I'm moving!

Well, not actually to another house, but to a new web address anyway.  I've had this other blog address set up as long as I have had this one, but never used it.  I think I was just so new to blogging that this one was so much easier.  But I have found over the last few months that I actually like the layout and the cleanliness of the other blog site better, so I think it is time. 

I read once that people who want to be taken seriously use wordpress while more of the hobbyists use blogger.  I like both.  However, now that my book, which I have been working on for quite some time, is gaining momentum, it is time that I take myself a bit more seriously as well.  This blog was started, after all, as a beginning platform for my writing life.  Time to jump up one level.  Please don't give up on me!  I am so grateful to everyone who has been supportive to me thus far. 

I hope you'll make the move with me over to my new residence at:

HeatherIScott.com

See you soon!
xoxoxox
~Heather

PLOT TWIST!

Just going to say this:  I feel like I am finally able to write again!  So, this mama is twisting her life plot back into shape where I want it, and I'm moving forward once again.  It is time to pick it back up and make a revised goal.  I may not have reached my goal of finishing by the end of this month, but I bet I'm gonna get it done before the end of the year for sure!

xoxoxo,
Heather

Heart Shattered: My Experience with Miscarriage

It's been a while since I've written anything, either in my book or here on my blog.  I hardly even remembered what my blog currently looked like.  I hardly cared to remember who I was.  Who I was is not the same as I now am.

This year, well, the past 4 years, have not been easy.  I've been on a personal emotional roller coaster filled with more downs than ups.  My family keeps my heart intact and holds my head above water, so to speak.  They are my greatest treasure.  I cherish everything about my children.  Nothing takes precedence over them.  I would give and do anything for them.

In March we found out we were expecting our 5th baby.  We happily kept it a secret which we didn't plan to share until we could surprise everyone with our first ultrasound picture of our little peanut.  Sadly, that didn't get to happen.  In the beginning of June I started spotting one night.  I went to the Emergency Room the next day.  In the time we were there, I got an ultrasound, but not the way I had hoped.  Instead of a joyous occasion at the first glimpse of my little one, instead it was very solemn.

As a mother, my entire mission is to nurture and strengthen my children.  I want to uplift them.  I want to protect them from every negative influence in my power.  No one is ever able to protect their child on the inside.

I saw my baby.  Instead of a healthy, happy little heart beat there was none.  Instead of cute little limbs moving and kicking, there was no movement.  He was just there.  Suspended in his dark, quiet tomb. 

I would never get to know the perfect little spirit that inhabited that tiny body for only 10 weeks.  Nothing could be done because he was already gone. 

The doctors speculate that he was already gone two weeks before I even had any indications of complications, for I was supposed to be nearly 13 weeks up to that point.  In hindsight, I must have had some indications of other complications, the very sudden cessation of morning sickness, intense back pain, etc. but none of it really mattered.  This really was one of those unpreventable situations.  According to the ultrasound, there was no placenta.  That probably means that in the transition between yolk sac and placental implantation there was a failure.  The placenta didn't implant to the uterine wall like it was supposed to, and baby, my helpless baby, slowly just died.   (Doctors always like to say that it is the body's way of aborting a baby that wasn't going to turn out right.  I think that is an insensitive catch-all way of saying that they don't have an answer but aren't content not being able to give one.)  No one knows why. 

It didn't matter.  Nothing anyone could say mattered.  It couldn't make my heart break any less.

After I received the news, I had to tell my husband who was still anxiously, but hopefully waiting for some good news in our room.  And then throughout the evening we had to tell all of our family all of our heart breaking news. 

That night I couldn't stop crying.  I cried and I sobbed, as I am sobbing even now as I write this.  No one should ever have to experience this kind of heart break.  (Sadly, I'm not the first, and I know I won't be the last.)  I couldn't stop crying until a few hours after we put our 4 other children to bed.  I only stopped crying because I was dehydrated and out of tears.  My eyes were the size of golf balls, and the only reason I ate anything that night was because I had to put something into my tummy for the double dose of Excedrin that I took to ease the pain of my excruciating grief induced migraine.  (The only other time I have ever had a migraine that badly was when I sobbed and cried for days at the premature death of my father when I was 17.)

My husband and I sat on the couch for a couple hours in the solemn silence of our house.  We tried to be happy, we talked about anything and everything we could to help stay in control of our broken hearts, attempting and failing to keep all the shattered pieces collected.  Finally as we got ready for bed, I burst into hysterical sobs again, and couldn't be consoled until we had made a bed in the middle of the floor of our children's bedroom.  The only comfort I found was by being surrounded by the peaceful sounds of my older four children happily snoozing away.

Morning came too quickly.  I woke up at dawn and paced the dark house in silence with nothing but my aching heart to keep me company.  I wasn't able to go back to sleep until I settled into an arm chair in a different room listening to some downloaded sounds of thunderstorms on my phone as I watched the night turn into day outside my window. 

The following days involved a lot more emotional reconciling.  As I had to come to terms with my loss, I also knew I had to face the biggest part of a "missed miscarriage" as I was sent home to "pass my baby."  (It's terrible how you get to celebrate the birth of a child, but when your little one has died in womb, you're suddenly just passing the baby, as if that baby is suddenly nothing more than debris.  Medical terminologies can sometimes be so lacking in human sensitivities.) 

My mom and sister visited the following evening.  We stayed home as a family and did nothing most of Saturday and Sunday.  And then my mother said that she would stay with me on Monday so that my husband could go back to work.  She stayed and was a joy to be with as she boosted my spirits all of the day.  That night I had full blown labor pain and contractions, but decided I was far too exhausted to face it yet, and hoped that I could get some rest between contractions.  They subsided around midnight.  My mom stayed until Tuesday, thank goodness, because that afternoon is when labor returned.

It didn't happen easily.  When it did, I went through the effects of a full unassisted labor, only much, MUCH worse.  My mother, THANK HEAVEN FOR MY MOTHER, was there for all of it.  If she had not been, I dare not think of how much worse it could have been.  She saved me from fainting multiple times.  She helped me search through an unspeakable amount of blood and tissue in search of the remains of my little baby.  My husband came home from work and was able to help in some of the ordeal too.  The problem was that I lost way too much blood.  So much.  My mom knows just how much.  The doctors didn't believe me when I tried to tell them.  At the end as I tried to finally get out of the bathroom, I really did faint, and my husband basically carried me to my bed where they both tucked me in for the night.  My hubby went out and bought me a hamburger.  (I was in desperate need of red meat then.)  My mom washed me, nursed me, and checked my vitals every two hours through the night.

Early morning came and a full nights rest gave me enough strength to see her off.  I had breakfast from the other half of my dinner and went back to sleep for a couple hours.  Right about the time we hoped I might be okay, contractions and hemorrhaging began and we still had to get me into the hospital after all.  I spent the day in another ER hooked up to an IV and received 2 doses of morphine.  That night, a week since my initial spotting, I had an emergency D&C.  And, huge shocker, my blood levels were too weak, and they had me stay the night where I then received 2 blood transfusions.

I'm trying to be strong.  I've been trying and praying for strength throughout the entire experience.  When I got home that Thursday, a flood of memories of the recent "war zone" rushed upon me with my returning grief.  I'm still learning to cope.  Some people may think, "What's the big deal?  It was just a little fetus."  I don't believe it.  As a mother, you come to know your child before he or she is even born, and I believe that little baby did have a spirit at one point, whether I got to know him outside the womb or not.  I personally held that perfectly formed little baby and I could see all of his already developed features and I was able to see EXACTLY what he would have looked like, had he been allowed to live a longer life.

I'm still surprised that it happened to me.  Me.  I know and hear about lots of women who actually do have various risk indicators for complications during pregnancy which have caused or do threaten a miscarriage.  I've got a best friend who has experienced multiple miscarriages in various stages.  I was devastated every time she experienced that loss.  Now I know what it felt like physically and, worse, emotionally for me.  I'll never fully recover from this tragedy.  Nobody ever gets over that kind of thing, they only get past it.  It will take time.

My entire life I have always striven to have and exercise charity, the pure love of Christ, to the best of my abilities.  I have frequently prayed that I could empathize, more than just sympathize, when someone else has been going through a difficult trial in their own personal life.  I could ask so many questions of  "WHY" but I don't really feel like I need to.  I have a testimony of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  I have a firm understanding and faith in the Plan of Happiness and that families can be together forever.  I know why I am here and what my purposes in this life are.  And I have great hope that I can meet my perfect baby boy again some day.  He was too perfect for this life and all he needed to fulfill his plan was to receive a body.  Now that he was able to do that, I believe he is already with our Savior once again. 

This loss has been very personal to me.  You probably will not hear me actually speak of it again in person simply because the pain of it is still extremely close to the surface still.  But I can say that I truly do feel blessed in the midst of my trials.  I feel like this has brought my family closer together and given me a closer relationship with my Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ also.  He is a god of miracles and He is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

As for my precious child, I didn't flush him and I was not able to bring his remains to a lab for analysis for who knows what.  He was my baby.  I held him in my hand and saw his perfectly formed little features and body.  He was cremated and we will make his final resting place there with my daddy's so that he will always be safe, with someone who I know also loves him.

Rest in peace until we meet again, my little one.  Your daddy, siblings, and I love you with all of our hearts.

To Care or Not to Care

Recently I read a NY Times article called, "The 'Busy' Trap" by Tim Kreider.  Ironically, this exact concept has been on my mind a lot.  Not more than a few hours ago I even posted a facebook status pondering how to make people care more about the littler things in life, to care as much as I do, and wondering if anyone else gets frustrated in the way that I do when I fail to make people care as badly as I wish they would.  The most frequent response I have been hearing from many people in my circle (if they even bother to give a response, that is) is something like, "Do I have to...?  I am just so busy."

What the heck, people?  If it is important to you, you'll find a way.  If it isn't you'll find an excuse.  At least be honest about it and just say that you don't want to or that you're not interested.  The former excuse is just a socially tolerated blow-off phrase.  That's what "busy" seems like to me.  Just an excuse for not caring more when maybe you would be glad if you did.   (One of my brothers has said to me on more than one occasion, "Excuses are like butts..."  Well, you can fill in the rest.)  Look, you don't have to care about the same things as me.  But show that you at least care about something.  And not just the big somethings either.

Want to know the truth?  Judge me if you will, but I cannot deny that one of the ways I gauge the quality and caliber of a person's character is by how they make time for the small things.  I've told you once before in this blog that I am a wall flower.  It's by choice.  I like to stand on the sidelines and observe everything and everyone.  It helps me see who needs less attention or who needs more.  And it is just what I like to do.  I love being still and observing, Taking Time, to think and meditate and brainstorm.  When I see or hear people who say they are too busy or don't have time, it is a flag to me that they just don't care.  And even if you don't or don't want to, I have more respect for people who practice sincerity and candor than for the others.

I can't say that I don't care because I do.  So when others write something or someone off with the time/business excuse, it makes me sad.  I know I might not know them or their personal struggles behind doors as intimately as I know my own, but what I do know is that I will always try my hardest to take time out for someone who needs me or cares. 

Either you care, or you don't.  It doesn't matter what the scenario is, you've just got to itemize your priorities.  "Is it important enough to re-organize my busy schedule enough for this, or should I just indirectly tell them that I don't care...  Thanks for reaching out to me, guys, but I decided my time is too important and more scarce than yours and I need to spend it elsewhere.  Peace out."

Right.  Got the message loud and clear.

One of my favorite quotes from the article is,
"Idleness is not just a vacation, an indulgence or a vice; it is as indispensable to the brain as vitamin D is to the body, and deprived of it we suffer a mental affliction as disfiguring as rickets. The space and quiet that idleness provides is a necessary condition for standing back from life and seeing it whole, for making unexpected connections and waiting for the wild summer lightning strikes of inspiration — it is, paradoxically, necessary to getting any work done."

I would like to add that it is also good for the soul and good for forging bonds with your would-be peers and with your loved ones.  It tells people the quality of person and friend you are by making time for even the smallest of things.  Because, let's face it, at the end of the day and at the end of our lives, it might just be the conglomeration or accumulation of all those little things we did in our life that made the biggest impact to those around us. 

Time eventually runs out.  None of us know when, but it will.  How do you want to be remembered for spending the time you had?

As for me, I'm gonna go play "Hulk" and "Littlest Petshop" with my little ones while they're still little.  Thanks for "listening" to my ramblings all the same.  It feels good to know that someone cared.

Make Today Ridiculously Amazing!

This past month while my blog sat silent, I did some spring cleaning on a financial facet and also on a social one.  One notable event: my friend Jessica and I started a book club.  It's been great so far.  I am very pleased.  This month is my turn to host, and I want my house to be in tip-top shape.  (It's not going to be, so anyone who reads this will know that at least I have the best of intentions, but let's face it-- I live here with a messy hubby and all of our maniacal children.  Life is crazy good, but sometimes that requires less than perfection and a healthy dose of clutter under the scrutinous eye.  Whatever.)

I, for one, believe there is truth in the philosophy of feng shui.  If my surroundings are out of order, then my mind is as well, and vice versa.  So my spring cleaning has really taken a front seat to my writing lately.  In the long run, that will be a really good thing.  I am bringing new life to many of my surroundings, which helps feed my creativity.  Last night I did my big ol' cork board which usually holds all of my book brainstorming stuff on it.

It was previously brown brown brown.  I like this better.  I think I might gradually make this into a collage with more swirls of color and fun stuff, but I'm actually quite thrilled so far. 

So anyway, that's just one example.  I have a few more projects that I need to do in the next month as well (that's my Spring Cleaning deadline before I put myself on a writing boot camp to catch up).  But in the mean time, I just have one thing to say:

And embrace your creativity in your own special way.

 

~Heat

 

Book Review

A Heart So Broken: A breath of fresh air

Confessions:

 The title and cover were slightly off-putting to me at first.  I was so worried that it would be too sappy for me.  But I still bought it because the author is an aquaintance of mine and I am totally all about supporting my friends in the same way that I hope to some day be supported with my own book. That being said, once I got past the title, I actually enjoyed the book! A lot! 

I'm not one to get gushy.  I do occasionally go fan girl over some things, but it is rare and certainly not over drippy love goo.  Regarding romance, I used to believe it was possible and then life opened my eyes to the reality that emotional armor is still a good thing.  However, this book was a breath of fresh air to me. 

Here's the book synopsis, taken straight from Amazon:

When Jenna Tucker arrives on Aunt Lilly's porch, her broken arm is a small reflection of the shattered girl within. The sudden loss of her father during his service in Iraq has conspired to transform her from top of the class track queen to a girl on the run from haunting nightmares. With a trail of burned bridges ablaze behind her and deep resentment for the survivor of the blast that took her father's life Jenna digs in for a miserable summer in small town West Junction. Aunt Lilly is just what she needs: comfort, guidance, and hard truth rolled into a pair of loving arms. Under her tender care, Jenna has a vivid dream that reawakens hope for happiness. Meeting handsome Cooper Turnage at the crossroads brightens the possibilities considerably. The attraction that crackles between them is hard to resist, but Cooper struggles to hide a painful history that could ruin his chances with Jenna forever. The day Jenna discovers Cooper's devastating secret, her still tender heart is crushed all over again. She is confronted with a choice between the comfort of bitterness or a path of forgiveness that will heal at last a heart so broken.

http://www.amazon.com/Heart-So-Broken-Christene-Houston/dp/1617507997/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1364923733&sr=8-1&keywords=a+heart+so+broken

Now, down to the nitty gritty:

I opened this book with sincere enthusiasm as I do most books.  However, the first couple chapters struggled for me because I was reading it from a critical writer's perspective.  There's a couple (very minor) technical aspects in it which I would have preferred polished more.  But I can't judge a book for those because even I have committed some major faux pas in my own writing.  (Writing is a work of heart first and foremost and I applaud everyone who has ever stuck it out from start to finish because finishing is usually the hardest part.) 

Once I loosened up in my expectations (I said loosened up, not lowered) the story truly warmed the cockles of my heart.  After the main character, Jenna, had her first emotional breakthrough, I actually got invested in the story.  I found that I identified with it and with her very strongly in the way only a young woman can if she has endured similar tragedy in her own life.  I lost my dad very suddenly when I was only seventeen years old.  My loss completely redefined me as a person and frequently still does.  I understand the phases of coping all too well myself.  And I know that portraying those emotions onto paper take a lot of strength in a writer.  I am grateful to Christene as she portrayed those tender topics so well. 

Maybe because grown up life has disenchanted me in some ways, romance and drippy love goo are so hard for me to hear or see or read.  Perhaps we all have different ideas on love.  I've never fancied reading that sort of stuff...  Happily, this offered a sweetly naive and fresh perspective for me because it reminded me of myself in simpler days.  It's cute and sweet in a good way.  I think that all age groups can appreciate it in the way that Christene presented it.

My absolute favorite thing about Christene's book was the integration of the theme supporting the Armed Forces and the courage that is required for not only Servicemen and Servicewomen but also for all of their family members and their support circles.  These men and women and families give so much.  It takes Serious Courage and Serious Sacrifice.  It's something that no one should take for granted and which many people do.  I loved how the exercise of courage when it wasn't required helped mend many broken hearts and reinstill courage in another broken heart.

Conclusion:

Am I all fan girl for this? Yes, enough so that I'm already reading it again, which is very rare for me. I've even recommended it for this month's selection in my local book club and we are all looking forward to having Christene Houston as a guest at our next meeting. Am I a fan girl for the author? Definitely! She has proven her mettle for me. She was a perfect springboard into a literary genre that I previously did not have any interest or appreciation for. I think that her story was a wonderful breath of fresh air for my mind and heart. I look forward to the next works she puts out and hope that it will be soon.