Part 3: Life Lessons Learned

Oye....I am the worst blogger ever.  I started this series a couple months ago and never finished.  This is the last post about the experience of my surgery/losing our sweet baby.  This is my favorite part and this post is full of things I think of regularly and hope that I never forget, it is a post about the lessons I learned through the healing process.

Families are forever.  I have always believed this and known it was true, but I now have a testimony of the peace that it brings to our lives.  Knowing that we will be able to see our sweet baby one day after our time on this earth is done is so exciting to me.  It is the only way that it was even possible for me to  cope with the thought of losing a child before even having a chance to hold it in my arms.

Heavenly Father will not give us more than we can handle.  The surgery was on a Thursday.  When the doctor told me everything after coming to, a part of me wanted to cry.  Over the next several days I expected to cry, it's only natural, but I didn't, I couldn't.  Finally, Tuesday night, Brock had gone out on visits with our Bishop and Stake President.  Bishop was aware of what had happened and wanted to stop by our place as their last visit.  Just before they did, I cried for the first time.  When I say cried, I don't mean a little sob.  I mean I wept.  Literally wept.  People talk about crying as a mother for a child, and for the first time in my life, I knew what that meant.  It was the most heart breaking night of my life.
As any human that has cried knows, when you really cry, it uses all your abdominal muscles.  Having just had a major abdominal surgery, filled with stitches and swelling, it would have been excruciatingly painful to cry.  In that moment that I did cry, and to this day, I know that Heavenly Father made me emotionally numb and strong enough to not cry for those first 5 days because my body was literally physically to weak to do so.  While there was still significant physical pain while crying, it was a sweet blessing to feel the emotional pain and to start to heal.  I am so grateful for the personal and real testimony I have of knowing that my Heavenly Father will not give me anything I can't handle and that our Savior will make up the distance of any shortcomings.

Counting blessings instead of sheep.  This comes from one of my favorite Christmas movies...."White Christmas".  Those of you who have been my roommates before, you know that I sleep on my stomach.  Every night.  As soon as I lay down on my tummy, I am out cold for the night.  The funny part about abdominal surgery...you can't sleep on your stomach.  Not only could I not sleep on my stomach, but I also couldn't even get into my own bed so I was sleeping on my back, on the couch, for four weeks.  I slept with my knees bent up and tilted to the left against the back of the sofa since I couldn't straighten my legs out straight without feeling like I was going to tear my stomach open.  Not comfortable at all.  It definitely took me a lot longer to fall asleep than normal due to my position and pain.  The first night was torture because I just laid there and replayed everything that had happened.  I learned quickly that this wouldn't do.
The next night as I lay unable to fall asleep I had the old fashioned thought of counting sheep.  And then I remembered the words to a song from that movie, "If you are tired, and you can't sleep, just count your blessings instead of sheep, and you'll fall asleep counting your blessing."  I am so grateful for that song and the lesson that it taught me.  Even when terrible, hard things happen to you, there  is always a silver lining.  I fell asleep grateful for everything that I had every night rather than laying in the dark forever and falling asleep in self pity and worry.  Even though bad things happen to everybody, we are all still so blessed in the grand scheme of things.

Angels are constantly with us.  The details of this I don't know if I am comfortable posting on my blog because it involves privacy of other people that I love, not just me.  I might be more inclined to give details on a face to face basis, but not here.  But do know that I know, that there were angels with me and Brock through the process, whether it was someone making dinner for us or an angel taking care of our needs on the other side.  There were so many tender mercies through the healing process and I know that angels were a part of them.

I can do hard thing.  This is one of my favorite quotes ever and quickly became my theme for the year after my surgery.  I insisted on rising up from the surgery rather than letting it get me down.  At first, doing a hard thing was walking around the apartment once and sitting back down.  Hard things moved on to giving a talk in Sacrament meeting about this experience, so scary and intimidating, but I knew that it is what the Bishop wanted me to do, so I did it.  I tried running 6 weeks after the surgery and that was the only point where I felt a post postpartum depression might happen (not a joking matter).  I didn't even run .7 miles and I walked most of it and died for the rest of it.  Working out was impossible.  5 weeks after that, I ran .75 miles and made it.  Two months after that, I ran a 5 mile race and finished it, I can do hard things.  I was so proud of myself.  Being healthy is so important to me and to finish that race just 4 months after that surgery showed me that there is nothing that can hold me back when I put my mind to it.

The last thing I want to share that I learned from all of this is how much my sweetheart Brock loves me.  He brought me food on a tray on the couch for two weeks.  He slept on the floor next to me on the couch for the first couple weeks just in case I needed anything in the middle of the night.  One of the hardest things for both of us was that he couldn't even give me hug for two weeks.  He was so sweet and found every other possible way to serve me.  He would even take the space heater into the bathroom a few minutes before I needed to use the toilet so that the seat wouldn't be freezing when I sat on it.  He helped me sit down, stand up, and walk.  He cut every pain pill into smaller pieces so that I could swallow them.  He cleaned the house so that I wouldn't think about lifting a finger.  He never once showed weakness to me because he knew I needed him to be strong.  He didn't force me to talk about the surgery, but was always willing to listen and be a shoulder to cry on when needed.  While we would have absolutely loved for the pregnancy to be normal and end with a healthy baby, we cannot count the ways that our marriage was strengthened as a result of this whole experience.  I love him so much and will never doubt his love for me.

Heavenly Father has a plan for each of us.  There were times when I thought about asking "why did this happen to me?"  But before I could even think the thought, I knew why.  And I still continue to learn why, and I am grateful for it.  It was a terrible surgery that I would not wish on my worst enemy, but I can honestly say I am grateful for the lessons I have learned.  There were so many miracles involved in the process.  So many blessings and so many lessons.  I hope I will never forget the things that I have learned and that I will always trust in the Lord's plan for me.