Tag: miscarriage

INTO THE UNKNOWN

.Reading time 11 minutes.

There’s a saying out there that I’m sure most of us are pretty familiar with. It goes a little like this… “Life begins at the end of your comfort zone.” The man behind this very famous quote is Neale Donald Walsch. Why would he come up with a quote like that? Honestly… I’m not entirely sure I agree with it! Life BEGINS at the end of your comfort zone?! Most of the time it feels like life ends or it starts hanging on by a thread when you enter into the discomfort zone. It definitely doesn’t feel like it begins. I look back at some of the hardest times in my life and it most certainly wasn’t pleasant, enjoyable or even at times “worth living”. And yet this quote intrigues me. What does it really mean?

I open up a browser on my laptop and type in “Neale Donald Walsch… who is he?” Wikipedia pops us. A catholic man on a quest for spiritual truth. Actor, screenwriter, and speaker. I scan the page and stop about half way down. In the early 1990s he suffered a series of crushing blows. A fire destroyed all of his belongings, his marriage fell apart, and a car accident left him with a broken neck. He ended up alone, unemployed and homeless. Living out of a tent, he collected and recycled aluminum cans just so he could eat. It was out of this complete desperation and during this all-time low that he started writing. His first book “Conversations with God” became an international best-seller and remained on the New York Times Bestseller List for 135 weeks! He has since published 28 books, which have been translated into 37 languages. Today he has a net worth of over 52 million.

I pause… wow. I hadn’t quite expected that. I assumed some rich old philosopher had once upon a time come up with this quote because it sounded wise. Felt good. Wrote it down without much thought behind it. And yet the truth behind this quote was actually far from it. 

“Life begins at the end of your comfort zone.” Suddenly the quote takes on a whole new meaning. A man who once lived in a tent, with almost nothing to eat, no friends, no family, no belongings, no comfort… he had been ripped away from comfort and entered into complete discomfort. And yet this very season of discomfort would bring him his greatest success, purpose and triumph. 

I look through the window of my office and stare out through the trees to the bright blue sky above. Not a cloud to be seen. No wind. No movement. Just quiet. Still. Maybe the quote isn’t as far fetched as I once thought. I think back to my hardest days as a teenager. My trafficking days. Days which turned into years, years which I didn’t think would ever end. Trapped in a cycle of addiction, abuse, pain and pure evil. It most certainly didn’t feel like my life had begun. And yet now looking back it’s exactly where it had started. “Life begins at the end of your comfort zone”. It doesn’t say “life get’s good at the end of your comfort zone”. No. It says it begins. It begins because eventually we can look back and realize we’re where we’re at BECAUSE of that beginning. For Mr Walsch his life wasn’t milk and honey, flowers and paradise… so far from it. Homeless, alone, hungry, desperate… THAT’S where his life started. Away from all comfort, everything he knew. It was in THAT moment that he could be used for his full purpose. To his full potential. If his marriage had survived, if his house hadn’t burnt down, if he hadn’t broken his neck… would he have ever gotten to such a place of desperation to where he wrote a number 1 international bestselling book? I’m gonna take a guess and say NO! He needed his comfort to end so that he could start the life he was supposed to live. 

I rub my belly. Baby boy is kicking. I’ll be 26 weeks pregnant this week. Pregnancy has been so tough. I’ve felt awful for most of the last 6 months. There’s been a lot of pain, so much discomfort. Have just felt rough, most days. And yet this miracle… it still leaves me speechless. I think of the journey it’s been. The five years of infertility. All the horrendous procedures, triggering appointments. The miscarriage. Weeks of hospitalization. Having to rebuild my whole body. And yet here I am, 26 weeks pregnant, with a healthy, growing, kicking, baby boy living inside of me. A dream I never thought would come to pass. I’m experiencing the reality of that dream happening right now. Life begins at the end of your comfort zone. The moment I fell pregnant I entered into a whole new season of leaving comfort behind. Again. But I know in a few months time when I’m holding my beautiful baby boy in my arms, it would have all been worth it. Every moment of discomfort. Every moment of pain and exhaustion. 

Had I never been trafficked I would never be doing the job I get to do today. Had I never walked through the different seasons of trials and pain, I wouldn’t know the people I do. I wouldn’t be married to Ryan. I wouldn’t be living in America. I wouldn’t be living this life. I wouldn’t be who I am right now. Comfort looks amazing. And it feels great. But it doesn’t ever push us to leave, or change, get better or try something new. During my most desperate times I’ve seen the most growth. Through the deepest pain I’ve experienced the most profound healing and developed the most real and authentic relationships. Out of my greatest hardships, unbelievable purpose was born. 

It’s scary walking into the unknown. Whether we are pushed into it unexpectedly, walk into it by choice or emergency crash land right into the heart of it… discomfort never feels good. The unknown is scary, unfamiliar, at times lonely and isolating, it can feel unsafe and disconcerting. Many of us run away from it, most do whatever they can to avoid it. Sometimes you can, most of the time you can’t. But even when you can, what opportunities are you missing? And when you can’t, how are we choosing to handle the uncertainty around us? 

When I moved to America 7 years ago I cried on the plane. I was leaving behind all I knew. Family, friends, work, everything familiar, everything I’d ever known… 4000 miles away. I was terrified to start over. Fearful of finding new friends, a whole new community, work. I had married the man I loved but had to leave everything else behind to be with him. Life starts at the end of your comfort zone. 7 years ago I cried thinking I could never build a better life than I already had. I was so wrong. It took being uncomfortable for a while and stepping fully into the unknown to build something bigger and better than I could have ever imagined possible. 

Whatever place you’re in right now. However uncomfortable, unfamiliar, unknown… remind yourself today that the unknown doesn’t last. The emotions don’t stay. The feelings, they pass. I can look back at every single difficult moment I’ve had to walk through and can see something better that was born because of it. There’s a purpose you need to fill, a task you need to accomplish, a dream that can only come to pass by walking into the unknown… by persevering through the pain. Life begins at the end of your comfort zone. Keep going, keep fighting and keep moving forward. 

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.

Firm Foundation

.Reading time 13 minutes.

As I stood on the top deck of our cruise ship, overlooking the Caribbean Sea, the sun had started rising and we glided over the waves without even the slightest movement. 8 ft waves didn’t touch this machine. I could have balanced a cup of coffee on the railing if I’d wanted to. The sky impressively stretched out its arms before me, the colors radiating, penetrating, exhaling saturation with each passing breath. I popped in my AirPods and sank deep into the worship immersing me into this moment even further. Not a bit of land in sight. Not another soul to be seen. As the darkness of the night collided hard with the morning light, I stood on top of this impressively huge ship, spanning almost a quarter of a mile long and breathed in the sea air. A moment I would never forget. Breathing out the hard. The suffering. The pain. A life that had never been easy. And yet a journey that continued to be so worth it. Lifting my arms in total surrender to the God who’d never left my side even when darkness had tried to devour and lies had steered me off course. I looked out to the vastness of the ocean. The power of the waves. The beauty all around me. For a second life felt more settled than it ever had before. A stability had taken root and the foundation had cemented itself firm. 

We had the trip of a lifetime, a vacation neither of us would ever forget. We found a rest we hadn’t realized we’d needed and re-connected deeper as a husband and wife than ever before. But as everyone knows so well, vacation vibes come to an end and as we flew home that Sunday evening in December just a few weeks before Christmas – we hit the ground running. Who knew life was about to get shaken up all over again! 

December 29th, 2022. I felt sick to the pit of my stomach as I handed the pregnancy test to one of my best friends and started the agonizing 3-minute wait. It couldn’t be. It was impossible. Four long years ago we’d started trying for a baby. It was two years into our marriage, and we were ready to start a family. We wanted two kids, preferably a boy and a girl. It was January 2019, and I knew within a few months life would change forever… I was ready. I jumped on Amazon and bought a little baby onesie that said: “Our greatest adventure is about to begin.” I smiled when it arrived and wrapped it up, putting it away in the drawer. That would be Ryan’s gift the day I found out we were pregnant.

Life is never quite that simple. It’s not for me anyway. As one month turned into many months and eventually the months turned into years, the thought of having a family together became a far-fetched hope rather than a once closely held dream. What was wrong? Why can everyone else get pregnant? Why is there always something wrong with ME? Thoughts would plague my mind and lies would take me down. Staring wide-eyed at the infertility leaflets in the hospital, I never thought I’d be the one walking this road. Exploratory surgery revealed nothing, and hundreds of tests later we were still none the wiser. Time had stood still, yet age was creeping forward. 

January 2022. Another fertility session. Another painful procedure. As I laid on the bed, I closed my eyes, body trembling. Hands gripping the edge of the bed. Each session transported me back. Years ago. The abuse was taking place, the men were surrounding my bed. I tried to stay grounded but with each session I could feel myself slipping further away. I couldn’t do it anymore. Life felt out of control. I no longer recognized who I was. I was living more in a state of trauma than I was living in real life. I was done. I had nothing left to give.

It’s one of the hardest conversations I’ve ever had. Trying to explain to your husband that you’re done trying and that something has shifted, and you no longer want this anymore. Watching the heartbreak on his face as his dreams shatter and life harshly rips you apart. For 3 long years we’d had this goal. It’s all we’d really focused on and without realizing, it had become our only intimacy. We’d never stopped long enough to see the real damage we’d been doing or the distance it had unintentionally created between us.

We walked into some of our darkest months. See, you take away the goal, and what’s really left? I’m not a big believer that everything happens for a reason. But I’m a huge believer that everything that happens to us is used for good. As we started re-dreaming, re-connecting, and re-creating a new life for us, we found a depth between us that we hadn’t experienced before. Values were re-ordered and beliefs re-prioritized. A new foundation was built. One that was stronger than ever before. And one that wouldn’t crumble very easily.

December 29th, 2022. The three minutes were over and as I looked all I saw were two fat red lines. I had no words as I stared at the test. A stick I’d peed on so many times. The lines I had wished into existence every day for three years. 9 months ago, my physical therapist had told me I couldn’t get pregnant the way my pelvis was situated. It had been missed by every doctor and gone unnoticed on every test. My body could never have gotten pregnant. Yet here I was. Four years on. Pregnant. 

There are not many times in life where you experience almost every emotion imaginable all at the same time. I went from anger to devastation – I gave up on this dream. I had since built a different life and there was no longer space or room left in it for a baby. Overwhelmed followed by complete shock. I needed an entire day to process the news before I shared it with Ryan the following morning. But when I surprised him with the baby onesie, I had bought exactly four years earlier, and saw my husband’s reaction and every drop of emotion flood out of him, all I could feel was an overwhelming gratefulness and excitement. For the hope which had been lost and the dream which had been buried had been gifted to us after all and who was I to be ungrateful for this unbelievable miracle.  

I take myself back to the ship. Standing on the top deck watching the sunrise as the ocean breeze moves so freely through my hair and over my face. You can’t predict life. Ever. One moment it might feel settled, the next you’re being rushed into surgery and having the very miracle you waited four years for scraped out of your insides. 

The pregnancy lasted almost 10 weeks before my miscarriage started. Doctors identified something was wrong and sent me home expecting the miscarriage to begin within a few days and so I waited for the unknown to start. It’s hard to explain the confusion I have felt surrounding this pregnancy. How do you mourn something you didn’t think you wanted just a few months prior but then feel devasted when it’s taken away? 

The cramping started but very quickly we knew something wasn’t right. As we spent the week in and out of hospital, and I experienced pain like I have never experienced before, I eventually got rushed into surgery on Tuesday morning Feb 7th 2023, and they spent 3 hours scraping everything out of me. 

As I sit on the couch and stare out the window sore and swollen, I feel sad, yet I also feel unbelievably thankful. I experienced something I never thought I would ever get the privilege of experiencing. My body fell pregnant and the impossible happened. But more than that… a buried dream, a hope thrown away – was handed back to us. A little flame reignited. The last two weeks have been anything but easy. You question yourself, wonder what you did wrong, you question God and ask why this had to happen. But as the messages of support come flooding in, I am blown away by the amount of woman who have walked this path. Who have experienced a miscarriage and mourned the loss of a dream which never came into existence. It’s something not spoken about much, shared only within the intimacy of another walking the same hard road.

To some questions we might never know the answer. But I know that the pain I experienced these last few weeks, physically and emotionally, will be used for good. In my own life, in my husband’s life and in the lives of others. This life is never settled. It’s not even very stable. But for the first time I have been able to stand on a foundation which didn’t rock. It was cemented firm. “Though the rain comes in torrents and the floodwaters rise and the winds beat against that house, it won’t collapse because it is built on bedrock.”