grieving

Hadassah and Ezra would have only been a year apart.

At 8:33pm on the 20th of June the Tabacaru household welcomed Rapha Courage into the world. Mark and I were so overjoyed, a little man, our little man! But in that special and beautiful moment, I remember feeling a whole lot of mixed emotions. Our Ezra Brave would have been 4 years old, and just like our girls Ezra would have had the very same opportunity to meet his little brother the next day. I wrote ‘the art of grieving’ on what would have been Ezra’s first birthday, which is also Hadassah’s birthday, while at the same time feeling overwhelmed with this same wave of emotions.

 I would like to dedicated this piece to not only to the beautiful Mumma’s that are reading this who have been through something similar, but also to all the strong, brave, and bold women in my world who have experienced grief in any capacity. Whether it be a miscarriage, infertility, losing a loved one, abuse, or even grieving over a dream lost.
Whatever the cause may be, I truly believe that grief is grief, and there is an art to surviving it and to living through it well.

Processing grief is an active choice, you need to give yourself permission to grieve. Grieving in the right space and to the right people can allow you to set your vision on our good God, so you can watch Him turn your darkness into dancing. None of that is easy, because grief is a response to loss. Grief causes immense emotion and can bring with it physical pain, emotional pain, and mental anguish. Grief is not kind; it doesn’t care about any of the dreams, desires, and ambitions that you have. Grief is persistent and it can hit you so hard that you are unable to get back up again… that you are unable to fight! I have definitely found myself feeling like this before… Let me start from the beginning…

Today is my little girl’s birthday! Today marks a very special milestone… she turns one! I remember loving her right from the very beginning, even without seeing her face, her smile or hearing her laugh. I loved her from the start, unconditionally. I remember her very first breath… the very first time I laid eyes on her was a happy, tear-filled moment. But what can I say? My little girl is not so little anymore! Today is a day filled with so much happiness and thankfulness to God for entrusting us with this little bundle of joy. Simultaneously, it is filled with an incredible sadness. This is a day my husband and I will never forget, as we not only celebrate Hadassah’s Birthday, but we also celebrate a birthday that never was. Today we remember, and say goodbye to our beloved Ezra, whom we would have welcomed into the world.

 The 30th of August 2015 was a Sunday, and it was the beginning of the toughest week I had ever lived through. I have had a few tough weeks, tough situations and tough experiences to face, but this was the hardest yet. I had just arrived back from our women’s conference in Townsville. I couldn’t describe it but I had felt uneasy and emotional all weekend. This was not completely unexpected, because I was near on 13 weeks pregnant. That Sunday night I had gone to church at our home campus in Cairns, after which I went to bed feeling pain in my stomach. Not long after that I noticed that I was actually bleeding. Being pregnant for the second time and having experienced complications with Hadassah (my first child), I was a little worried, but I was oblivious and thought that it would sort itself out. That God wouldn’t allow anything bad to happen.

 I remember getting to the hospital at 10pm that night and being admitted straight away. However, as time passed, I remember lying on the bed feeling so frustrated because no one was communicating with either Mark or myself. We had no idea what was going on, all I knew was that it was getting late and I was in a fair amount of discomfort. I finally put my feet down on the cold tiles and with a whole heap of courage from my husband I made my way up to the doctor at the front desk to ask if we could have some information. Otherwise, I said very politely, ‘we’ll just go home and see my doctor tomorrow’. At that point it was 1:30am and they immediately got someone in to look at me. Long story short- the doctor couldn’t see anything on my ultrasound. No movement. Nothing was there.

 I remember the long drive home as a second turned into a minute and a minute seemed like an eternity, it was indescribable, I was heartbroken!! Mark and I didn’t say much, there were lots of emotions and tears flooding the car, but there didn’t seem to be many actual words. I was in a whirlwind of confusion and grief. It felt like my brain couldn’t and didn’t want to understand. I only saw Ezra two weeks earlier growing with a strong heartbeat! I just can’t begin to express the pain and emotion that assaulted me.

 For the next five weeks, I had so many follow up appointments, scans, and uncomfortable conversations. Something that I noticed was that every professional and doctor that I saw seemed afraid to use the word miscarriage, and they never used the word baby! The fact of the matter was that I did have a miscarriage! Our baby had died! He was not just a fetus, but a baby who at that stage was developing little fingernails and who was now a visible little human busily moving around.

 Miscarriage is almost unheard of unless you yourself, a family member, or close friends go through it. It’s a taboo topic really, almost like sex; people don’t want to shine the light on it and talk about it because it’s awkward and unpleasant to talk about something that difficult. That is, until it’s too late. Before I lost Ezra, miscarriage was an unfamiliar subject for me and because I never thought to ask, or maybe because it was too painful, no one thought to share their knowledge or experience. Miscarriage is actually very common as 10 to 20% of positive result pregnancies end in miscarriage. Most miscarriages occur so early during pregnancy that women don’t even realise that it’s happened. Doctors say that miscarriages can be caused by genetic problems in the mother, but they don’t know why it’s so common, or why women who have had a miscarriage are at higher risk of miscarrying again. There is still so much that we just don’t know.

 One thing that we do know, is that the loss of a baby brings with it a tidal wave of grief. So, the art of grieving, well… I haven’t really got a formula, or a step by step guide for you to follow, because I believe each of us face & experience different forms of grief in our own individual way. I know for me it was really important to have my friends around to support and love me at this time, and I actually needed to be brave and bold enough to talk to a professional christian counsellor as well. Someone who would listen and allow me to bare my heart and soul, someone who would give me the understanding and Godly wisdom and guidance to let go and move forward. When I say, let go I don’t mean to forget, but to process, to grieve and to heal. So that instead of walking around with an open wound, there would be healing, and now there is a scar.

 On that day we celebrated two birthdays, a life that is and a life that was. We celebrated our thankfulness by taking time in our day to pray and let go of two balloons, one for Hadassah and one for Ezra. In that moment at the beach, as the waves rolled in, I can’t express the sense of peace and love that came over me. So, the art of grieving, it is very much a journey!

There is a song written by Hillsong United called ‘Here Now’.
Some of the lyrics are…
‘Faith makes a fool of what makes sense,
but grace found my heart where logic ends.’

Life can serve you the unknown, unexplainable, and the uncertain. Life can be a wild ride; taking you on bends, twists, and turns that don’t make sense. But faith… faith to me makes perfect sense. When you experience something for the first time and it’s so real to you that you don’t want to let it go, you can’t let it go! I know that my faith in God isn’t logical and doesn’t make sense by scientific reason, but I do know that through it all He is fixing my eyes not on my current realities, but on future dreams, desires and big plans to be used by Him.

Something that I have decided long ago is that I want my life to speak of Gods faithfulness and His kindness, So I choose to pick myself up, dust myself off and PRAISE. will you?

Seen, Heard
Beloved
Ezra

~August 2015~