God gives life, God takes away life

As a follow-up to yesterday's post... My co-worker lost her BIL yesterday to cancer - which is why she rushed out before noon. We found out this morning...the funeral is on Monday.

Interesting how God gives the world a new life, yet God takes another life away...all on the same day.

Please keep my co-worker in your prayers that she, her sister and her sister's family find peace on their time of sorrow.

Anyways, I wanted to share something that has been brewing in my mind for a few days...

I took a much-needed day off on Tuesday - I figured I needed to take time for the thyroid u/s and wouldn't be in to work until close to 11 am anyway, so I might as well take the day off and catch up with Zia for our long-overdue trip to the Westfield Center.

To backtrack a bit, we made a trip well over a year ago after she told me about this faboo smoothie place in town - and, after that, we kept trying to schedule a time when we could go again. Since she had off from school this week, it seemed the best time for her. And, well, I wanted a day off too.

So, I headed over to her house after I was done with the ultrasound and, well, caught her a bit earlier than she had expected. Oops. But, I got to hang out with Buddy-Buds, her cat - whom is probably one of the handful of cats I am endeared to in my lifetime (not that I am a cat-hater, but I am allergic to them, specifically long-haird cats, so I don't go around them too much), for a while and who enjoyed curling up in my lap. When Zia was done getting dressed, we headed out for lunch.

I forget the name of the place we went to for lunch, but can you say YUMMY!!! Oh, I am sooo glad my anxiety is under control now - had this been in the fall, I doubt I would have even eaten one sweet potato fry on my plate. It was delicious - so much so, I have to get Hubby to go there. Afterwards, we went over to the Smoothie-Palace, where there are so many choices and combos to choose from, you are standing there with your mouth open drooling for 15 minutes to make your choice. We got our smoothies (totally delicious!) and went walking and shopping.

The first place we went to (and the gist of this post) was a kinda new-agey place, where you can buy incense, Tarot cards, relaxation CDs, and other "soul-directing" items. We had been in this place before - but, that was a long time ago...and I think we both considered it rather, well, cookie, at the time. But, we went in with our smoothies and walked around the place a few times, picking up this and that when we settled on what are called Oracle Cards. There was a very pleasant lady (not sure if she owned the place) who came over to us and started explaining what the Oracle Cards are and how they work. She spent quite some time with us...and was very kind.

So, we kind of got into explaining the hurts and heartaches in our lives - about IF and miscarriage and recurrent miscarriage. And, zeroing in on Zia a bit. she said something very poignant to Zia that really struck me hard:

She said to Zia that (and I am paraphrasing here, since I don't remember word for word what the lady said) she should not try, wish, hope or pray for her wants and hearts desires, but to visualize on her wants and make them come true with her power of will.

Kinda reminds you of what Yoda says to Luke Skywalker in Star Wars as he is learning the ways of the Force (yes, I am married to a Star Wars-a-holic):

"No, try not, do or do not...there is no try..."

Which leads me back to what has been brewing in my head for the past few days...and what Zia and I talked about for a little bit after leaving the store...

When I was expecting my last angel baby, I was so, so guarded about the pregnancy. I really didn't enjoy the short time I was pregnant - I didn't want to talk about it too much, didn't want to hope too much, didn't want to pray too much. I was too afraid to hope and have the rug pulled out from under me again like when I was waiting to miscarry in 11/05. So, I opted to just go about the motions of the day and not hope, pray, wish at all. When I finally let hope and faith enter my heart a little bit, I let myself look around the baby sections of stores and see what new things had come out since Christopher was born - the things maybe I would need if this pregnancy was a healthy one. I let myself change my siggies on the message boards I was on - telling everyone I was, in fact, pregnant. I let myself talk about being pregnant a little bit to those close to me. I let myself laugh and joke with Hubby about the baby in Dr. D's waiting room before the u/s, with him drawing cute things in my notebook of questions.

Of course, that lasted less than a week. I found out the baby had died the week before...days before I started hoping, praying, asking God for this pregnancy to last.

This is one of the guilts I carried for a long time, and took months to finally set free from me. For months after the miscarriage, my mind would always ask, "What if I had prayed/begged more to God for this pregnancy to hold?" "What if I talked to this angel more like I did when I was pregnant with Chris - asking her, begging her not to leave me?" "What if I was not as guarded about the pregnancy, and let myself enjoy it more?"

At that time, I was "trying" - not "doing." I was not willing my heart to believe this angel would stay with me. I was not willing my heart to enjoy the time, albiet short, I had with her.

Would my angel have stayed with me? Probably not. I truly believe now it was not her time to be here on Earth. I needed to learn to slow down my life a bit, enjoy it for what it is, and refocus my life. Once I did that, maybe another child would come to us in his/her own time - well, as much as we can allow that anyway when you have to plan for meds, u/s's and IUI's.

So, as I look upon TTC again, how I will react when/if I found out the cycle works? Can I let hope in earlier this time? Can I "do" and not "try" this time?

Obviously, I don't know that yet. But, at least I am armed with knowledge this time around: I know what has been causing the miscarriages and am being treated for them. That reduces my risks of another miscarriage some - but not completely. I want to be hopeful - but I also don't want to be blindsided again.

But, I don't think I can be blind-sided again, can I?