I've been waiting a long time to write post #2. I wanted to soak up the experience to tell you all about what I've been going through. I hope this post is somewhat cathartic for me as right now I feel as if I cannot do anything.
Because of medschool, and some genetic issues waiting to pop up along with other life experiences, I have been diagnosed with depression and general anxiety disorder. I have needed medication in order to help with my problems, and I started to go to counseling in May of this year.
Let's get real. I have struggled with suicidal thoughts that, praise God, I have not acted on. I never knew I could feel so lost. If you had asked me before this how I felt about my life, I would have said "pretty good". But during this rollercoaster, I have gone through every emotion imaginable.
I even considered leaving my husband. It was as if I had two voices in my head: the voice of the moment saying "what were you thinking?!" and the voice of reason saying "this is only for a season". I feel like I've been stuck in this "season" for so long, and the depression just won't go away...
Starting in Steve's 2nd year of medschool, we started trying to get pregnant. I was very hopeful. As you may remember, that was one of my life goals - being a mom. In December of 2015, we got pregnant after 6 months of trying. 6 months feels like such a long time when all you want is to be a mom. Then in January, the positive pregnancy test, the excitement, the joy, the answered prayers.
In February of 2016, I started bleeding. I called the OB GYN office to schedule an emergency appointment. We went to the ultrasound together, and we got to see our little baby dancing on the screen. I mean, literal dancing. It was beautiful. I knew it was my our child :)
The Doctor said everything appears to be fine, and warned us that it could go either way. We might lose the baby, and if so, there's nothing we can do. The baby could be fine as sometimes women continue to have periods during their first trimester and that's normal.
3 days later, I had severe pain in my abdomen. To make a long story short, after an emergency ER visit, we found out we had lost our baby, our long awaited miracle. 2 days later, I gave birth to a baby. We could even count his fingers and toes (I call the baby a "he", but we don't actually know if the baby was a boy or a girl). My husband and I were in tears over the beauty of our child. But then what? Do we flush him like he was a dead goldfish? Do we bury him like a pet herbal in the yard? None of these options were appealing. Instead, we did something equally hard. We donated our little baby to the medschool. Its body would be used to show students what an 8 week old baby looks like. That was one of the hardest days of my life.
One thing I hate about this whole experience is that there's no closure when a fetus dies. To the world, they are not a human, so they don't get a funeral. But that was my baby. He could not have been any more real to me. I loved him so much, still do.
So, needless to say. Medschool has been hard in and of itself. Add the loss of a child, and it's practically unbearable. What makes it harder is Facebook. All these friends posting pictures of their baby bumps, happy children, pregnancy announcements, gender reveals... It's heartbreaking. You try to be happy for them, but all you feel is loss - deep, piercing, gut-wrenching loss. You're baby is dead. And what do you do when people ask you if you have any kids? Yes - my baby's dead; or no - as if he never lived?
I'm still so lost in dealing with all of this. My husband and I have been trying to get pregnant again. 6 months later, still not pregnant. It feels like life is not moving on yet, and I just want to be able to stop crying for once.
Life doesn't just stop when your baby dies. It keeps going, and yet, it feels like I cannot keep up.
Monday, October 10, 2016
Monday, July 21, 2014
Like any other young person, I had a few dreams that I had hoped would some day come true. #1 - That I would date only one man, and that he would become my husband. #2 - That I would become a nurse and make a difference in the lives of patients and their families. #3 - That I would have at least four children, and that I would be able to start having a family at a young age (mid-twenties). #4 - That I could be a stay-at-home mom once we were starting a family.
I had been praying for that first dream to come true one day since I was about 8 years old. I had asked my mother about her experience in the dating world. When she told me about the large number (or to an 8 year-old girl a large number) of relationships she had been through before she met my dad, I decided to start praying for dream #1 right away. During my freshman year of college in the Fall of 2008, my prayer was answered, and I met my husband, Steve. We started dating in February of the next year, and were married in July of 2011. I thank God (a lot) for allowing me to meet such a wonderful man at such an early age. He's smart, funny, loving, encouraging, determined, and kind.
I was also very fortunate to marry someone entering the same field as me. Steve was a nursing major. We worked so well together, and studied best together. Our friends though we spent every waking moment together, and we practically did - studying, studying, studying at any place we could find beside our apartments. Our hard work and studies paid off, and one year after we got married, we became nurses; but, I'm getting ahead of myself...
Rewind to our junior year of nursing school. One day at the end of one of my classes, I was picking Steve up at the college so that we could go to Panera Bread to study. When he got into the car, he told me that he needed to talk to me about something important right away. He had this burdened look on his face, like he was about to break. He got into the care and then I drove to the nearest parking lot on campus. He told me, "Eliza, I can't run away from this feeling anymore. I believe that God has called me to be a doctor." Well, my heart sank a little.
I had felt that this could probably happen. He was just so smart, and had a mind able to put the puzzle pieces together, diagnose problems, and formulate excellent plans to solve them. He had the mind of a physician.It made sense.
But now what? He had just proposed to me a few months beforehand. We had a game plan.
"Many are the plans in a man's heart, but it is the Lord's purpose that prevails." Proverbs 19:21
At the time, I did not understand the full gravity of what I was saying, but I knew what a truly loving wife would say. "I believe he has called you to be a doctor as well. And I will support you so that you will be that doctor one day." And I meant what I said. Steve continued to finish his nursing degree so that he could work as a nurse while pursuing his medical degree. So after graduation, I started working full-time as a nurse on a Long Term Acute Care Hospital, and my husband worked part-time as a nurse while finishing prerequisites for med school. Eventually, he had to move to limbo status to complete his classes, pulling extra hours whenever he could to help out.
Then, on July 3, 2014, Steve got the call that we had been waiting for for 4 long years. HE GOT ACCEPTED INTO MEDICAL SCHOOL!!!!! He was off the waiting list. I was so happy. We cried together, and then called all our close friends and family. After the excitement began to wear off, I felt this weight on my shoulders. I would have to provide for my husband for the next 4 years - ON MY OWN. Now, as a Christian, I know that God is my ultimate provider, but in my human mind, I felt like I was about to be the extremely well caffeinated and sleep deprived stage manager for my husband's big production. Knowing God as my director, you would think I wouldn't worry, but like the doubting human I am, I did have plenty of anxiety.
I had just accepted a job (less than a week before he was accepted into school) to become a clinical instructor at a university, which I was very excited about. I had cut back my hours at the hospital to make that possible; and now I had this whole other factor to thin about - him not working as a nurse anymore and being completely consume by his new job as a med school student.
It's a weird and scary feeling when you see yourself being married, and yet about to be on your own. Lately, I've been thinking "What in the world did I sign up for when I said 'I do'???"
"For better or for worse..." Marriage is supposed to be based on love, and what is true love more that sacrificing for the one's you care about with every fiber of your being. Yes, dreams 3 and 4 would have to be on hold for a while, but at the end of this blog I hope we see that they do come true. In the meantime, I'm in for a whirlwind of emotions and experiences. And it all starts on August 4th - Steve's orientation.
I'm Eliza Bea, and this is Med School and Marriage.
I had been praying for that first dream to come true one day since I was about 8 years old. I had asked my mother about her experience in the dating world. When she told me about the large number (or to an 8 year-old girl a large number) of relationships she had been through before she met my dad, I decided to start praying for dream #1 right away. During my freshman year of college in the Fall of 2008, my prayer was answered, and I met my husband, Steve. We started dating in February of the next year, and were married in July of 2011. I thank God (a lot) for allowing me to meet such a wonderful man at such an early age. He's smart, funny, loving, encouraging, determined, and kind.
I was also very fortunate to marry someone entering the same field as me. Steve was a nursing major. We worked so well together, and studied best together. Our friends though we spent every waking moment together, and we practically did - studying, studying, studying at any place we could find beside our apartments. Our hard work and studies paid off, and one year after we got married, we became nurses; but, I'm getting ahead of myself...
Rewind to our junior year of nursing school. One day at the end of one of my classes, I was picking Steve up at the college so that we could go to Panera Bread to study. When he got into the car, he told me that he needed to talk to me about something important right away. He had this burdened look on his face, like he was about to break. He got into the care and then I drove to the nearest parking lot on campus. He told me, "Eliza, I can't run away from this feeling anymore. I believe that God has called me to be a doctor." Well, my heart sank a little.
I had felt that this could probably happen. He was just so smart, and had a mind able to put the puzzle pieces together, diagnose problems, and formulate excellent plans to solve them. He had the mind of a physician.It made sense.
But now what? He had just proposed to me a few months beforehand. We had a game plan.
"Many are the plans in a man's heart, but it is the Lord's purpose that prevails." Proverbs 19:21
At the time, I did not understand the full gravity of what I was saying, but I knew what a truly loving wife would say. "I believe he has called you to be a doctor as well. And I will support you so that you will be that doctor one day." And I meant what I said. Steve continued to finish his nursing degree so that he could work as a nurse while pursuing his medical degree. So after graduation, I started working full-time as a nurse on a Long Term Acute Care Hospital, and my husband worked part-time as a nurse while finishing prerequisites for med school. Eventually, he had to move to limbo status to complete his classes, pulling extra hours whenever he could to help out.
Then, on July 3, 2014, Steve got the call that we had been waiting for for 4 long years. HE GOT ACCEPTED INTO MEDICAL SCHOOL!!!!! He was off the waiting list. I was so happy. We cried together, and then called all our close friends and family. After the excitement began to wear off, I felt this weight on my shoulders. I would have to provide for my husband for the next 4 years - ON MY OWN. Now, as a Christian, I know that God is my ultimate provider, but in my human mind, I felt like I was about to be the extremely well caffeinated and sleep deprived stage manager for my husband's big production. Knowing God as my director, you would think I wouldn't worry, but like the doubting human I am, I did have plenty of anxiety.
I had just accepted a job (less than a week before he was accepted into school) to become a clinical instructor at a university, which I was very excited about. I had cut back my hours at the hospital to make that possible; and now I had this whole other factor to thin about - him not working as a nurse anymore and being completely consume by his new job as a med school student.
It's a weird and scary feeling when you see yourself being married, and yet about to be on your own. Lately, I've been thinking "What in the world did I sign up for when I said 'I do'???"
"For better or for worse..." Marriage is supposed to be based on love, and what is true love more that sacrificing for the one's you care about with every fiber of your being. Yes, dreams 3 and 4 would have to be on hold for a while, but at the end of this blog I hope we see that they do come true. In the meantime, I'm in for a whirlwind of emotions and experiences. And it all starts on August 4th - Steve's orientation.
I'm Eliza Bea, and this is Med School and Marriage.
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