoided Target for a few weeks because it was filled with expectant moms, but I'm just saying don't take the person to a park, for instance. :)

• Do know that the person loves your babies and kids and in any normal circumstance, loves hearing about them, but immediately after a miscarriage may not be the best time to tell a cute anecdote about Junior. And this next one is really hard, but...
• Tread lightly in talking about your pregnancy if you are currently pregnant and have a friend who loses a baby - at least for a few days. This was tough for me because I had a few friends who were pregnant at the time I had my miscarriage. While I was happy for them before our loss and was still happy for them after, hearing about their pregnancy in the few days following our loss would have been really hard. Luckily, my friends are very sensitive and tactful, and no one did that. :)
• Do understand that the person may not get over it right away or in the time that society thinks they should. There isn't a well known statistic that say "4-6 weeks is the average grieving time for miscarriage" because, well, there isn't a timeline for that. Everyone else around may forget about it, but the person it happened to has a hard time "just getting over it". Even though it's now been two months since mine, I still have hard days and certain things still trigger emotions from the loss.
• Lastly, and perhaps most important is Do pray for the person and their spouse and let them know you are doing so. Hearing from friends (even still!) that they were praying for me was such a blessing, as sometimes I didn't have the words to say myself, so knowing someone was interceding for me was awesome. Prayer us powerful and a HUGE part of the reason I'm doing as well as I am - God's healing power through my loved ones praying for me. I don't know how I would have gotten through this with those prayers covering me.

Anyway, as I've said recently, things are getting better day by day and I am excited (though a little anxious and nervous) to try again. I just happened to read another post like this the other day and came up with some thoughts of my own that may or may not be helpful to others. If anything, it's good for me to have it written down so that I know how to help anyone else who joins this "club", though I pray no one else close to me has to!

Lessons learned from a door

So last weekend we tackled THE DOOR project, and I learned so much more than just how to paint a door....

We we had NO idea what we were getting ourselves into! Our front door is a nice quality solid cherry wood with decorative glass in the middle, but the outside is all weather warped and looked pretty bad. We thought of sanding and restaining it, but after out neighbors painted their door a cheery bright red, we decided color was the way to go! We toyed with the idea of red, yellow, orange, green and blue and got samples for each color family, easily weeding out most colors. We eventually landed on the "teal" color family and I hit up Menards, Home Depot, Hirschfields, and Sherwin-Williams to get every sample of that color they had. I spent many hours cutting and taping the little paint squares into bigger square and taped those to the door, where they sat for a week while I deliberated on the colors. I posted a picture on Facebook asking for opinions as I just couldn't make up my mind! This past Saturday was the day we had free to start painting, so I had to make a choice and picked color #1 - Joyful Tears (foreshadowing, perhaps?!).

This is the only "before" photo I have of the door - as you can kind of see, worn looking wood and mismatched handle and lock - in lovely 80's brass!

We took a two day approach with Tyge sanding, wood putty-ing deep scratches, and priming the door on Saturday before our evening plans, then finishing up with the 3-4 coats of paint on Sunday after church.

My task was to ORB (oil rub bronze spray paint) the brass door handle and deadbolt, the storm door handles, the adjacent garage door handle and deadbolt, and the doorbell. I had the easy job, right? Wrong. As detailed oriented as I am, you'd think I would make a fantastic spray painter but I do not. I don't have the patience for several thin, even coats so sprayed it at close range and covered the things. They were globby and drippy, and dried even worse. Seriously, it was bad (in my eyes at the time anyway). So not only were the knobs we took off horribly done, but the once we left on were even worse! Left ON, you say? Yes, because they were too hard to take off, we left the storm door handles and garage door knobs on the doors and I just taped around them. BIG mistake. The spray paint leaked through the tape and surrounding paper, so I was left with spots of paint to clean up with mineral spirits and a Q-tip, which didn't quite do the trick.

Nice.

Tyge did SUCH a good job on the door itself that I was embarrassed to ruin it with my horrible handles. He didn't care in the least and never once made a crack about the job I did or made me feel bad. However, I felt so stupid and let that self pity affect my mood and way I acted that day. I let it get to me that the job I did wasn't "perfect" and let my anger and frustration seep out into the way I treated even Tyge. I was short, flustered, snippy, and all around not-so-nice. The worst part is, I didn't fully even realize I was being this was until Monday night, when Tyge and I were reading from the book Love and Respect by Dr. Emerson Eggerichs for one of our couples Bible Studies.

I was reading aloud for the two us us from Chapter 2, aptly title "To Communicate, Decipher the Code", and there were some great points in there. The whole premise of the book is how husbands are biblically commanded to LOVE their wives, and wives are biblically commanded to RESPECT their husbands, as Paul says in Ephesians 5:33, "However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband."

My jaw dropped, my voice got a bit shaky, and I had a gigantic AHA! moment when I came to page 36. Emerson explains that God tells the husband he must love (agape) his wife unconditionally and she must respect him, regardless of if he is loving to her. However through his study of the verse over the years, he came to realize that the Lord never commands the wife to agape love her husband - this is because the Lord created a woman to love. He created her to nurture, be sensitive, loving, and compassionate, all as part of her nature. Basically, God designed the woman to love, so has no need to command her to agape love her husband.

Next Emerson skips to Titus 2:4 which tells the older women to "urge the younger women to love their husbands and children", but not in an agape way. In Titus he uses the Greek word phileo, which means a human, brotherly kind of love. His point is, a young wife is created to agape love her husband and children - she is created to never stop unconditionally loving them. (Here's where my AHA! moment came) However, Emerson decodes this verse and explains that "in the daily wear and tear of life, a wife is in danger of becoming discouraged - so much so that she may lack phileo. A kind of impatient unfriendliness can come over her (who, me?!). She may scold and sigh way too much (was he AT my house last weekend?!). After all, there is always something or someone who needs correcting or fixing (HE IS TALKING RIGHT TO ME). She cares deeply (I do). Her motives are filled with agape but her methods may lack phileo."

Wow - talk about God speaking directly to me. On any other day, those verses and that teaching may just have been a nice lesson, but last weekend it hit my like a ton of bricks.

So the door turned out amazing, I learned a Godly lesson, Tyge still loves me, and all is well.

Keely thinks so too.

Moral of the Story = Home Depot can solve any problem (I bought all new ORB fixtures with the blessing of my ever patient husband, and some gift cards I won at work).

REAL Moral of the Story = When I am struggling or mad at myself, I need to be honest and admit that to my husband, asking for (and be open to receiving!) a little extra love. I can't sulk in silence and let it affect the way I treat him, but rather I need to practice the phileo love that takes work, in addition to the agape love that God created in me to come naturally.

I have the most patient and loving husband in the world.

Silver lining

Everyone who knows I've experienced a miscarriage says things like, "everything happens for a reason", "trust in God's timing", and other positive messages. While I fully believe these statements to be true, it was hard to believe at first when I was concentrating on the hurt my heart felt at the loss.

Thankfully I am in a much better place now thanks to the prayers of many, the love and support of friends and family, God's healing power, some great quality time alone with the hubby, and time. While sometimes I still get sad that I'm no longer pregnant (this morning would have been my first Doctor's appointment), I've decided now to focus on the bright side, the silver lining, the things I can do because I'm not pregnant just yet.

I can diet and work out a bit harder to lose that pesky 10 pounds I wanted to before getting pregnant!

I can drink real caffeinated coffee, including my fall favorite Pumpkin Spice Latte. (In the 2 weeks I skipped it I experienced severe withdrawal headaches. I'm going to have a problem with that...oops!)

I can eat sushi! Will have to make a trip to Wasabi for lunch next week...

I can save a bit more money for the future "baby fund" - babies are expensive, yo!

I could tour breweries and wineries in CO this past weekend and enjoy the free samples!

And the following thoughtful message I received from a DG sorority sister sums it up quite perfectly: The best advise that I received is to use this extra little time to really enjoy the fun that is being alone with your spouse, before pregnancy and baby change your world. Go out on dates often, stay out late, drink wine and act a little wild. You have your whole life ahead of you to be a parent, but this is the only time in your life that you and your husband can truly be young, fun and crazy. Concentrate on that, not just on getting pregnant again, and it will happen all on it's own, the fun way.

Well that is some of the best advice I'VE received as well - I'm so grateful she passed it along. Tyge and I have a free Saturday this weekend (shock!) and I'm already looking forward to a possible date night! I may even have a little wine. :)