Can We Do This Life Alone?

The ticking time bomb has officially exploded. 

How are you doing? 

How is Ryan doing? 

How is work going? 

How are you feeling? 

I can only play the “I am good” for so long. I don’t do fake very well. I’ve always been a horrible liar. I can feel when there is tension in the air and then I try and try to make things airy and light for so long until KaBOOM the bomb goes off. 

I am naturally a very optimistic person. I can take any bad situation and find good or beauty in it somehow. It is how I manage to move on from things. I don’t like feeling like there is weight of any sort hanging over me. So yes, I am one who addresses issues head on. I don’t mind conflict because to me conflict means solving something that obviously is bothering a person so instead of doing a dance around nonsense I’d rather talk about. Which then, can cause friction with the other person because they are NOT willing to talk about it. Then there I go trying to force someone to talk about something they don’t care to discuss at the moment. So, guess what the result of that turns into? Lots of Damage. Saying things I don’t mean to say just because I want to solve an issue I think I can foresee and so I think “before it gets worse let’s deal with it” and then there ya have it gets worse REALLY FAST. 

I should know better. 

Here’s the thing if you know me well you know I am fast, VERY fast with saying hurtful words. SURPRISE!!! Yup it’s true! It’s a way of me crying out “everything is not okay.” Not the best way to express my feelings I know. We all handle situations differently. One can be expressive and one can try to solve everything internally, one can find addictions to num the pain, while the other is an emotional roller coaster. You get my drift. Which is the wrong or right way? There isn’t one but we all should TRY to get better at how we express ourselves. Don’t we all wish we could be perfect when it came to this kind of stuff. I don’t care if you are the calmest person or have every fancy degree known to man kind about how to communicate or manage pain. The bottom line is there are times in our lives where life just SUCKS. It SUCKS. 

We can have all the faith in the world, we can have all the money in the world, we can be the healthiest person, be the most organized person and still fall apart because shit happens. 

Here’s the thing. My husband and I have been at each other throats for a couple weeks now. There’s been tension, there’s been moments of trying but we get no where. 

3 1/2 months ago having lost our second child I can say I’ve been better. My grieving hasn’t been near as bad as the first loss we went through with loosing our stillborn Annabelle. I learned so much having gone through a stillborn and I can say that, well, that wrecked me. Every piece of me to my core. So, here I am now watching my mind, my thoughts, how I engage with people, what to say yes or no to (even though I still say yes to more than I should). But I’ve tried to stay focused for the most part on the outlets that I know bring healing. I’ve learned SO much about myself and I’ve have gotten to this place of knowing how to listen to my soul. I can say I am the happy with my life. Really I am living my dream. This was NOT the case before with our first loss.  As good of a job that I have done I have also had this fear of what will come up from all this pain that my family and I have endured. 

As much as I’ve learned, I know that when loss happens our life is effected by it somehow. Period. That is part of the process and I can’t deny that. I’ve learned to be thankful for it because I want whatever needs to come out to show its face and move on. The thing is moving on is not that easy. 

Most people don’t want to take the time to heal and so it is normal, especially if you’ve gone through a similar situation more than once. Being that this is the case for me I am wanting to move on even quicker. My mindset has been this...The fear of not going back to the past. We’ve worked too hard and we’ve come this far to NOT go back. 

Today though there are no smiles. There have been lots and lots of tears. 

It’s not me this time who is having a hard time with life it is my husband and that has brought up so much more pain than I even know what to do with. 

I want to give him all the answers. I want to do everything in my power to help but I can’t. Before I didn’t have any power to see life and beauty and now that I do it’s hard for me to see someone that does not. I make sure the house is so clean, I plan fun events, I say “let’s go on a bike ride” I do, do, do thinking that is how my husband may see all the beauty I see and in return he doesn’t. It’s hard now that the tables are turned and being patient I am learning is not my strong suite. 

Well how was I patient enough to go through my shit...my tendencies are so different than my husbands. I talked and wrote about everything and my husband doesn’t express anything. Lol. Typical man and woman relationship right?! 

So here I am learning again. The difference between a man and a woman are extreme. My husband carries a different weight than I do. He is the sole provider in our family. He protects us at all cost. He is always thinking of safety and is so aware of his surroundings when he is with us. He fathers our children by knowing them in ways only a father can know them. As a mom we carry our babies, we feel them kick, we go through the changes in our bodies and so as we have a deep connection by carrying our child and through all that I am realizing my husbands mind has been operating on a different level than mine. He is thinking of ways to provide and protect. Even though a man’s body doesn’t feel the changes a woman body does through pregnancy we have to honor that a man’s mind and emotions do change too. Everything is expanding in different ways. When we lost our two babies my husband has done the best job at being present as a husband and father. Although, he has had moments here and there of feeling and showing pain through all of this he hasn’t necessarily had the time to allow his mind to slow down enough because he has been so busy picking up the pieces that have fallen apart with all we have been through as a family and there has been lots and lots of pieces that have fallen apart.

I have thought...It’s no wonder why people don’t last in a marriage when moments of pain creep in. We are so opposite that in times of pain our bodies naturally want to shutdown, disengage, or num all the feelings we feel. It is so easy to find other outlets, addictions or ways to escape the pain. Temptations surround us on a daily basis don’t they? 

Here’s the thing is my husband and I have both discovered that we have to WANT TO if we WANT TO make this work. We have this thing that we say to each other. We say “I am not afraid of this” whatever it is. As much as fear wants to grip us, we know our daily thought process HAS to change the voice inside our head and we have to rewrite the story into the story we want to see. So that’s what we do. 

So what do we do from here? 

Well one of us MUST be stronger than the other and we MUST be okay with it. 

I pray.

I ask for guidance.

I call friends I trust. 

I create outlets that clear our mind. (Like writing, meditation, I read a book, listen to podcast etc.) 

A few months before our loss I started seeing a life coach. I started this because a very special friend of mine was telling me about her experience with this life coach and I wanted to meet her. I booked 6 sessions and really had no idea where it would go. Well, little did I know a few months later we would loose our son Ethan and all this time I’ve been taking to fuel myself is now what is carrying me through this point right here right now. 

Little did know. I just followed what my heart was saying and went with it. 

My life coach is amazing. She listens, she cares, she has been through SO much, has so many more years ahead of me and creates a place of trust. She’s helped me to stay in tune with myself and helps me understand what that truly means. 

Sometimes in life things or people come our way and it’s up to us to seize the moment. 

I am a firm, firm believer we CAN NOT DO THIS LIFE ALONE. 

As husband and wife this is our focus right now. Reminding each other that yes as much as we both need each other we also need an outside source to help us. Receiving help is NOT a sign of weakness it is a sign of STRENGTH. We “think” we got this! But guess what WE DON’T. People that say they do I turn my head because I was that person and then one day I said “I Don’t Got This.” WOW! It was so liberating to say those words. Let me tell you when we learn to say this a weight immediately lifts and the person you truly are at your core begins to revel the true you. It’s that person you’ve been missing this whole time. We all have our own process of getting to this point and that’s okay. 

My husband and I have found a rhythm and every once in a while the instruments that we are need a tune up. This is our tune up and we are not afraid of it. 

A consent melody is being birthed in us and I love the melody that we are creating. It is so worth finishing to me because I’ve seen the fruit a process like this produces. 

My friend called me the other day and she said something I never thought about. She said “Gina your two babies are two different people. Annabelle is her own person and Ethan is his own person. Both of them are different and both are bringing out something different in you. Get to know Ethan and don’t look back.”

That was SO powerful to me. As much as I thought I was doing a good job I was subconsciously comparing my losses as the same and they are not the same, they are different. I was so afraid to repeat history but really we are creating a new kind of history in us. 

My husband expressed to me something that hit me. He said “Gina you see beauty and I don’t. I am not there yet” and I have to be patient with him getting there. I preach all the time how we all have our own process and now it’s time to watch that process take place in my husband. I am so excited for him because I know the feeling. I can’t wait to see the beauty he will begin to see. 

You guys can I tell you...after all this we went out the other night. We talked and talked. My life coach advised before we talked to have a goal in mind and so that’s what we did. Our goal was to move forward and lay a foundation down of how we were going to move forward. Well, the next day my husband went to work and things were clicking. These past couple of days it has been insane to watch the tune up process begin. 

What changed? 

Our attitude. I remember my husband asking in the middle of an argument and he asked “what needs to change.” I said “it always begins with something so simple but we have habits of making everything so complicated.” And the first thing that came to my mind was “An attitude adjustment.” So that’s what I said out loud and when I said that I then said “change the story you are telling yourself.” 

You guys we have that power inside of us to change the story that keeps replaying in our mind. It takes practice but it can happen. 

You can change one cord in the melody and it can change the entire song. 

Find the rhythm to your song. Find the beat that works for you and do it. You are strong enough and Brave enough to do it. 

Like Nike says “Just Do It” haha right?!   

So get out there and do it. 

If you need help let me know. I would be more than happy to share my life coaches information with you or any other tools I have that have personally helped me. I would love to help anyway I can. 

Thanks for following my family's story. Thank you for reading my blogs and hearing my heart through this messy process. We are always a work in progress and I have learned to be okay with it. 

My hope is by reading our story you are encouraged and know that you are not alone. 

I would love to hear from you. Be blessed. 

Celebration of Life

The day I found out about the loss of our baby I was 4 1/2 months along. My family and I were one week shy of finding out the sex of our baby. There was so much we were looking forward to. Our two girls (8 & 6yrs old) were at some pretty FUN ages to be super involved with the whole process. This moment for them was huge. After they have been begging and begging for another sibling the moment was finally here. They had already been planning our gender reveal party. Yes! Two little girls planning a party. They made sure we talked about it and at times I would find the two of them sitting at the computer looking up ideas and creative ways to announce if the baby was a boy or girl.

We set our date, sent out as many texts as we could to all of our friends and family with the idea of sending out invitations next. So when we received the news about our loss I knew our girls were bound to ask us if we knew if we were having a boy or girl. So, I asked the doctor is there anyway we can find out if I had a boy or girl? She replied with a "Yes! We can do a blood test and you will know in a week."

Having experienced a still born 3 1/2 yrs prior to this we had the gift of knowing the sex of our child which is a girl and named her, Annabelle Grace. So this moment was very special as we know so many people don't even get this far in the process. Our children in Heaven are very much a part of our family and although we don't get to watch them grow on earth we still have experienced them in ways that are so beautiful just as if we had the gift to be with them. They have shown us glimpses of their personalities and glimpses of a their beautiful life that we very much feel a part of.  It most certainly does not replace having them here in our arms but they have given us a new pair of eyes to see life in a completely different way and that has been what is so beautiful. 

My husband and I were on the same page about finding out the sex of this baby because we knew this would add more beauty of our family and an even deeper connection that we had already been experiencing with this child. Sure enough when we picked the girls up from school that day and shared with them the news of out loss. Our six year old after shedding lots of tears said "do you know if it was a boy or girl and are we still going to have our party?" My first response was "actually honey, we will get to found out if we had a boy or girl in one week but we won't be having a party." She was excited to know that we were going to get to find out BUT she was sad about not having a party. She said "but I want to tell everybody. When we do find out can I still tell all my friends?" Oh my goodness my heart just sunk...I just hugged her and told her how much I loved her and her sweet spirit about wanting to still share with people. 

As we anxiously waited six days later...August 30, 2017 my phone rang and it was the specialist doctor I had been seeing throughout my pregnancy. The news we were looking most forward to had arrived and here I was anxiously waiting for the reveal. She said "the results came back and it looks like you had a baby BOY."As my heart sunk into my chest, I knew. I knew we had a boy. I had already had two dreams...one prior to my pregnancy and one during and both dreams I saw a little boy. Oh, so many mixed emotions. It is so hard to try and switch the thoughts from what you were already planning for to then trying to reason with what was reality now. I let it all out. I mean ALL of it. I called my husband to share the news and thankfully he was at a place in his day where he was able to come home and we could walk through this together. When he walked through the door I voiced all my frustrations, my anger, my confusions and disbeliefs. He held me and let me sob. Nothing made sense. I was searching for some kind of comfort in knowing this was going to happen but instead all I kept saying was "my dreams were so real, I held my son in my arms, I saw me deliver him, I saw Mylee (my youngest) holding him and feeding him a bottle. This shouldn't be what's happening." With broken hearts, just minutes later my husband and I couldn't help it though, we looked at each other with a very honest excitement and said "WE DID IT! WE MADE A BOY!" We laughed of course but went right back into shedding more tears. 

Now, with the question..."what are we going to name him?" There was this name that I loved while my husband and I were dating. The name was ETHAN. The story is, I met my husband's youngest cousin who was about 7yrs old at the time and his name was Ethan and when I met him there was something so so special about this kid that I told my husband (boyfriend at the time) "if we ever have a boy I want his name to be Ethan." My husband never said no so when we were talking names I said "ya know I never looked up the meaning of Ethan." So we did and WOW when we did, was it ever so fitting. 

Ethan means: Strong, Solid, Safe and Consent. 

If you watched our video in the blog post from August 28, 2017 you will understand why the meaning of this name Ethan was so fitting. In the video I share about how we have built a solid foundation as a family after the loss of Annabelle. Annabelle's loss shook our entire world. I explained it in the video that when we went through our loss with her our life had felt like a house that has been destroyed and really that is pretty much what happened in our lives. Everything you could imagine was destroyed. So, here we are more than three years later and experiencing a whirlwind of the emotions all over again and the one thing we kept saying was how much we have grown and learned and how our foundation is so solid. Those words Strong, Solid, Safe and Consent have been so evident both physically and mentally. Nothing about this kind of a loss is easy. In fact just the other day I expressed to my husband how going through a stillbirth and now a late term miscarriage feels so lonely. But isn't that how going through tragic moments in general feel like anyway? 

For me the lonely part is walking around with the idea of no one has any memory of this child but me and my family, and no one knows the depth of this hurt and pain unless you have gone through this type of a loss. One day you have a body that is changing within a pregnancy and then when you loose the baby you are still dealing with so many different changes connected to your pregnancy but now there is no baby. Nothing seems right. It really is a mental and physical roller coaster. There are only a select few that I have learned I can share my thoughts and emotions with. I have to be careful. I have learned it is very uncommon for people to talk about a loss. Even talking to people who have gone through it can be tricky. I know loss in general can be like this but I guess what I'm trying to say is I have nothing to show from it so I have had to find outlets on how to cope with handling going on with everyday life by still embracing these changes my mind and body are still going through. 

A few ways I have learned to cope with what I go through is to not only sharing through blogs and pictures but I have also learned how to listen to my kids. They seem to have just the right ideas and the right thing to say at the right times. Children are quite amazing. They have required me to listen more and more as I pick up on all this. So thats what I did. My six year old daughter's voice kept ringing through my head..."mom can I still share, can we still have a party?" Deep down inside I wanted all of that too SO the light bulb went off in my head and said why not? Why not, still have our party and make it a Balloon Release Party. SO that's exactly what we did. 

We ordered 100 balloons and friends and family gathered with us and we released every one of those 100 balloons. It was so beautiful and so overwhelming in a very good way. We took 30 minutes to embrace this moment and that 30 min we will never, EVER forget. It meant so much to us that so many people would even show up for something like this and honor a life that never took one breath. Before we released the balloons my husband and I shared at the party how we believe that at the moment of conception life begins and every life serves a great purpose. Sometimes we have to wait for that purpose to reveal itself. We have learned the more we become aware of the purpose we find beauty. We choose to see beauty in the process and as hard as it is beauty is there. It is there in our everyday moments and that it what we choose to hold on too. Annabelle and Ethan live with us and I get to experience a glimpse of Heaven on Earth because that is how beautiful and how special those moments are to me. So here we are wanting to share this moment with you too. I would like to say a big thank you to friends Christian Frank who captured all the photos you see and Kristin and Brooklyn Merwin for capturing some video footage of the night. 

So many magical moments happened this night. One that specifically happened was captured by my friend Kristin Merwin. As she was videoing the sun displayed something we had never seen before and I hope when you watch it, it brings hope to whatever you are going through. 

Trust me it is so hard to celebrate in tragic moments but the message that lays so deep within me and my families hearts is to share that Beauty is EVERYWHERE. Become so aware that you notice the beauty that is right in front of you. The earth is always speaking to us and I believe our loved ones spirits never die. They speak to us through ways that catch our attention. If we just open our hearts up to believe we will then open up our eyes to see. 

Try it. Beauty awaits just for YOU. 

Thank you for joining and reading about the story of our little Ethan Ryan Dobmeier.