Tag: abuse

Just a Moment

.Reading time 11 minutes.

My whole life I’ve learned that the whole of life can change in an instant. All it takes is a second. It’s one decision. One poor choice. One perfect moment. It’s meeting someone unexpected. Bumping into a human who will change the course of the rest of your life. It’s trusting a man who you should never have said hello to. Taking a walk with a stranger. Electing to walk home alone sober rather than wait for your drunken friends. Saying yes to going for a coffee with someone you hardly know. It’s getting sick. It’s deciding to persevere and keep going despite the odds. Life… it’s filled with so many “moments” and it’s steered us to where we are in this very moment. 

My 7-week old baby lies against my chest. Fast asleep. He breathes deep, occasionally twitching, smiling, grunting and then peace and quiet returns. His rhythmic breathing pushing down against me feels so calming. They say skin to skin regulates a baby, but honestly I think it regulates me just as much. I feel utterly exhausted. Seven weeks of barely any sleep. Husband working non-stop, including weekends as he finishes work-ups for deployment. They say parenting can be lonely, well this week I’ve really felt that for the first time. But despite the loneliness and the sleep deprivation and the deep urge for some of my old life to return… I wouldn’t change any of it. This “moment”, this moment right here has been one I have prayed for and hoped for and longed for – more than anything else in my entire life. The moment Asher was born my heart split open in a way I NEVER knew was possible. Yes, people have always told me about this love that is unexplainable. But let’s be real for a second… unless you actually experience it for yourself, you’re never going to even slightly understand what they’re talking about. And then Asher happened. And suddenly everything I’d ever heard anyone say about this love, this feeling, this moment… just like that, it all made sense. 

I look at his perfect little face. His long eye lashes. The little hairs on his head. His tiny lips. This moment… this boy… this miracle… every other moment in my life had to happen for THIS monumental moment to come to pass. Overwhelming feelings and emotions start to build up as I see snapshots of my entire life flash before me. Me as a young child, my family, my siblings, my parents. I remember happiness and light. Vacations and trips. School, sport, homework, friends. And then I see my 12-year-old self standing in that shower for hours trying to wash off the innocence that man had taken from her. An event that would change everything forever. I see the bright young girl fade away slowly, piece by piece. I see her find alcohol as a comfort until it no longer comforts enough. I see the instant drugs are introduced, the wrong friends are welcomed in and then the eye contact made between her and her trafficker. One moment. It’s all it took. I see decisions that took away the chance to go to the olympics. I see so much pain and torture and hurt that young girl had to walk through, all because she sought validation from a man who would almost completely ruin her. I see instances where she completely gave up but thankfully others stepped in, moments where her life almost ended so many times. I watch hope unfold only to be dashed all over again. Anger, hurt, pain… they fill so many pockets of years of moments, and yet so many periods of joy and success are sprinkled throughout. I see her meet her husband, and smile as one of her greatest miracles unfolds. I watch many more hard years transpire as they start trying for a child, only to be met by unimaginable disappointment month after month, which eventually turns into year after year. I watch her finally find out she’s pregnant, only to experience a horrendous miscarriage just a few months later. I see the tears. I see her begging God to save the child they waited for so long. I see her crumble to her knees when she realizes that miracle won’t survive. I watch her go through surgery to remove the very gift they had prayed for and then I watch the agonizing months that follow as she fights for her life from a hospital bed. 

So many moments. Too many to recall. Too many to write down. And yet each one had to happen for me to end up right here. I look down at his perfect little face… I would re-live all of it in a heartbeat for him. 

As I sit in my rocking chair, Asher remains fast asleep against my chest. I should put him down for a proper nap, but right now I don’t care. Five and a half years of waiting for him, I’m going to soak up every little moment I can. Because that’s all it is. They’re moments. The moments of him being this tiny will be gone before I know it. The moments of feeling isolated and lonely will pass. The sleep deprivation won’t last. These precious and incredibly intimate moments I get to experience with my son during the deep hours of the night, will soon be just a fleeting memory. Just like everything else… it doesn’t last. 

Each moment gets us to where we are today. But we have to remember, they are only moments. I’ve walked through seasons that have felt like I literally lived in hell. And now I feel like there are times where my life couldn’t be better in any way. MOMENTS. They shift and they mold, they’re moving and adjusting constantly. 

A few weeks ago after being discharged from the hospital with Asher, I ended up right back in the hospital a week later. A postpartum infection… but within days my crazy, unknown, undiagnosed autoimmune ‘thing’ started attacking my body again. Everything inside of me wanted to go into straight panic. Last year this thing almost killed me. This year I have a son. I have a baby who is fully dependent on me. When my oxygen started dropping and I lost the ability to walk again… I can’t explain the fear that wanted to take over my entire mind. My heart had exploded open with love in a way I had never experienced before. But with that came an unimaginable protection for this little boy. I couldn’t go through this again. And as I lay in the ICU, staring at my beautiful, helpless, innocent little baby, I made a decision that this was also just going to be a “moment” and it would pass. I knew deep down that my journey to becoming a mom was not ending with Asher being just a few days old.

Life… the whole of life… it’s made up of moments. Every single one of us is walking through something right now. Whether it’s good, bad, great, awful, incredible or impossible. We’ve all experienced a little of all of it. Today I want to encourage you that if it’s hard, if it’s painful, if it seems never-ending… it will end. It will change. Moments can seem like an eternity but in a blink of an eye – it’s gone. It’s over. Finished. 

I never thought there was a whole life waiting for me beyond the prison walls of my past. And though there have continued to be heartaches and seasons of grief, intense hardships and enormous tragedy, I have encountered breathtaking epiphanies in the midst of it all. In the moments of stillness I see the incredible beauty that’s been able to emerge from the chaos and the tears. Moments, that without the impossible, would have never led me to my present right here. So whatever it is… keep going. Keep moving. Keep believing. Because life can change in an instant and you don’t want to miss the moment it happens. 

TODAY

.Reading time 12 minutes.

Today is a strange day. Honestly, it’s been a strange week. TODAY… Sunday September 3rd 2023 was my due date. Due to give birth to a miracle. A beautiful baby. I’m supposed to be huge, ready to pop, and life should be on the verge of changing forever. I didn’t think I’d ever get the privilege of being a mom to my own child. I almost was. And then I wasn’t. In the 9 months that have passed since finding out I was pregnant so much has happened. It’s been a year I will always remember yet in so many ways wish I could forget. This last week a friend and a colleague went through exactly what I did. Found out she was pregnant, miscarried and ended up going through surgery. You think you’re past the emotions. Dealt with the grief, the disappointment, and the pain. And then out of nowhere it’s back and it’s raw. You’ve ripped the scab off the wound and it’s bleeding all over again.

Instead of finishing up the baby room I’m out training. Today’s early session is a bike, run, bike, run. It’s less than 3 weeks until my triathlon. This session is intense. My legs are burning, heart is racing and the sweat dripping in my eyes is making it hard to see. I feel sad. The void of what should have been echoes loudly each time my feet hit the ground. Why does it always have to be so hard? Nothing has ever been simple. And it’s been far from easy. 

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I’ve transitioned back to my bike for round two. Holding an 18mph the wind races past me and I’m thankful for the perfect training temperature right now. It’s been a tough summer of training with the heat and humidity. It didn’t seem to matter if it was 6am or 3pm, the heat has been suffocating and the humidity has made running and biking ridiculously tough! I shift in my saddle. Hamstrings are burning. I smile… my physical therapists would be proud right now. A year ago I couldn’t even get my hamstrings on. 

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I look straight ahead, the perfect blue sky hangs lightly above, trees tower up on either side and the water glistens through. All I can hear is the wind and the birds. I want the sadness to lift. The heaviness to drop off. It’s been weighing me down all week. It’s just a date. Today doesn’t have to be a representation of what should have been. It can represent “what is” instead. What can today portray? I’m distracted by my burning hamstrings. They’re really on fire right now! I think back to when I started physical therapy. 16 months ago I walked into Thrive oblivious to how one place and the people within it would change my life forever. I was so broken. Physically and mentally. Injured, hurting, desperately hopeless and on the verge of giving up on life completely, I walked in and was met by an overwhelming sense of love, understanding, patience and care. Who knew back then that those very people would become some of my absolute closest friends. 

They started working on my body and some things finally started to make sense. All the years of trying for a baby, the treatments I’d gone through, exploratory surgery, the endless procedures… The list goes on. My physical therapist told me I could never have fallen pregnant because my pelvis was rotated the wrong way and half my body wasn’t functioning as it should! Years of abuse takes its toll on a body and I had a long road to recovery but I was finally in a place where healing could start to take place. The mental healing which started happening alongside the physical healing was something I could never have imagined. Turns out, when they started working on my body, a lot of the trauma started releasing too. I started being able to sleep again, the headaches lifted, the nightmares stopped, the deep fog I had been living in for months started lifting and I felt my old self slowly re-emerge. 

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I continue biking. Sweat dripping from my face. Right, left, right, left. Suddenly the burning hamstrings are no longer an inconvience. They are a momentous reminder of the bad that turned into good. Exercise and sport is what has kept me going for most of my life. It’s my therapy, the way I deal and process everything I’ve gone through and continue to walk through. When the constant injuries started I didn’t know how to exist and keep all the emotions and restlessness at bay. I smile at the realization that it was those very injuries that led me to Thrive which not only opened the door to a whole new community of family and friendships, but it would be the very place that would start healing a lot of my body both physically and mentally.

Yes, today represents what should have been. What could have been if pain and hardships didn’t exist. Today there have been tears. Tears for the loss, the grief, the dreams that shattered and the yearnings fractured. And yet, in so many ways today also represents hope and thankfulness. 

If I’d never gone through all those injuries, I would never have found Thrive. If I’d never walked through the doors of Thrive, I would never have found a new level of healing for my body and find the physical therapist who would actually understand my body in a way not many others ever could and no one else ever has. I also met one of my best friends Brittany through Thrive. She happened to be training for a triathlon. The day she was supposed to do her triathlon, a storm came through and despite months of training she wasn’t able to do her triathlon. Crying on the phone to me that day, my heart broke for her, and I said we would train together and I would do the next triathlon with her. The insane training for an Olympic distance triathlon and building up cardio levels to a whole new extreme is what ended up saving my life in hospital 8 months later. The miscarriage? Yes, it was horrendous and unbelievably painful. It was also what caused me be in hospital for 6 weeks fighting for my life. And yet, I actually fell pregnant. Something that had once been impossible had actually happened.

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I lift my bike back onto the bike rack and start running. The final leg of my training session. The right side of my body is cramping. My legs feel like they can’t move anymore. Right, left, right, left. Just keep running. “You’ve got this”, I tell myself. Less than five months ago I was lying in a hospital bed, had lost 18 lbs of muscle and couldn’t walk more than a few feet without my oxygen bottoming out. Today, I’m back training 10+ times a week and achieving what the doctors had told me would be impossible. 

I think back to every moment that has gotten me to this very place. Every tear shed, every pain endured, the lowest moments, the anguish, the desperation, the not seeing a way out, the voices inside telling me to give up, not feeling like I could take another step. Man, there have been more moments than I could ever attempt to say out loud or write down. And yet every single moment has had its purpose. And every single bit of darkness has pushed me into a light so bright I have to squint to take it in or see it for what it really is. God has used everything. Not just some things. Everything. Even other people’s darkness. 

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Today is going to represent hope. Hope that the impossible happened. Hope that I’m alive and breathing and here to continue experiencing this life. Hope that my life will continue to be a miracle. And hope that I will be able to help many others along the way. 

As I finish out my run, the sweat burning in my eyes, I’m thankful for all the dark times that have catapulted me into this very moment. The pain is real and the darkness can be dark. The tears today will come and go. But that’s ok. Because ultimately I have gained more than I have ever lost and I have found a depth to this life I otherwise could have never possessed. Today. Today I choose to represent hope.