you + me = US: Gone Too Soon

Monday, April 13, 2009

Gone Too Soon

"Oh where oh where can my baby be? The Lord took him away from me. He's gone to heaven so I have to be good, so I can see my baby when I leave this world."

Over the weekend, some pregnancy complications surfaced and so we rushed to my doctors office this morning to check on the baby. We listened for a heartbeat but heard nothing. This morning I thought I was 12 weeks along, but the ultrasound showed an 8 week old baby. No heartbeat was found. I started shaking uncontrollably at the thought. . . our baby has died.

We are so sad. Devastated.

My first reaction was automatic: convulsive sobbing and asking myself what I did wrong. My second reaction was to stop and think: Heavenly Father wants it this way. The baby was so perfect that he came, got his little body and returned to home. I know that Alfonso and I will get to meet him someday. We're thinking "Him."

I'm having surgery on Wednesday morning, d and c (dilation and curettage). After the procedure, we will not be able to discern the baby's sex. Due to the nature of the procedure, all that will be retrieved is tissue. Part of me wants to hold on to his little body as long as I can. But physically speaking, I know that "he is not here"(Matthew 28:6). He has gone home. "I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God." (John 20:17)

What do you do? This afternoon I read this scripture and it helped me decide what I'll do. "Rejoice, O my heart, and cry unto the Lord, and say: O Lord, I will praise thee forever; yea my soul will rejoice in thee, my God, and the rock of my salvation." (2 Nephi 4:30).

14 comments:

Karley said...: Guys, I am so so so sorry. Anything we can do (allbeit 1000 miles away) please let us know. You are in our prayers.; April 13, 2009 at 6:03 PM
bekka said...: Oh Rochelle, I am so sorry.We had a miscarriage between Fox and Harper and at first I thought that is was fine but I soon realized that I was very much going through a grieving process...and it was a lot hard than I could have ever imagined.
You are wonderful and I hope that you can find your peace, I know you will. I hope your procedure goes well.
xo bekka
PS. I have know about d and c's for a long time and it always makes me cring when people say that instead of Doctrine and Covenants.; April 13, 2009 at 9:05 PM
Shiv said...: I am so sorry to hear this sad news! You have a great attitude. The Lord certainly knows what is right and you will be blessed for your strong faith in Him! If there is anything I can do for you, don't hesitate to ask. I love you and your family!; April 13, 2009 at 9:27 PM
Ginny said...: oh, rochelle! my heart breaks for you and alfonso...and the boys. my prayers are with you that you will continue to feel the Lord's love as you move through this experience. good luck on wednesday.; April 13, 2009 at 9:30 PM
The Gines Family said...: My heart, prayers and thoughts go out to you! We love you guys and hope you know that you are in our prayers!; April 13, 2009 at 10:36 PM
Alisa said...: Oh Rochelle! I'm so sorry. This was such sad news to read, but you have such an inspiring attitude about it. You are so strong. You are amazing.; April 13, 2009 at 10:54 PM
Cristi said...: Having had a miscarriage (in fact, the doctors tell me I had two of them) I can completely empathize. It's so hard. That was three years ago. In fact, on April 10th, our baby would have been 3 years old. We wish we could get pregnant again, but now I don't know if that is in the cards. I hope and pray that you will heal quickly - emotionally, spiritually AND physically.

Love you!; April 13, 2009 at 11:08 PM
Aloha_Misty said...: Rochelle my heart hurts for you! I will keep you in my prayers!; April 14, 2009 at 7:50 AM
Jennie said...: Oh, I'm so sorry. I can't imagine. I couldn't help crying reading this. You have the best attitude, we will keep you and your family in our thoughts and prayers. We love you :); April 14, 2009 at 9:38 AM
Scott and Alison said...: Wow Rochelle you have such a way with words. Your blog brought me to tears! You are so strong, and your heart and mind are in the right place, and I admire you so much!! I am so sorry that you are going through this. I hope things go well with your surgery and that you recover quickly. And I know that he will come along with the time is right! Your faith is astounding and a wonderful example.; April 14, 2009 at 3:24 PM
Marcie said...: Ro!!! I am praying for you tonight. I pray that you will feel peace. I love you.; April 14, 2009 at 9:32 PM
Tiffany Hales said...: Rochelle:

I am so sad for you, I know how excited you were to welcome a new little spirit into your wonderful new home with your very supportive husband and three great kids. My heart is so broken for you. But you have an amazing attitude, and a wonderful testimony of the savior to comfort you in this very difficult time. Please know that I will be praying for you that you can have peace and confort and you will never be far from my thoughts.

Tiffany; April 14, 2009 at 10:16 PM
Calerich said...: You are an example to me! I can't imagine how hard this must be for you, please know I am thinking of you and you are in my prayers!; April 15, 2009 at 9:09 PM
Cami said...: Rochelle- We went through the exact same thing 5 years ago. We were supposed to be 13 weeks, but the fetus was at 8 weeks. I also had to have a D&C. It was a very trying time for me, but since then I have discovered that these things happen for a reason. I too did a lot of research, and came up with almost the exact articles and scriptures that you did. I know that there are not words to fill the void in your life right now. My only words of advice are to let yourself grieve. I tried to be strong, but once I let it sink in and let myself grieve, I was able to be a happier person.
-Cami Baylis Cook; April 25, 2009 at 11:29 AM

Kids Say The Darndest Things

9/8/14 After a massive pillow fight with Spence and Will, Mia fell to the floor and exclaimed, "I'm soaking tired!"

5/15/14 We were watching a Baby Einstein movie featuring a rhino puppet. Mia said, "Mom, that rhinoceros is a genius."

5/13/14 Mia just told me some disturbing news about her imaginary friend. "Squella, not like you, so her is hiding." I even offered Squella a popsicle to bribe her into liking me and she wouldn't budge.
5 minutes later:
No wait, Mia just informed me, "Her likes you now. Her gets a pop-is-cle."

5/02/14 Mia has been coming up with some unique names for her imaginary friends, Squilla, Quinley, Tortilla are just a few. Well today she was talking to her friend Celia and said,
"What's your Cat's name, Celia?
"Tiddley-Dee"
"Oh!!! GREAT name!!!"
Later, I asked her later about the cat and found out that there are TWO! One cat's name is "Tilly-Tina" and the other's name is "Tiddley-Dee."

4/21/14 Mia was shouting at me from the bathroom in a bossy way. I said, "Mia, don't talk to me like that." She said. "I YELLING at you." I needed to leave the room and she shouted again and said, "Mommy come here, right now. I gon count and you gon go in time-out!!!" Sweet swirling onion rings, I'm in for it.

4/4/14 While enjoying a chocolate chip cookie together, I asked, "Mia, why is chocolate soooooo good?" To which she naturally replied, "Cuz we gon' eat it."
Best reason ever.

1/07/14 At the store, at the top of her lungs, in attempt to tell me that she's going to "crack me up" Mia shouted, "Mom, I go a crap you up!"

12/11/13 Today at story time Miss Sally was teaching the kids about the color red. She was pointing out those with red hair. She said, "This little boy has red hair, and look, this mommy has red hair. And this mommy has red hair!" There was a pause and Mia shouted out, "I HAVE TWO MOMMIES!" All the parents looked around, Miss Sally bewildered, looked at me. Appalled I laughed and said loudly, "I have NO IDEA what she's talking about." Everyone started laughing. . . hard! For the life of me I couldn't figure out why she'd say that. So afterwards I asked Mia, and she pointed to the two mommies with red hair and said, "See? Two mommies!" Ohhhhhh, now I get it. Two mommies with red hair.

12/14/13 The dinner table was busy with multiple conversations occurring at once when Mia said, "Hey Will, this song my favorite: (in sing-song)
Hello Kitty, Hello Kitty,
I like Hello Kitty"

12/03/13 Ben was teasing Mia on the couch. When she angrily yelled, "Ben, DON'T BLOW ME! I NOT a bubble!!!"

11/13/13 Today I was crying and couldn't stop. Mia dropped what she was doing and ran up and said, "Hold me, you feel better!" I hugged her tight and put her down. A few seconds later she came up and said, "Here Mom, a have a Kleenex."

Lately, Whenever we are having a nice snuggle moment as a family, Mia will come up and say, "All To-ah-gedder."

10/13/13 I need to preface this by saying, Mia's word for "girl" is "grill." After church Mia got very upset and ran to her room. Alfonso went up to try to comfort her and said, "Don't cry, Mia." To which she responded, "But grills like to cry."

09/25/13 Mia and I were playing with pretend snakes. In their "conversation", they made a deal and so I told her, "Let's shake on it." she immediately began to violently shake the snake.

08/24/13 Once again, Pandora displayed the album cover (One World's Acoustic) of Justin Bieber on the screen. Mia looked at it again and said, "Mom, look! A doggie. Doggie wif guitar."

08/21/13 Pandora displayed an album cover of Justin Bieber on the t.v. Mia, startled a little by the music, looked up at the screen, studied for a minute and said, "Cute doggie!"

08/19/13 As we were all getting ready to go swimming, Mia was excitedly showing everyone her "swimming soup."

08/17/12 A day after I taught Will about the Star of David, Will was playing with a couple of triangle magnets. When he had overlapped them just right he held them up and said, "Look, it's Jared's star!"

08/16/12 After taking off Ben's newly acquired football gear, Will sat next to me, sighed, and said, "It's nice to have a football player in the house."

07/24/12 I was looking at my wedding ring while tucking Will in to bed. Will noticed and said, "That's a pretty fancy ring." I said, "It is. It's the most beautiful thing I've ever owned. But I love it mostly for what it stands for." Will surprised me when he responded, "You love it because it reminds you of the day you got married. Even if it was made of wood, it would be a still be a great treasure."

07/23/12 After a run to Dairy Keen, Will shared the following insight: "The most humblest flavor of ice cream in the whole entire world is vanilla." When I asked why, he said, "Because it's simple, it's plain, and it's always there. "

07/05/12 Fearing that Mia might ruin his pillow fort, Will asked, "Mom, can we put her to sleep?"

06/28/12 As we were setting the table for breakfast, Will (7)said, "I'm a simple man." I couldn't help but smile. "I'm a simple man with complex thoughts." Did I mention, he's 7???

06/25/12 While I was looking for a rubber band, Spencer handed a large one to me and proudly said, "I wear 5 rubber bands on my wrist at all times."

06/22/12 For the second time, Spencer said, "I don't believe in sarcasm." I argued that sarcasm does exsist and gave him an example. His response, "I call that oppositism."

06/03/12 While we were driving, Spencer spotted a slowly oncoming tractor and car and said, " 'Wow, tractors drive slow!' thought the lady in the green car."

06/03/12 We had watched a bunch of old footage of Beatles performing some of their hits, when Will yelled out, "Can we PLEASE stop listening to classical music?"

05/12/12 Trying to explain to our sick kids why we couldn't have friends come play, I said, "We need to get this virus out of our house." Will said, "Lets give it to someone else!"

03/03/12 Will just said, "I have a faculty butt."

03/01/12 Will told Ben that from now on he wants to be called Bethica, queen of the sea.

03/01/12 Will came inside from shoveling snow with cold hands. After explaining to me that the problem was his gloves, he asked,"Can I have an upgrade?"

11/29/11 Me: "Will, what do you want the person you marry to be like?" Will: "Hot and sexy." Room fills with shock & stifled laughter. Me: "Will. . . what does it mean to be hot?" Will: "That you just came out of the desert."

11/28/11 When it's time for oracion/prayer, Mia oftentimes will fold her arms and talk quietly while the prayer is said. At the end we say "amen." She loudly says, "BOB!"

11/26/11 Alfonso swatted at the pesky fly once again. "It's taunting me." He said. Will exclaims, "It's taunting you??" Mutters to self, "I hate taunting flies."

11/10/11 Will walked in the door and when he saw his friend Annie sitting on the couch said, "I knew this day had something special in it." "What?" Annie asked. "You! I knew you were coming over. You make today special."

11/10/11 In the car, Annie (a girl I'm tending) said, "Jesus is so lucky! He gets to be born on Christmas, huh!"

09-09-11 Alfonso and I went on a date for our anniversary and left the kids with family. After we picked up the kids, Will politely asked, "Were there a lot of people at the anniversary?"

09-08-11 At the breakfast table, I was telling the kids that tomorrow would be Alfonso and my anniversary. Will lowered his head and said, "I'm glad I don't have to see that."

09-07-11 At a restaurant, we were all joking back and forth and Will said, "You gotta be pushing my leg!"

08-20-11 At our moving sale, my 3-year-old neice, Nicole held up a shiny quarter and said, "Look, I have a quenny."

08-20-11 5 minutes later, Nicole was whining. Her Mom, D.D. said, "I'm not going to talk to you until you use a big girl voice." Nicole gave her a mean look and said, "But you just talked to me."

08-19-11 Will, sitting at the table kept singing, "Can't you see, I love my pancreas, look at me, I love my pancreas." Over and over. Thank you, Wierd Al.

08-19-11 Quite proud of himself and giggling a little, Spencer announced, "Faster than a speeding two-year-old, able to leap a towering pile of laundry, it's SUPERMOM!!!"

04-29-11 We had just finished a large meal at Chick's Cafe when Spencer leaned back in his chair and energetcally patted his stomach saying, "Now I know what Santa feels like."

04-28-11 Will was helping me pull our huge new stroller out of its box. His job was to pull the box down as I held the stroller up off the ground. It wouldn't budge. He paused and said, "Wait, should I go drink some milk, to make my muscles stronger?"

About Us

Our blended family is many years and obstacles in the making. We two were raised in separate countries, different cultures and upbringings. For each of us, God's blessed broken road weaved through marraige, the birth of a child (or two) and a painful divorce, in the end, leaving a himless her and a herless him. We met on a blind date in 2008 and haven't been able to stay away from each other since. Married for time and all eternity in the Salt Lake Temple, we and our four children are determined to BE a forever family. This blog is an account of our daily lives, our ups and downs, and our journey to become "one."