Me and my husband have known each other since we were 8 years old. Growing up only a few blocks from each other we were always in each others lives. Went to the same Jr. High school together, High school together, and we were even on homecoming court together! I mean, if THAT isn't the perfect set up for a happy ending I don't know what is! Fast forward to 2009, I was finishing up a year long discipleship program in another state when fate stepped in and reunited me with my handsome prince. We began dating, a year later got engaged, and in 2011 had a wedding that was straight out of a fairytale. Instrumental disney songs like “So this is love” played as I walked down the isle to my happily ever after. A horse drawn carriage, a fluffy white wedding dress adorned with lace that I'm sure a bunch of singing and talking mice helped put together. It was everything I had ever imagined.
Naturally, like all fairytales after our wedding we became pregnant. Life was turning out exactly how God had written it in all those books I grew up reading. How wonderful! Until one night I began having excruciating cramping followed by heavy bleeding. My husband rushed me to the emergency room and 3 hours later we found out that we had lost our first child. That dreaded word, Miscarriage. What the heck was going on?! I don't ever remember this happening to anyone of the princesses in the fairytales! Why would God do this?? It literally felt like someone had ripped my magic carpet right out from underneath me. But, like the strong christian woman I was, I kept the faith and still believed in happily ever after.
4 months and 3 miscarriages later, my husband and I found ourselves sitting in a fertility office talking about our “options.” Apparently the whole, first comes love, then comes marriage, then comes a baby in the baby carriage..yeah, thats all a load of crap. What fairytale writers ought to do is start having stories like that of Abraham and Sarah from the bible. But we will get into that a little later. So we sat there in our fertility Dr.’s office and decided that our best route to having a baby would be through a process called IUI (Intrauterine insemination.) In NOT medical terms- with fertility medicine given daily through a shot in the stomach, you hopefully will grow
instead of your average 1, that they will schedule you to ovulate through another shot in the stomach, and then inseminate you with your husbands best swimmers. Giving you a better chance of one egg fertilizing, sticking, and growing into a healthy baby. I know, all of a sudden Cinderella’s problems didn't seem like much at all. Really Ariel? Your a mermaid and the love of your life is a human?Awwww…you poor thing. Pshh!
3 months, 2 IUI’s, and 42 shots in the stomach later, we got the news we had be hoping for, we were pregnant!! Finally! Whew! “ I mean, you had me scared there for a minute Lord. You must have wanted us to take the detoured route happily ever after. Almost a year later and still no baby? I was beginning to question if you were really paying attention Lord.”
A couple weeks later we went in for our 8 week ultrasound, just praying to see a healthy growing little baby with a beautiful heart beat. Well multiply that by 3 and thats what we got. Yep, surprise! Its triplets! THREE! Three tiny little humans were growing inside of me. Just let that sink in for a second. Shocked, excited, thankful, scared, flabbergasted! That can pretty much sum up the emotions I was feeling. I remember just being so incredibly thankful and almost had this sigh of relief that God didn't fail me. That HE finally listened to me and then did exceedingly and abundantly like HE promises. Nothing could top how happy we were. Our happily ever after had taken some crazy twists and turns, but us and God were finally on the same page. Or so we thought.
Like clock work, 7 days later we went in for another ultrasound. I couldn't wait to see my three little beauties again. Except during this appointment, I noticed our Dr. acting extremely quiet and changing a lot if information on the ultrasound screen. I can remember laying back thinking “Everything is ok. We got pregnant! That was the battle! And we won! Its smooth sailing now, right? Thats how it works, I'm sure of it.” Then all of a sudden our Dr. utters the craziest thing I've ever heard. “We have a little surprise here this morning. One of your babies has split into two..soooo, now we have FOUR.”………. You know that feeling when someone scares the heck out of you and your heart falls out of your butt? Yeah. Thats pretty much the only way I know how to describe it. Quadruplets. So your telling me, Im having QUADRUPLETS???! I wish with every fiber of my being that the story ended there. That I could give you sweet updates on how hectic and crazy life is raising my quadruplets but sadly, thats not how my fairytale was written.
7-6-13 my water broke. My husband rushed me to the hospital and we were given the news that our babies had no more amniotic fluid in their sacs. Being just shy of 6 months pregnant our babies were given a 5% chance of surviving. I was induced, and after about 36 hours of natural labor one by one I pushed out the worlds most beautiful little babies. Alabama, Honey, Carlos-James, and Boston Robles were born on 7-8-13. Born sleeping.
I have been through incredibly life changing things in my life, but nothing even compares to holding your lifeless babies. Babies that looked exactly like their daddy, and my son, my handsome son that oddly resembled my brother. I sat there, holding them in my arms, my heart being as close to physically broken as humanly possible, and I begged God. “Please Lord. I beg you. Just wake them up. Let them look at me. Let me feel them move one more time. Take me instead Lord. Please just give them back to me, please.” And nothing…no sound, no movement, just sleep. I remember trying to drill into my brain every little detail about them. The curve of their little lips, the shape of their nail beds, the size of their tiny noses..every little detail. Sadly, due to one of the babies passing away earlier (Boston) we were not able to see him/her. Instead the hospital staff kept our precious little very gently tucked away inside their baby blanket. So our baby was there, but not visible to us.
Ive never felt anger towards anyone like how I felt anger towards God. I mean, you want to talk about a awful, messed up fairytale?? Hello! For years I wouldn't even pray or acknowledge HIM, I wanted nothing to do with HIM. My heart was filled with so much rage I swear I could have taken out an entire colony with how angry I was. And you want to know what enraged me even more? Was the fact that I knew I needed HIM still. The fact that I knew myself, my marriage, my sanity, that none of these things would stand a chance of survival without HIM. Yet still, I wrestled with HIM. Even when HE tried to speak to me, I would shut HIM out. Eventually HE became so persistent with tugging on my heart trying to speak to me I figured out a way to drown that out as well. I slept. For nearly two years I didn't work, I didn't go out, I would lay in bed hating the world, hating God and what HE took from me and I would just sleep.
During one of the moments that I happen to be awake, a family member reached out to me via email and asked me how I was doing. Planning on just ignoring it like I did the rest of the world it came with a follow up email that stopped me dead in my tracks. “ I know you must be angry, confused, frustrated and frankly pissed at God. But I want you to know that HE can take it. HE can take you yelling at him, screaming at him, cussing at him, whatever it is you are feeling… HE can take it. Let HIM know.” It wasn't more than a couple days later when I was driving home from the grocery store that I literally felt this ball of anger filling up inside of me. I had to pull my car over and just let God had it. I don't think I have ever in my life yelled at someone as much as I did HIM that day. I screamed, cried, cursed, I mean I completely lost it. I let it all out to the point where I couldn't catch my own breath. And you know what God told me after I felt I had ripped him a new one? “Im glad you are talking to me.” And I just sobbed. Boogers dripping, drool hanging, I just hung my head and sobbed. It was in that moment I felt Gods presence that I had been wrestling with for 2 years. I felt the presence of the Lion, that stood there strong and tough and just let me beat on him in every which way because my heart needed it. And then moments later I felt the presence of the Lamb that curled up next to me and allowed me to feel his gentleness.
Its been almost 3 and 1/2 years since my children passed away and one thing I remember my pastor saying to me is that one day it will all make sense. And while I still don't exactly know how to make sense of it all, I do know this. I have been able to help more women in these past 3 and 1/2 years that I ever have in my entire life. Women struggling with infertility, women going through miscarriages, losing their babies to stillbirths, SIDS, I mean you name it. I remember going through the loss of my babies and I had no pillar of strength, I had no one to help tell me what to do or guide me on how to feel. At least I thought I didn't. I thought I had some how out smarted God by staying asleep and ignoring him, but tsk tsk tsk. Not at all.
It almost embarrasses me to think about my behavior after my children passed away. I read these stories in the bible like Sarah and Abraham, which Ive read plenty of times before but yet now I am really able to put myself in their shoes. And I think about how much faith they had in God, and how much patience! Sheesh! If only I could have a fraction of that.
Its not a glass slipper, a powerful sword, or a magic lamp that keeps me going everyday after losing my babies. Its faith. Its faith in knowing that the author of MY fairytale, never makes mistakes. Never has typos, never needs reprints, and doesn't use editors. Life is going to happen, you will be locked in the dungeon, you will get lost on your way to grandmothers house, and there will be fire breathing dragons to slay. Thats just the way life is. But you don't have to be locked away, helpless, lost, angry, broken, and scared all by yourself. You have an author who has not only written your fairytale, but is the knight in shining armor in the story as well. HE will protect you, HE will guide you, HE will comfort you and most importantly HE will restore your faith when you have none left.
So perhaps that o’l first comes love, then comes marriage, then comes a baby in the baby carriage thing didn’t exactly go as I had originally thought. And perhaps my fairytale doesn't read like Cinderella’s, Snow White’s, or even The Little Mermaid’s. But I have faith that remains unshakable and a trust in Gods plan that exceeds anything I could have ever imagined. And that to me, is greater than any happily ever after.