I don't know if I'm interesting enough, or have the diligence to do this, but I'm going to give it a try!
If things had gone as Leo and I planned, expected, and hoped, we would be celebrating our 2nd daughter’s 1 year birthday around this time. As most, if not all of you know, God had different plans for us. Our beautiful daughter, Brooke, was taken from us when I was about 5 months pregnant in July of 2010. The pain from that experience has begun to dull, but there are many days and milestones that still bring about a reminder and a sting for what could have been.
Posted by Mari at 2:42 PM 2 comments
It's hard to believe that a month ago today, Leo and I were wrecked with the news that our beautiful baby was gone. I can't believe that only a month ago, my life was thrown a little off-kilter. It's crazy to me to think that only a month ago we were surrounded by so much love and support as we dealt with the dark days that lay before us. Though I have gone through a tremendous healing process, I am reminded tonight just how broken hearted I still am over this loss.
I had my follow up appointment on Thursday of this week. At the time I didn't really think much about it, but tonight all I can think about is the fact that it should have been my next regularly scheduled prenatal appointment where I would have been 27 weeks along. I can only imagine how big my belly should have been, instead of the flabby but flat belly that it is right now. These thoughts just bring about a time of sadness and pain for what happened, and what could have been. I miss being pregnant. I miss preparing for my baby girl to enter this world. I miss talking to Holly about how great of a big sister she was going to be for Brooke. I miss the anticipation of holding my sweet little baby. Oh, how I hurt…
The doctor looked over the results of the blood tests done on me while in the hospital, waiting to deliver Brooke, and found all the tests to be normal or non-conclusive. The test of the placenta also appears to be non-conclusive. The good news is that means that there is no indication that we will go through this again with our next pregnancy. Unfortunately I don't feel very comforted by this fact right now, because to me, this news also means that whatever did happen, could happen again, and we don't have the ability to watch out for certain clues or symptoms. Part of me was hoping that this could be explained by some condition that could be monitored and controlled if and when I get pregnant again. I guess that is where faith comes into play.
As I look up verses to strengthen my faith, I am reminded over and over just how good, gracious, and powerful God is. Why do I keep forgetting that? The bible says things like:
“I will turn their mourning into joy and will comfort them and give them joy for their sorrow.” Jeremiah 31:13 (NASB)
Oh how true I have recently learned this verse is. When I was in the heart of my mourning for the loss of our daughter, I was overcome with a comfort and peace that is unexplainable other than to say that Jesus was carrying me and the Holy Spirit was filling me with these things that have been promised.
“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” Matthew 11:28-30 (NIV)
This verse, and the song sung by Kari Jobe about this verse, Come To Me, gives me such a sense of peace and hope for the future. I know that I do not have to carry my own burdens. I know that I can give them over to God, who has much more strength and endurance than I could ever imagine. I imagine this song being sung over my by Jesus during my moments of sadness, anger, and pain and what a comfort these words are.
“Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” Philippians 4:6-7 (NIV)
This verse helps to erase some of the fears and doubts that I have about my next pregnancy. I know that God is in control and is worthy of my praise, regardless of whether I have to walk down the dark path of loss again, or the potential path of not having another child. I am reminded to trust in the plan that God has for me when I read this verse. Man, how difficult that can be!
So I go to bed tonight renewed with the faith in God’s plan for my life. I’m so thankful for His patience in me as I continually lose sight of Who is in control and try to carry my own burdens. God, please forgive me.
Posted by Mari at 9:10 PM 2 comments
I apologize for my absence on this blog for the past couple of weeks. I have been taking it easy and trying to learn a new normal. I have actually been doing okay. Part of me feels a little guilty in saying that, but I have felt a peace and comfort that is very hard to describe. I still have moments when my mind wanders to sadness, but the truth is that those moments are already starting to decrease dramatically. God has definitely surrounded me with people who have helped me deal with life's circumstances in whatever way is comfortable for me. I greatly appreciate those who have listened through my tears and laughter, through my silliness and sadness, and through my just plain random thoughts!
My mind has gone so many places in the last few weeks. I have thought things like:
*Just as a disclaimer, these are rhetorical questions and I will not ever know the answer to most of them and I am truly okay with that.*
Although I have had the thoughts and asked the questions, I know that God is almighty, loving, and powerful and He will set my path straight if I put my trust in Him. I know that I am being fought for and protected against Satan and God will prevail....ALWAYS. I know that the peace and comfort I continue to experience through this whole situation can only be attributed to the price that Jesus has paid for all of us. So I end with these promises:
"As the Father has loved Me, so have I loved you. Now remain in My love." John 15:9 (NIV)
"Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him and He will make your paths straight." Proverbs 3:5-6
When you choose to love and trust in the Lord, life's dark places become much lighter and easier to bear. That is not to say you won't have dark times, but you can rest assured that you will overcome them. My friends, I urge you to put your love and trust in the Lord, with all your heart, surpassing all understanding. Life is not quite worth it without Him.
Love~ Mari
Posted by Mari at 9:35 AM 1 comments
I didn't sleep very well last night. I woke up in the middle of the night with chills. I went to the kitchen and took some ibuprofen. When I laid back down, I got as close to Leo as I possibly could. Oh man did his body heat feel sooo good! Unfortunately for Leo, he doesn't sleep very well when I am touching him, so I inevitably shared my restless night with him. Sorry hunny!
When I woke up in the morning, I wasn't really feeling much better. After a few minutes (okay probably an hour) of being stubborn, I called the nurse/doctor's line. I actually do not have a thermometer in the house, so there was no way to know how high the fever was, but if you touched me, you could feel serious heat radiating from my body and I was shaking uncontrollably and freezing from my head to my feet. The doctor called in a couple of prescriptions, one for an antibiotic and one for a better pain medication and a little while later we headed to the pharmacy. While at the pharmacy, we went ahead and picked up a thermometer. I checked my temp in the car on the way to get lunch and it was at 102.5! I took the medicine as soon as I sat down for lunch and within an hour I was feeling much better.
Today at 3 p.m., Leo, my mom, Holly and I went to the Funeral Home to make the cremation arrangements for Brooke. It was very interesting trying to explain to a 4 year old why we were where we were! I know that she doesn't really understand it and she has been such a blessing to not ask more questions than I can handle right now. The meeting went well and I was able to keep my composure, unlike most of the rest of the day.
Needless to say with the combination of grief and sickness, today was a very emotional, heart-wrenching day. There is still so much I don't understand. There is still so much that breaks my heart. But I still stand strong in my faith. My Lord, Jesus Christ is suffering right along with me. At the same time, He is providing comfort and support that is unmatchable. He is catching all my tears and exchanging them for love and comfort from the people around me. He WILL be glorified through all of this, and I cannot stop singing his praises.
Right now I am waiting to go to sleep but unfortunately the medicine does not feel like it is working like it did earlier. I still have two hours until I can take another pain pill, and I am still feverish and uncomfortable. I have parked it on the couch for the night, because I usually sleep much better here when I am not feeling good. Plus, my mom is right here with me so if I need her in the night, she won't be too far. It is so comforting to have my mother close. I can never thank her enough for being here right now. I know there is nothing a mother won't do for their child, but I never want to or mean to take that for granted. I am truly blessed to have such a loving and caring family and friends. I look forward to seeing many of you at church tomorrow. I am ready to worship and praise the God who created this world and all the things in it. He is truly worthy of our praise!
Posted by Mari at 8:37 PM 1 comments
Brooke was delivered at 1:30 a.m. on July 30th. It was a long couple of days leading up to the delivery. On one hand, I just wanted it to be over with, and on the other hand I cherished every minute I was allowed to have with my baby. God provided me with some much needed love, support, and peace during this whole time. Thank you all so much for the outpouring of words of support and caring.
Leo and I are home now and it feels great but strange to be here. I am definitely looking forward to resting in my own bed, but it also signifies the first steps in moving forward. I know that life will go on, and I actually find a bit of comfort in that, but it's hard to walk through the first few steps. I know that God will continue to carry me through this time.
Thank you again for all of the love and support that has been shown to me and my family. God bless you all!
Posted by Mari at 7:27 AM 0 comments
Leo and I found out on Tuesday, July 27th, that our precious unborn baby had passed. I would have been 23 weeks (or almost 6 months) pregnant. I am rocked with such grief and confusion right now. I know that God is good, and I know that He will carry me through this time. I know He has a plan and a purpose for this. My impatient side is a little put off that I will have to wait for heaven to discover it, but I know that He loves me and is with me always.
Sometimes it is still so hard to deal with the reality of the situation. I will never get to hold this baby, who's name is Brooke Elizabeth Leffert. I will never get to feed her, or change a diaper, or calm her when she is upset. I may never even know what she looked like.
So I sit in the hospital, waiting to deliver this baby who was gone way too soon. I'm scared for the future and so, so thankful for the time I have been given with my daughter that I was able to carry to full term several year ago, Holly. I have been shown amazing love and support from my family and friends.
To all of my friends and family reading this, please know that God is good and He will be glorified in this whole situation, I am sure of it. I pray for each of you that your relationship with Jesus Christ will be strengthened through this situation. I pray that if you don't know Him, that you come to know Him because He is the ultimate Comforter and Healer. I can't imagine having to go through something like this and not having faith in Jesus to rely on to get through it. Without a doubt, He is carrying me as I live through these past few and next few days.
I love you all!
Posted by Mari at 4:20 AM 1 comments
Today has been a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. (On a side note- if you haven’t read Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day by Judith Viorst you really should!)
Well okay, I guess I should state this afternoon specifically has been the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad part. What happened you ask? Well I’ll tell ya….
Today at 10:30a.m., while at work, I got a phone call from the realtor’s office (for those that didn’t know- Leo and I are trying to sell our house) and someone wanted to look at our house this afternoon from 2:30-3:30. YAY!! No biggie….except for the fact that the house was not exactly “show” ready. But no need to panic, there was my lunch hour to fix that. Right after I got the call about the showing, I called my mother-in-law to make sure I could take our dog to her house for the afternoon. My intentions were to straighten the house, gather up the dog, take her to my MIL’s, and then head back to work. I left work at lunch and hurried home. Thankfully, the house wasn’t as bad as I thought it was. Everything was going swimmingly. All the horizontals were dusted. All the dishes were either in the dishwasher or washed, dried, and put away. All the junk was stuffed in any spot I could find put away in their respective places. All window treatments were opened to flood the house with beautiful sunlight. I mean this house was looking awesome for only having a couple of hours notice to whip it into shape. (Having a lovely and rambunctious 3 ½ year old makes it nearly impossible to have it always in “show” ready form, you see.) Then I noticed that the back porch needed to be shoveled since we have had a bit of snow lately. It was about 1:20 and I still had a few minutes left so I figured I should go ahead and get that done before heading out. As I put on my winter coat and donned my gloves, I decided I better take my keys and phone out of my pockets so they don’t get in the way while I was shoveling. I set them down on the corner of the dining table (right beside the back door). I went to the garage and got the shovel. I stepped outside and closed the door behind me. I got the porch shoveled off to the best of my ability desire. I propped the shovel up against the side of the house because, this is Indiana, and I’m sure we will need it again. I grabbed the door handle and went to turn it and it didn’t budge.
Oh no….oh heck….oh crap….what the….NO WAY….this can’t be happening to me.
Yep, you guessed it- the door was locked. See, this door has a lock on the handle itself, and then it also has a deadbolt. We don’t typically lock the handle itself, and usually just use the deadbolt from inside (we do this specifically to keep from locking ourselves out). But, as I mentioned earlier, we are trying to sell our house and we have had several showings already. Sometime, during one of those showings, the door handle got locked, and I didn’t even notice it. So there I stood on my back porch, staring at my keys, my phone, and the dog. Every door was locked. The garage door was down and the car was in the garage. I do not have a numeric keypad to get into the garage (yet). Every window was locked. Darn!
So I went to a friend’s house that lives a couple of houses down from mine, because she runs a daycare from her home and I knew she would be home. As I was walking over there, I realized that the kids in her daycare would be napping and I felt terrible that I might wake them up. I tried knocking softly, but I don’t think my friend heard me. I tried again, still nothing. I tried another neighbor, hoping maybe they would be home. No luck. I tried several more doors and no one seemed to be home. I went back to my back door and peered through the window. It was 1:45. The soonest the realtor would be at my house was 2:30. I tried to get the dog to jump and hit the handle (it’s a lever shaped door handle). No luck. OH MY GOSH! So I tried going to my daycare friend’s house again. This time I got bolder and rang the doorbell. Still nothing. I hesitantly rang it again. Still nothing. WHY, WHY, WHY ME?!!
I went home to try to give the dog another door opening lesson. Needless to say I was not successful. (I will have to work on that later!) I had already decided that I was going to have to ask the realtor coming to show my home to unlock my door for me, but now my concern was letting my boss know where I was and that I wasn’t going to be making it in, after all. I decided to start trying houses again to find a phone. Thankfully, I had success at the first house I tried this time. I called my boss and went back to my house. I found a very sunny place on my front porch and sat down to wait. It was 2:45, and I had now been outside for an hour and 25 minutes, when the realtor showed up with the potential buyers in her car. The look on her face was pure confusion and when I explained who I was and how completely embarrassed I was to be in this situation, she was very understanding and cordial. Thank you realtor lady for saving my day….but my mortification still wasn’t quite over.
As I mentioned a minute ago, we have a dog in our house….not good when trying to sell your home, but such is life. I quickly tried to get the dog to the garage so I could get out of the house and out of the realtor’s way. Well the dog was not cooperating and I was getting panicked. I grabbed her collar to help her into the garage and she peed right there on the kitchen floor. DANG IT! I finally got her in the garage and ran to get paper towels to clean it up. Nobody saw anything. No harm, no foul! Well, as I open the garage door to go out there with her, the dog jets past my legs and runs into the living room, right where the people were. I run after her to keep her out of the way and I must have scared her, because she started peeing again….right in front of the potential buyers people looking at my house. I finally got her out of the house and into the garage, and the mess cleaned up. I stayed out there with her while the people continued to look at the house. It only took the people about 15 minutes and then they were out of here. They were very friendly and I was uber apologetic. Needless to say, we will still own our house after this showing and I have a million lessens learned for the next one!
Oh, and I forgot to mention…it was 14 beautiful degrees outside this afternoon!
Posted by Mari at 11:57 AM 1 comments
