When you began, I was the wife of a teacher, mother of a 9-month-old, working part-time as a tutor. I felt like I had hit my stride in this stage of life - I could keep a house clean, a husband fed, and a child cared for. I was beginning to wonder if God would see fit to bless us with another child, but not expecting one anytime soon, since we had hoped quite some time for our daughter. I didn't have long to wonder, as one morning at the end of January, I almost threw up when I smelled my coffee brewing.
My organized household was quickly lost to first trimester exhaustion and nausea, though the nausea wasn't as bad this time, causing my mother-in-law to believe that I was carrying a little boy. I got over the need for a daily nap in time to make a birthday cake and an Easter dress for my first-born. By the end of April, things were looking up...no more puking, starting to be pregnant enough that I looked pregnant instead of chubby, just one more month of teaching for my husband and I, planning for a busy summer of getting ready for this new little life.
Then on May 1, we saw our little baby. With an incorrectly-formed heart. Plans for a date night with the baby name book turned into a drive to the pediatric cardiologist. For the rest of May, doctor's offices and bad news ruled. A heart defect, a diaphragmatic hernia, a bilateral diaphragmatic hernia, no way of knowing what caused so much to go wrong, realizing there was more likelihood that our child would die than that he would live. The one funny moment in a very difficult month was discovering that the first sonographer, while correctly identifying that something was very wrong, incorrectly identified the baby's sex as female. My mother-in-law was right - we were going to have a baby boy! But we had to go on for months knowing that we probably wouldn't get to bring him home.
By the time school let out, we felt that we had experienced the bottom of 2014 and were now accustomed to living with uncertainty and anticipatory grief. All the summer projects we had thought of - moving our daughter into another room, fitting two car seats into my car, and so forth, were tabled. Instead we made more doctor's appointments, read about CHD and CDH, and tried to do normal things like go to the swimming pool, travel to a family reunion, and teach VBS.
At the end of July, we heard conclusively what we had been expecting to hear based on our research and what the first round of doctors had told us: Arthur wouldn't be able to survive life support and surgery.
August and September were long and hot. I was very large and very preoccupied. My husband started a new school year. My daughter grew to be a toddler, complete with a will of her own and incredible verbal abilities in order to communicate said will.
In October, we waited. We held Arthur. We said goodbye. We cried.
November was a long, difficult month of physical and emotional healing for me.
December brought joy and sorrow all at once. There was so much joy watching our daughter truly enjoy the Christmas season. A year ago, she could neither walk nor talk. Now she does both almost unceasingly, and greets every moment and experience with wonder and excitement. But there was wistfulness in the moments when I allowed myself to think of what might have been. And then sweet sadness as I pondered my loss and all that Jesus lost so that I could gain eternal life.
So, here I am a year later, the wife of a teacher, the mother of a 21-month-old, working part-time as a tutor. Just now feeling as if I can take care of a household again. From the outside, things look so much the same as they did a year ago. But a year ago, Arthur's body was not even formed. Today it is buried in a cemetery.
2014, I spent more than two thirds of you carrying my son. Less than an hour of you holding him in my arms while he still lived.
Just a couple of weeks ago, I realized how much of an emotional toll this year took. After the shock of May, I felt that I was able to live life fairly normally for most of my pregnancy. I guess I am less self-aware than I thought. You see, earlier this month, my husband made a joke that sent me into those junior-high giggles. When I caught my breath, I realized that I hadn't laughed like that since April.
If I had been told a year ago what 2014 would hold, I wouldn't have believed it. More than that, I wouldn't have believed that I would be here, on December 31, still functioning and able to trust and praise God. And I say that not to comment on my strength, but God's.
Because as I look back over the last year, it is God's steadfastness that stands out above all else, above the joy and tears, the busyness and the weakness. In 2014 I learned that God's promises are not empty and those Bible verses about His love and faithfulness are not just pretty words.
So, dear 2014, while I am glad to see you go, with all the heartache you brought, I will forever remember you. I'll remember you as the year of Arthur. And as the year when I really learned that I can trust God. The depth of my heartache this year gave me a glimpse of the depth of His love.
P.S.: I think this is a good place to stop blogging for now. The time may come when I need to start again, but for now I have some other projects in mind, and naptime is only 2 hours a day ;) Thank you, whoever is reading, for your thoughts and prayers in 2014. Thank you for taking the time to read what God has done in my life through Arthur Isaac Ramos. I pray you have learned a little of His love and faithfulness through my son's life, and that He will continue to demonstrate that love and faithfulness to you in 2015!
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