Can’t You Smell the Flowers?

❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤

I’ve debated writing anything.
I feel good…I feel at peace…
I know that writing will force me to actually process the event. Which, in the long run, is what I need to have happen. If I chose to ignore it…the feelings will come back…and, more than likely, manifest themselves in unhealthy, self-destructive behaviors. At least that’s what my record shows.
So, the time has come, my little friends, to sort through recent things…

Last week, at this exact time (9:45am), we were dropping Jett off with Tommy’s mom so I could go have a D&C.
FYI: My heart just sank…and there are immediate tears. And THAT is why I write.
Anyway.
Let’s take a step back.

In August…it was a Monday (the 15th?)…or a Tuesday (the 16th?)…I can’t remember. It really doesn’t matter anyway. …I went for a run and something felt wrong. My legs didn’t want to move…I kept getting winded really quickly…I was tired…I made it to the halfway point and had to stop to pee (thank God there’s a restroom…or I would have used the forest)… When I got home, I decided to take a test. I didn’t know if I was late or when I was due…but I knew that something was very different about my body. The test was positive…and I cried. I sobbed. I locked myself in the bathroom and Tommy talked to me through the door. We wanted to get pregnant…we expected to get pregnant…but we didn’t expect to expect so quickly. I had stopped taking my birth control in June (I think) and I have no idea if I had a cycle in July…because I wasn’t paying attention to it. I didn’t think I needed to yet. I’ve had problems with ovarian cysts (for years, but regularly since I’ve had Jett) and I was just excited to not be on the pill and not be experiencing pain in my lower quadrants. We calculated: I was either 4 weeks along…or 8 weeks along. I went to my primary care that Thursday…Confirmed. Pregnant. Confirmed. Liver enzymes high. (Ugh…again?) Referral to specialist. Appointment September 28. Got it. Check.

I’d been seeing a nutritionist. She had concerns.
Food-based prenatal. A good one. From Whole Foods.
Extra calcium.
Actually go to the appointment with the specialist for liver. It’s important, Dani.
Lots more water.
Lots.
More.
Water.
Increase fats and proteins, decrease processed sugars…
At least 1800 calories. 1800. 1800. “2000 would be nice…but we’ll aim for 1800.”
Eat real foods. No low-fat, no-fat, low-calorie. A real slice of bread…with real peanut butter…
Does this go against everything you thought to be true about eating and weight loss? I thought, to lose weight, My Fitness Pal recommended a 1200-calorie diet. I thought Weight Watchers said “diet” or “sugar free” was “0 points”…and wasn’t that a good thing?
Apparently, I’ve treated my body very poorly in regard to nutrients.
Her biggest concern was that I’d just had a baby 9 months prior…and, before I’d given my body time to restock what had been depleted, I was asking my body to do it all over again.
She didn’t say she was concerned that I wouldn’t be able to sustain the pregnancy. In retrospect…I wonder if she was.

When I saw those two lines on the test, I felt fear. I had so many thoughts.
Most of them were irrational:
Would my cesarean scar split open? What if I gain so much weight that I can never lose it all? Can I love another kid as much as I love Journey and Jett? What if I can’t? What the hell am I going to name this baby? Jesus, why didn’t I just pick normal names for the first two? What if I can’t manage my time with two kids under two? What if I forget about Journey? What if I fail miserably?
But some of them…some of them were different fears. And some of the happenings were just…different…
— Over the past year, I’ve gotten close with several women would were experiencing difficulty in the realm of motherhood. Some struggles were with getting pregnant, some with staying pregnant, some with adoption…but it was all centered around motherhood. I told Tommy… “I feel like God has put these women in my life for a reason. …I need to listen to this. I feel like I’m going to need them and their experience…”
— Then, there was Journey. This little girl has an amazing spiritual connection…and sometimes you just have to listen to what she has to say, step back, and let it sink in for a while. For example, when Jett was born, she’d say:
“I wish I was as little as Jett again…”
“Why?”
“Because Jett can remember what Heaven is like. When you’re a baby, you can remember…but you get bigger and you can’t remember anymore…”
Actual conversation.
With this pregnancy, she kept telling us, “We might not get to keep this baby.” “This baby might need to go back to Heaven and stay with God for a while…God might not be ready for us to have ’em yet…” She’d tell us a variation of these statements every time we’d mention the baby. …I don’t know if we’d said something…I don’t know if she’d overheard something…I don’t know if she’d seen something on TV…but, regardless, it was interesting. And we took note of it.
— Our insurance changed…and our new insurance wasn’t accepted where we had Jett. Change is scary. There is absolutely fear in change. However: BLESSING for sure. I was not happy with the care I’d received during my pregnancy with Jett. I didn’t feel like a human there…I felt like a task to be marked off the list of things to do. Check. But, because I was a new patient, they couldn’t get me in until September 27…which would put me at 10 weeks…or 14 weeks…
— I had horrible cramping…and a terrible headache…and I just didn’t feel good. I wasn’t bleeding…I wasn’t spotting…nothing else was out of the ordinary…so I chalked it up to: It must be a girl this time. Or. It’s probably because I’m pregnant so soon after having Jett. Maybe my cesarean scar really will split open.
— I smelled flowers. Fresh flowers. There would be no flowers around…but I was certain that’s what I was smelling. I would wake up in the middle of the night with this overwhelming scent of fresh flowers. I would take Jett to the doctor and smell them there. I smelled them in very strong, sudden bursts. …Go ahead. Google that. “What does it mean if you smell fresh flowers?” I let it happen for about a week before I looked it up and told Tommy about it. It was just…bizarre. I called one of my friends and joked with her about Tommy being freaked out by it…we laughed about this spiritual nudge and chalked it up to my pregnant nose probably getting a whiff of someone’s deodorant or perfume.
— I went to a meeting on the Thursday before my appointment. The topic was “experiencing loss and staying clean.” Oh. Okay.
— A random woman stopped us at a festival and asked if she could pray for our unborn child. Granted, I think she was at the festival to pray for people…but it was still very odd. It was like she had scoped us out and came right to us and asked if she could pray.
— Our pastor is the lead of our short study group at church…When he asked if anyone had anything they’d like prayer for, Tommy spoke up about our first appointment for the baby. I’ve never heard Tommy ask for prayer…not in person…not on social media…maybe with close friends, in private. But definitely not in a group setting. To his request I added: “Just pray peace on it. I just want peace…and a strong heartbeat.”

We went to our appointment on September 27. I filled out a ton of new patient paperwork…I got offers for samples of formula…I stepped on the scale…I’d lost weight. That’s odd. I hadn’t been vomiting…I had no reason to not be up 10 pounds from water retention, because that’s what I do in the first trimester. We finally met the doctor…she was fabulous. For the first time in a long while, I felt like a human with an ObGyn. Praise be. Lay back…sonogram to figure out how far along I actually am…
“Alright, this is what I’m seeing. This is your uterus. This is baby. I am not seeing baby’s heartbeat.”
“…Okay…”
She pushes around. She asks how far along I thought I could be. She asks when I first took a positive test. She tells me I need to have another sonogram. She hopes she’s wrong…but she’s not seeing any movement.
We were sent downstairs to another office where lots of women had breast cancer awareness ribbons on. Breast cancer awareness earrings. Breast cancer awareness headbands. I felt like that office is where people go to receive bad news.
I was right.

Baby Nistendirk showed no signs of growth past 9 weeks. There’s a chance, if we were 10 weeks along…we would’ve just missed hearing that precious heartbeat. But, if we had heard it, and then returned 4 weeks later to find out it had stopped soon thereafter…I’m not sure I could’ve handled that. And, then there’s a chance, that I was actually at 14 weeks…and my body still had no idea that our sweet baby wasn’t living. My urine still tested positive. I still had the same food aversions. I asked my doctor what she would do.

We went to our short study group at church that night. We told the group about our loss…we were prayed for…we were hugged…we were cried with… We felt (and still feel) so supported and loved.

I went in for a D&C a week ago today. I know that some people are completely against this. I don’t care what you think. I know that I trust what my doctor suggested. I know that I trust what my husband suggested. And I know that I trust my heart…and I’m at peace with our decision. When I woke up from my procedure, I cried and cried…and the nurse told me it was probably the anesthesia… “Would you like some medication for the pain?” I tell her no…but: Yes. Yes I would. Not the physical pain…Advil will do just fine for that. But the emotional pain…I want that numbed. And I had a valid reason. I was in PAIN. …After being in recovery for over 6 years…that was probably the single hardest moment to turn down narcotics that I’ve ever experienced. I wanted something so badly to change the way I was feeling. And they were offering me an outlet. Here. Take the prescription. Really, it could’ve been anything- A drink…a drug…a cigarette…a crispy chicken sandwich…something…ANYTHING as an escape to not be in that moment, acknowledging that pain. I was really confused and angry and sad that God would do this to our family. I’m in my 20's…I’m relatively healthy…I have the least amount of stress in my life right now than I have ever had…You put on our hearts to have more children… Why? How come? Haven’t You used me for enough? Haven’t I experienced enough? HELLO? ARE YOU IGNORING ME?!

Since then, I posted on Instagram and Facebook that I wanted space. That WE wanted space. Thank you. Thank you for not expecting me…US…to be okay right away. Thank you for your messages…and your texts…and your calls…and your prayers…and your love…and your support. We’ve all gone through the full gamut of emotion. I feel like things seem to be leveling out…and then my heart will drop and there’s sadness all over again… And I think that’s normal. One thing that hasn’t changed in the past week: I feel like I need to run. Physically. Metaphorically. I feel like I need to take Tommy and go somewhere far away…and just pretend that August 15th to September 28th never existed. And I think that might be normal, too. I’m scared to try to get pregnant again. I’m scared it won’t work…or it will work, but I’ll be too stressed out, we’ll lose another baby, and our family will go through this cycle all over again… If we do get pregnant again, do we tell Journey? Do we tell our families? Do we tell our friends? And, if we don’t get pregnant…or if we do and we experience loss again…I’m scared that I’m going to blame myself. I’m scared that I’m going to blame God, and this beautiful relationship I have is going to become distant and jaded…and I’m scared I’m going to put more and more space between God and my heart as I try to disconnect from emotions and reality. There’s just so much to unpack. And, once again, I think all of this is totally normal. Right?

There have been so many women that tell me that they’d love to talk to me when I’m ready…which I appreciate so much…but I’m not a talker. I’m a writer. I cannot verbally express what I can through writing…and, more often than not, I truly don’t know how I’m feeling until I’ve read what I’ve written. I do know, however, that today I feel very grateful for the two happy, healthy children that I do have…and my husband who has been the glue in our home for the past week and several times before. I feel very grateful for the relationship we have with our family members and friends…the communities we’re involved in…we’re surrounded by love and support, and I know we’re truly blessed for that.

One last time…thank you all for reading and for being miraculous. Many of those who will read this have experienced this loss and my heart is with you. I hope you, too, can take comfort in knowing that God will hold your child in Heaven until you’re able to. ❤