Tag: stillbirth

Spirit, Lead me…

On By katiemeffordLeave a comment

I was cooking dinner in the kitchen tonight and told Alexa to play some praise and worship music. Truth be told, I was in a bit of a funk and needed Jesus to snap me out of it.

A few songs in “Oceans” by Hillsong United came on. Of course, a familiar song, I hummed along as I stirred the ground beef in the skillet for tacos. Towards the end of the song, there are a few lines that are repeated several times…

…Spirit, lead me where my trust is without borders
Let me walk upon the waters
Wherever You would call me

Take me deeper than my feet could ever wander
And my faith will be made stronger
In the presence of my Savior…

Oceans by Hillsong United

I found myself singing those words and my eyes welling with tears. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard this song and prayed that prayer and just today I realized that He has done just that over the last few years….He continues to do so.

The difference is that when I prayed that song in worship before, I prayed it thinking and hoping that the road would be easy. In my prayer I imagined being someone who spent time with God daily, never wrestled with doubt, never asked God “Where are You? Do You even hear me? Do You remember me?” and certainly never got angry with God for the hand she was dealt. I prayed that the Lord would lead me where my trust was without borders but preferred if that area was safely and squarely in the middle of my comfort zone and picture perfect plan for my life.

But the truth is this road has been anything but easy. Losing my son has been devastating. Grieving has been all-consuming. Infertility has been exhausting. The last two and a half years have taken my faith and rattled it to it’s core.

When we were in the hospital just after Ollie was born, a sweet friend and mentor told Andrew and I some of the best advice I’ve received in this whole journey. She said “It’s okay to be angry at God. He can handle it. Just don’t turn your back on Him. You can yell at him, scream at him, and shake your fist as Him but at the end of it all, when your screams turn into tears, collapse in His arms and rest.” I had no idea in that moment that all of those things would come to pass. I would be so angry with God I couldn’t see straight, I would yell at Him while parked in a dark cemetery at night, I would give Him the silent treatment and go weeks without uttering even the simplest prayer.

But through it all, the Lord has been so sweet and patient to answer that prayer even in the midst of heartbreak. He has taken me deeper than my feet would’ve ever wandered alone. I probably would’ve chickened out about the time those waves started tickling my knees but He drew me deeper. What other choice did I have when my son’s heart stopped beating than to follow Him still? What choice do I have but to continue following Him through the waves of grief and the storm of infertility? He alone is the one who has sustained me when all I’ve wanted to do was crawl in the grave right beside Ollie’s casket since the day of his funeral end every day after. He alone picks my head up when a wave of grief has me pinned to the floor. He alone heals my heart and restores my soul when month after month, the pregnancy test still reads negative.

And so, one of my favorite quotes still rings true…

“I have learned to kiss the wave that throws me against the Rock of Ages.”

Charles Spurgeon

Hallelujah, even here.

-Katie

When God Doesn’t Feel Near

On By katiemefford3 Comments

Yesterday I yelled at God.

I didn’t intend for that to happen, but grief caught up with me.

After work, I went to Target hoping to spend a gift card I’d received for my birthday. The first thing I saw when I walked in was the most perfect little antique blue tinsel Christmas tree in the dollar spot. I’ve been keeping my eyes open for a little tree to put by Ollie’s grave for the Christmas season. It was the only one left so I grabbed it and headed towards the Christmas section.

I’d seen a Christmas ornament posted in one of the pregnancy loss facebook groups I’m in that I knew I wanted to find for our tree this year. It’s a perfect little felt ornament of a baby wrapped in a white blanket with gold stars and a little knit white hat that said “2019” on it. I found two of them left so decided to snag both, one for our tree and one for Ollie’s. Decoration! Of course, I needed to find some ornaments for Ollie’s little tree. Since it’ll be outside in the weather, I picked out a little three dollar box of cheap plastic ornaments made specifically for their miniature trees, and then found a cute little star to put on top.

That’s when it hit me. I was standing in Target picking out Ollie’s first Christmas tree but it was not what I’d hoped it’d be. This Christmas, I was supposed to be three weeks out from my due date with Ollie James still rolling around in my belly but instead, I was preparing for Christmas by picking out decorations for his grave. I could feel that little prick of grief starting and tears coming to my eyes. I let a few tears slide down my cheek then forced myself to get it together until I got to my car.

The cashier was a sweet older woman who instantly realized I was making a little Christmas tree for a baby boy. She talked about how cute the little tree was and how sweet the ornaments were. She had no idea that the tree was for my stillborn son. How could she? It’s not supposed to be this way. I just nodded, made polite conversation and hurried through checking out and towards the car.

I hadn’t even made it out of the Target parking lot before the tears came and I knew this was about to be a big wave of grief. I steered the car towards the cemetery and drove tears streaming down my face the whole way there. About five minutes out, a song that’s made me cry on multiple occasions came on the radio and the tears turned to sobs. It’s a newer country song by Luke Combs called “Even though I’m Leavin” and the chorus gets me every single time.

Just ’cause I’m leavin’
It don’t mean that I won’t be right by your side
When you need me
And you can’t see me in the middle of the night
Just close your eyes and say a prayer
It’s okay, I know you’re scared when I’m not here
But I’ll always be right there
Even though I’m leavin’, I ain’t goin’ nowhere

Luke Combs – “Even Though I’m Leavin”

I pulled into the cemetery and it was already dark out. Since I was by myself, I just pulled up to the section Ollie is buried in, put the car in park, turned off the radio and locked the doors.

I let the grief take over because it’s the only way to make it through it. Sometimes you can force it to wait a few minutes until you’re alone but you cannot stop it. The only way through grief is to face it head on or it just makes an even bigger mess. So I let the wave of grief hit me full force. I cried and closed my eyes hoping to feel God or Ollie close by, but I didn’t feel it. In that moment, I felt so alone. Being raised in church, the verse about God being near to the brokenhearted ran through my mind. Someone told me not long after we left the hospital to turn to God when I’m angry because He can handle all my emotions. They said to yell at Him, scream at Him, bang on His chest and tell Him how mad I was but at the end of it all, to fall into His arms and rest.

So I let God have it.

For the first time since losing Ollie, I physically yelled through sobs. Oh sure, there were many times I had prayed through tears, but this was different. I was ANGRY. I was angry that visiting my son meant visiting a cemetery. I was angry that a lifetime of hopes and dreams had to be squeezed into three days in the hospital. I never got to hear him cry or see him smile. I never got to bring him home to his nursery Andrew and I had begun preparing. I was angry that I had learned the lesson that getting pregnant does not guarantee that you will walk out of the hospital with a happy healthy baby in your arms nine months later.

When the wave of grief started to recede, I felt the anger turn back to sadness. I asked God to have mercy on me and for the love of all things holy, to just give us a break. I didn’t know how much more I could take. I slowly gathered myself and gave myself a few minutes to stop shaking so I could drive home safely.

I wish I could say that I felt God’s nearness last night but the truth is I didn’t. It’s not that He wasn’t there, because I know He was. I believe all those verses you learn in church growing up and hymns that you sang over and over until you could sing them backwards in your sleep were made for seasons of life like this. When grief has you so blinded that you can’t see anything, including God, those verses come to mind to remind your head of what your heart already knows: God is near. Even when I don’t feel Him, He’s there. Even when I yell and scream and throw a fit telling Him how my plan would have been much better than His plan, He doesn’t turn His back on me. He holds me while I scream and allows me to collapse into His arms and rest. After all, He too knows the pain of having a child die.

The LORD is close to the brokenhearted; he rescues those whose spirits are crushed. -Psalm 34:18

When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you. – Isaiah 43:2

Grieving when life moves forward…

On By katiemefford1 Comment

It’s been one month since we laid our baby boy’s earthly body to rest in a cemetery just a few minutes up the road from us. On one hand, life seems to have rushed forward after we left the grave that day, and on the other, I still feel frozen in time, standing at the foot of Ollie’s freshly dug grave.

My mother has told me several times throughout tough seasons of grief, whether mine or that of someone close to me, that one of the hardest parts of grief is that the world moves on when your world seems to have come to a screeching halt. I’m not sure I understood that until Ollie but now it’s crystal clear.

In the days and weeks since Ollie passed, life never once slowed down outside of us. Countless times I have become frustrated and upset that the world….that God…..didn’t seem to “give us a break”. The past year or so before we lost Ollie was a hard one. Layoffs, car repairs, a totaled car, more car repairs and so many more moments of “Really, God? Can’t we catch a break?”…and then we lost Ollie. Somewhere in all of that, I figured we’d catch a break now. We’d lost the thing we wanted most, our son, so now, nothing else would happen for a while. Funny enough, we came home from the hospital after having said our goodbyes to Ollie and walked into a fridge that had somehow been left cracked open and all our food inside of it had gone bad. I remember making a joke about how God had a cruel sense of humor as we threw a fridge full of food away and ordered a pizza. I regret those words now but in the moment, that’s how I felt….that I had done something to anger God and now He was sitting in a cloud somewhere zapping us with hit after hit in order to punish us.

It wasn’t until I verbalized these thoughts out loud to my therapist that I realized how wrong I was. I told her that I kept wondering “How stubborn was I being that God had to take my son away to get a point across?” She paused briefly and said something along the lines of “Katie… That doesn’t sound very much like the God we serve, does it? ” and she was right. It’s not supposed to be this way. God didn’t design this world and speak it into existence with pain, suffering and death in mind. Sin brought those things into our world and it pains him every single time one of His children is hurt by it. It hurt His heart when Ollie died. He has grieved with us and walked along side us in this journey.

This morning in church, I had a realization that has further driven that point home for me. We were singing a song I’ve heard several times, “Resurrecting” by Elevation Worship. There’s a line towards the end of the song that says “Our God has robbed the grave”. Now, growing up in church, I’ve heard that phrase several times too in reference to our Jesus that rose on the third day and defied death. In that moment though, I was thinking of Ollie and realized….Jesus robbed Ollie’s grave too. He took away death’s final say in Ollie’s life and in mine.

Death says “You will never see Ollie again.” but GOD says “You will see your boy again, perfect, healed and whole.”

HALLELUJAH! Death does not have the last word here.

While it is so easy for me to cry and scream in frustration over all that has happened (and, trust me, I still do. Just last night I asked Andrew through sobs if God was mad at me because we just can’t seem to catch a break), I’m beginning to see that I can choose how to grieve. I can grieve as though death has won or I can grieve with HOPE that God has the final say, not death.

Some days, I grieve as though death has won and those days are hard, hopeless, gut wrenching days. But on the days I choose to remember the truth of my grief, that I have hope in Christ that I will see my Ollie again, I grieve with hope. And yes, grieving with hope is still painful. It still knocks me to my knees at time and there are still so many tears for the loss of what we thought Ollie’s story would be, there is also joy. Joy that his story doesn’t end here and that one day, Ollie will be in my arms again.

The tomb where soldiers watched in vain
Was borrowed for three days
His body there would not remain
Our God has robbed the grave
Our God has robbed the grave (yes He has, yes He has)

Your name, Your name
Is victory
All praise, will rise
To Christ our king

By Your spirit I will rise
From the ashes of defeat
The resurrected King, is resurrecting me

In Your name I come alive
To declare Your victory
The resurrected King, is resurrecting me
By Your spirit I will rise

“Resurrecting” by Elevation Worship

Butterflies & Sunsets

On By katiemeffordLeave a comment

I knew that the day we went home without Ollie would be one of the hardest. We had 54 perfect hours with him but we had to go home. That Sunday, it all felt so final. The last time I’d hold him, the last time time I’d kiss him, the last time I’d see him on this side of heaven. Andrew read him a book, we told him how much we loved him and wished his story included more time on earth with us. I whispered to him that he had a special assignment up in heaven….once God said we were ready, Ollie needed to pick out his little brother or sister and send them down to us. We signed all of the discharge papers, arranged for the funeral home to come pick his body up, handed our sweet boy over to the nurses, loaded our stuff onto a cart and left the hospital with empty arms.

The next morning, we met my mom at the funeral home to arrange when the funeral would be, see his casket and get all of the details figured out. They brought his casket into the room so we could arrange all of the things we wanted in there just how we liked them. We lined his casket with a blue blanket we’d bought that said “mama” and “dada” on it. On top of that we laid his bunny lovey that we’d bought when we found out we were pregnant, his knit cradle & cover from the amazing Bridget’s Cradle ministry that they would place him inside of, a wedding photo of Andrew & I, letters to him from Andrew & I, and his first Bible Storybook that his Yaya had bought him.

All the little things we chose to put in Ollie’s casket

I asked the lady at the funeral home if Ollie was there. I knew they were going to pick him up either the night before or that day. She told me he was and my heart jumped. We continued with the rest of the meeting and at the very end, I asked if I could see him again. She was hesitant, knowing his little body changed rapidly as time went on…but that didn’t matter to me. He was there and I needed to hold him again. We agreed to let my mom go see him and see if she thought I’d be okay seeing him in his current state. A few minutes later, my mom walked back in the room with a bundle of blankets containing my sweet Ollie James. Immediately the tears started flowing. When we’d left the hospital the night before, I thought I’d never get to hold him in my arms again. I unwrapped him from the blanket and held him close. I wanted to hold him forever. I would’ve just camped out at the funeral home all week if they’d let me but more things had to be done. We said goodbye to our Ollie again and continued on with the planning…. picking out flowers to go on his casket and picking his lot at the cemetery.

Holding Ollie one last time at the funeral home

The hard part of that I didn’t see coming was knowing my baby was still in my town, alone, at a funeral home and I wasn’t holding him. His funeral was not until the end of the week and knowing that he was still here, not yet buried, but I wasn’t holding him was hands down the hardest part of the week. Every single time I thought about that, I felt like I couldn’t breathe. I would be lying if I said I didn’t wonder in the middle of the night how hard it would be to break into a funeral home to hold him again.

His funeral was Friday morning. We kept it small and simple. A graveside service with just Andrew & I, our parents, my siblings, and Pastor Anthony and his wife in attendance. It was short and sweet and so perfect, just like Ollie’s life. The flowers on his casket were a perfect combination of whites and soft blues, with touches of rosemary from my Mom’s garden, just like my wedding bouquet had in it. We stayed as they put him in the ground and filled his grave with dirt. I’m pretty sure if they’d let me, I would’ve just gotten in the grave with him. It felt as if they were burying my heart, and in a way, they were.

Ollie’s casket & flowers

I go back to his grave almost daily. In the days and weeks since losing him, I’ve felt what I can only explain as a feeling of emptiness, like something was hollowed out from deep within me. But when I go to his grave, I feel him there. I know it’s just his earthly body but it’s as though my heart knows he’s near. He sends me little signs when I’m there too…butterflies and beautiful sunsets.