Womb Woven

I just came across a new-to-me website this evening, called Womb Woven and Wonderfully Made. Here Angela Nazworth shares the realities of her Post Partum Mood Disorders as well as the hope of living she's found beyond her nervous breakdown.

Angela shares,

...this battle was even more severe than the first, which in my darkest moment found me lying on my living room floor in a literal puddle of my own tears plotting ways to end my life while making it appear accidental. That time I received just enough help to function. Just enough to fool me and those around me into thinking that I had it all together.

I think the fact that I did not receive enough help and intervention during my first perinatal struggles led to the intensification of my second battle, the battle that alarmed even a psychiatrist...

Angela goes on to share about her season of healing and how she learned to harvest hope from her heartache. She recently relaunched her blog under the new banner of Womb Woven and Wonderfully Made where she shares stories of hope and courage from many walks of life.

Through the Valley

Today I'm sharing two more windows into my past on the Hannah's Hope book blog (my struggle with depression) and on Held (God's grace to carry me through that dark valley).


If you or someone you love if caught in a similar struggle, these resources might help.

Suicide Prevention:

U.S. Suicide Prevention Hotline - 1-800-SUICIDE

International Suicide Prevention Listings - http://www.befrienders.org


General Depression Resources:

My Story, as posted here at Harvesting Hope last year.

Depression is Not a Sin (Focus on the Family)

Just Breathe (in)Courage

Common Cold of Emotional Illnesses

Women and Depression

Mental Health


Depression After Pregnancy Loss:

Is Miscarriage Supposed to be This Hard? (Focus on the Family)

Out of the Valley Post-Partum (Including Post-Miscarriage) Hope

PPD Revisited

We've talked about Post-Partum Depression here before. Today I was thrilled to run across an article by Dr. Heather Rupe, D.O., entitled Postpartum Depression: Not Just a Matter of ‘Bucking Up’ and Praying Harder. I found this overview to be basic, informative, straightforward and helpful, so wanted to point it out for anyone else who might be wondering about symptoms of PPD.

Encouragement Day

Sept. 12 is National Day of Encouragement. To mark this day, DaySpring was kind enough to encourage me by sending a package of 10 beautiful cards so that I could, in turn, pass encouragement on to some friends. As cards spilled out onto my bed, I was delighted to see how God had inspired the card authors and artists to match the unique needs and personalities of several specific friend. Names popped to mind one after another as I quickly made a list of those who could use a reminder that they are loved and important and prayed for right now:


- a few friends for whom life has not gone as planned

- some grieving friends, including an elderly woman in a nursing home and the husband of a dear friend, both whom lost spouses to cancer within the past year

- a family fighting for hope in the face of long-term unemployment

- several battling cancer, recovering from recent surgeries, or fighting chronic health challenges

- someone courageously journeying through depression

- a couple of thank yous to friends who have been a faithful encouragers to me in the past

- someone who is learning to be a "single mom" in the midst of painful separation from her husband

In fact I was so encouraged at the idea of dropping hugs and prayers in the mailbox that I soon found myself selecting additional cards and addressing more envelopes. Most fun of all, I addressed a card that I think we be of special encouragement to a whole group of ladies who are closely connected. I included instruction for them to forward it on from one to the next, adding their own notes along the way, until the card has circulated to this entire group who is in need of a dose of extra encouragement at the moment. I'll tuck a book of stamps inside before I seal the envelope to help accomplish this goal. :)






In addition to being National Day of Encouragement, we are also entering National Invisible Chronic Illness Awareness Week and this year's theme is "each one reach one." Is there one person for whom you can find a small way of offering encouragement today? Perhaps send her an eCard, leave a sticky note, or check out comments at (in)Courage to see how others are offering encouragement today.

Are you in need encouragement? Please leave a comment and let me know how I can be praying for you!

Calming Storms in My Heart

When Pregnancy (or Lack of) Brings Depression

This week I shared my own journey through depression, sometimes related to chronic illness, other times to infertility or miscarriage, and most recently in the wake of pregnancy and for two years post-partum. Today I want to specifically share a resource for post-partum depression or PPD.

Living Beyond Postparutm Depression: Help and Hope for the Hurting Mom and Those Around Her by Jerusha Clark is a fantastic read for anyone considering trying to conceive. Hopefully you will never need the information there, but it is a good tool to have available and information to be aware of even prior to conception - I truly wish I had known about it before we miscarried Noel or before our living daughter's pregnancy/birth as I think I would have been armed with the information I needed to seek help and prevent much heartache.

One thing I greatly appreciate about Jerusha's book was that even though she herself has not faced infertility or pregnancy loss, she does acknowledge both issues, providing facts that are often overlooked in many PPD resources. While she does not address these issues in depth, she shares that, "PPD can afflict women after a miscarriage, stillbirth, or abortion." She also sites sources to explain that because of "exposure to artificial hormones and psychological stressors" that women undergoing infertility treatment "are at a high risk for developing depression. Approximately 25 to 30 percent of women undergoing treatment for fertility are clinically depressed before becoming pregnant and PPD affects a great number of these women after delivery." These were issues I had long-observed but never seen medically verified, so it was refreshing to find these references in this book.

If you are currently experiencing PPD, I would actually suggest that you ask a loved one (husband, supportive mother, best friend) to read Living Beyond for or with you. Knowing my own personality, I must be honest and say that if I had read it during PPD, because I was in the functional mild-moderate range of illness, while I would have gleaned much helpful information, some portions of the book might have added to my weight of guilt/concern. I do not say this because anything presented us untrue, invalid or even unkind, but because the book is very honest about the burden PPD places on family members and I tend to be guilt-driven very easily, even when in a healthy frame of mind. Likewise, had I read it after miscarriage I think I could have gained a lot of healing encouragement, but would also have found the passages about mothering a newborn quite hard to bear.

Having said all that, Living Beyond is still the most extensive and helpful resource I've found for understanding all the various facets and kinds of depression and what can be successfully done to help properly treat the condition. And I definitely need to note that while PPD refers to depression that comes post-pregnancy, many of the principles there are equally applicable to any form of depression, even those not related to the physical/hormonal shifts of pregnancy, so I would consider this book valuable reading for all women and married couples along with the husbands (Especially!!!), fathers, brothers, pastors or other men in positions to support women through this journey.

Note of disclaimer:
I received no financial compensation for this post, however I did receive a free review copy of Living Beyond Postpartum Depression from the publisher, NavPress. This review is fully my personal opinion and was not reviewed by the book author nor publisher prior to publication.

It's Depressing

Today on Facebook I came across the following status update:

DEPRESSION is not a sign of weakness it is a sign that you have been trying to be strong for too long. Put this as your status if you know someone who has or has had depression. Most people wont, but its mental health week and 1 in 3 of us will suffer some point in our lives. Show your support...♥

Depression is something very few people are willing to talk about, but I believe it impacts many more people than most of us realize. I can't even count the number of times, several just within the past few weeks, where women have sat down with me and secretly shared their struggles with depression. It's a journey clouded in shame, something we worry others will look down on us for, judge us over. Sometimes we hide behind a facade of being outgoing, the life of the party. Sometimes it drives us deeper into our own shells.

For much too long the church as a whole has perpetuated the idea that depression is rooted in the sinful inability or unwillingness to allow God to bring joy to our hearts. I do believe that depression often is entangled with spiritual struggles, but often broken spirits comes as a result of the imbalanced hormones and true medical issues that trigger depression in the first place.

I hope to provide several resources for coping with depression in coming posts, but today I want to start simply by letting you know that if you are facing depression, you are not alone. And so I'll start by opening my heart and sharing my own story, beginning in 1991/92. At this time I don't believe I was living in full-time depression, but I did experience frequent, terrifying panic attacks in conjunction with hormonal imbalance triggered by the onset of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. I developed a host of fears and phobias and cried frequently, but also had times that were very upbeat and joyful.

As we progressed into 1993/94, joy evaporated. I sunk into a deep, black depression in the wake of infertility grief and all the daily losses of learning to live with debilitating chronic illness. At my lowest, I seriously entertained thoughts of suicide on a regular basis. :( God used my husband, Scriptures and the book The Ache for a Child by Debra Bridwell to begin my healing.

In hindsight I would highly encourage anyone who is where I was then to immediately seek medical and emotional aid though frank conversation with a competent physician and solid, Christ-centered counseling. It is truly a testament of God's grace that when I did not know enough about depression to understand how desperately I needed that help, that God, Himself the Great Physician and Wonderful Counselor, stepped in and brought about the miraculous healing I needed. Hannah's Prayer Ministries was born as a result of this season when God brought me up out of the pit, out of the Valley of the Shadow of Death and set my feet on a firm place to stand beside the quiet waters.

After our first miscarriage (Dec. 94) I had a different depressive episode lasting about 5 months. This time I was simply was void of feeling. Unlike the utter lost-ness, despair and hopelessness of the prior depression, this new grief-based depression over the death of our first daughter left me unable to laugh, cry, smile, be angry or "feel" anything - I simply was numb month after month. My breakthrough and healing here began with the final admission to myself that we had indeed been blessed with parenthood, even if only for a short season on this earth. To actually hear myself say, "I had a miscarriage," a statement that brought about days of gut-wrenching and unstoppable torrent of tears, was a huge milestone. Choosing a name of our daughter, thus "giving her an identity" I could relate to, was another step in overcoming this round of depression and beginning to work through healthy stages of grief.

Noel would be nearly 15 now and I still miss her, grief being a life-long journey. But my depression in the wake of her death was more than just a "stage of grief" and would be medically classified as postpartum depression (PPD), though I had no bring-home baby at the end. I still do not fully understand why, of all our 10 very painful losses, it was only Noel's death that triggered a full depressive experience like this, though I think some issues like our infertility, the fact that she was my first and (at that time) only child, and other life circumstances may have all been contributing factors.

Over the years depression has visited me in milder and shorter seasons, off and on, at various times, often linked to hormonal changes or health complications. My latest real journey through depression came with the conception and birth of our daughter who is now 7. (She is our second our of 3 living miracles.) This time ANGER best defined my experience of peri/post-partum depression. There were many elements that set the stage for this struggle, including secondary infertility, 2 miscarriages a year prior to her conception, a major surgery just a couple months before her conception, significant hormonal imbalance, having to stop our planned adoption due to pregnancy, high risk pregnancy with ongoing perterm labor scares and 13 weeks of bedrest, and out-of-control migraines during her first year or so of life.

It wasn't until after her 2nd birthday that I began to truly feel a connection with this sweet little girl I had prayed and longer for my entire life. I wasn't until after the birth of her little brother the week of her 3rd birthday, when I experienced the normal joys of new motherhood again, that I fully began to grasp and appreciate all I had missed out on, emotionally, over the prior three years. I was a functional mom while dealing with depression, falling into the mild to moderate spectrum of PPD this time, but it was an ugly journey non-the-less. My heart aches for several friends who have experienced postpartum (or any other kind of) depression at deeper levels, including several who have been hospitalized for their own protection (as I likely could have been in the early 90s).

If you or someone you love is walking through the valley of depression, please know you are not alone! Depression is not a sign of spiritual lack or weakness and it is a battle that can be won. Keep watching this blog for future posts spotlighting depression and offering helpful resources. And since the Bible has been my Light through my darkest days of depression (though I have to admit to actually throwing God's Holy Word across the room in my anguish a time or two) I would love to invite you to share the Scriptures that have most blessed and encouraged you in the comments section below.

Choosing Joy

17 years ago last month, my husband and I, just three months into a new marriage, set out on the intentional path of striving to expand our family. Our oldest living son turned ten this week, so obviously that dream was slow to be realized!

Through those first seven years we had just two positive pregnancy tests. One resulted in our oldest's birth. The other led to the miscarriage of our sweet Noel Alexis. It was 15 years ago tomorrow morning that the bleeding and pain began. Tears for a few hours, followed by five months of numbness.

In hindsight I now see that my total lack of ability to process any form of emotion after Noel's death was more than just "denial" or "normal grief," but rather grief compounded by post-partum depression. (A journey I would again face on a much grander scale after the birth of our second living child, our daughter who will be seven next month.) It took me nearly half a year to allow myself to say the words, "I was pregnant," or "I had a miscarriage."

When I finally did choke the words out, the flood of sobbing, body-wracking tears last for hours! The emotions that had been pent up for months, not allowing a smile, a laugh, a tear, stayed close to the surface for the next few years, never giving me a moment's notice of when they might spring forth. I had irriational thoughts, like wanting to walk up to total strangers and simply announce, "My baby died." Infertiltiy is brutal. Miscarriage is torture. To miscarry our only known child in the midst of a many-year battle through infertility threatened to drive me to insanity with the intensity of my grief.

While on the one hand Noel's death intensified the infertility experience to a more painful level than I could ever have imagined, on the other hand she brought a strange measure of healing as well. I found joy in knowing that after more than two years striving for motherhood, that I was now, and forever more would be, somebody's Mom! Once I could admit to myself that Noel's brief life had not been a dream, simply a "late period" as I tried desperately to convice myself, I found some measure of hope and comfort in the fact that she had actually touched my womb, even if all-too-briefly.

Naming Noel was a very helpful step for me. Rick and I, not knowing if I had carried our son or daughter, but both "feeling" she was a girl, prayed long and hard over the right choice of a name. We chose "unisex" manes with meanings that touched our hearts, spelling Noel with the male spelling but pronouncing it with the femine pronouncation. We figured if "she" actually was a son, then he would forgive us in Heaven, but giving "her" an identity that I could relate to was so very important to me. Her name means "Christmas Minister of Needs" for she came and went over the Christmas season and ministered deeply to the hearting heart of this infertile want-to-be mother. I read of how "Mary treasured all these things in her heart" and my heart treasured the knowledge of the daughter I would some day see face to face in Heaven.

I hated when well-intended friends would try to comfort me with, "Well, at least now you know you can get pregnant." From anyone else, those words seemed to invalidate my child's precious, unique life and the profound loss to have her missing from ours. But when not minimized by other's "at least" statements, to be honest with myself it also was a relief to realize that we were truly "only infertile" and not utterly sterile, that there was hope of future conception.

But it also terrified me that if it had taken two years to conceive in the first place, even with medical aid, that it might be a very long road to a second child. And now that I had a "history of miscarriage" my innocence was shattered. Getting pregnant was just the first step, but the expectation of a living, bring-home-baby at the end could no longer be taken for granted in my heart and mind.

If you have stuck with me through all this rambling, you are probably wondering what does any of this have to do with "choosing joy"? With the dawn of 2009 God impressed upon my heart that my "theme word" for this year was to be Joy. He's confirmed it over and over, and while my husband may wonder where that joy has been (because he's seen me in some pretty black places with my health this year - 10 weeks in a foot cast, followed almost immediately by 5 months of IVs - physically exhaused, grumpy and especially wrestling to process all the emotional anguish of news about this retrovirus), I have to say that God's joy has been more tangilbe to me this year than in any I can remember since we started the infertility journey 17 years ago. I may not always be "happy" but God's joy, bouied by hope, and sustained by peace that passes understanding, has been tangible in ways I cannot put into words.

Here, in this week where we mark the birth of Christ, the death of our first daughter, the birth of our first living son and the due date of the child who would have been turning 8 but is also awaiting us in Heaven with two siblings, God gave me a beautiful reminder of all He has taught me this year. The Christmas stocking I've had since childhood had too many holes for my husband to use to put some goodies in on Christmas Eve. So we pulled out a couple of "extra" stockings we had picked up one year when we were out of town for Christmas and had forgotten our regular stockings at home. One bears the script "Noel" while the other says "Joy." In past years, without hesitation, I would have instantly grabbed "Noel," thinking much more of the daughter who was not there to share in our celebration than of the Christ-child who's birth I should have been focusing on. This year, with only the slightest moment's indecision, I eagerly reached for "Joy" instead.

Pregnancy & Infant Death

Sorry I'm a day late in actually getting this posted :( but all those impacted by the death of a baby at any time from conception through early infancy are continually in my prayers. I hope this link recognizing Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Day helps you feel just a bit more "validated" in your loss and comforted as you grieve.

"According to a 2004 National Vital Statistics Report issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), in 2000, 15.6% or 1,003,000 of the 6,401,000 pregnancies in the United States ended in either a miscarriage or stillbirth; the CDC also indicates that in 2003 the number of live births in the United States was 4,093,000; of those births, 27,500 ended in the death of an infant under the age of one."

You are not alone in your heartache. Visit October15th.com for more information on this awareness day, and Hannah's Prayer Ministries for comforting support resources as you learn to live a "new normal" without your sweet baby. A wonderful book that may also be a blessing to you as you process your loss and cherish your memories is the beautiful devotional journal, Grieving the Child I Never Knew by Kathe Wunnenberg - this book was a lifeline to me in the aftermath and midst of two of our miscarriages.

Noel, Joel and Hannah, you will forever be a part of my heart. Looking forward to meeting you face to face in Heaven some day, my sweet children. :)

Radio Link & Coping with Crisis of Top of Chronic, part 2

I just got off the phone from a wonderful radio chat with Lisa Copen, as one of 20 seakers for the free National Chronic Invisible Illness Awareness Week virtual conference. This was my second year to experience the blessing of sharing for NCIIAW - feel free to listen to last year's program on infertility, medications, chronic illness and the desire for motherhood at http://harvestinghope.blogspot.com/2008/09/blog-talk-radio.html

This year we were talking about Coping With Crisis on Top of Chronic. I had the chance to share the first half of my notes for today's talk back in August and wanted to post a few more points here today. If you haven't had a chance to listen yet, please take an hour to join Lisa and I at today's archived show:
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/invisibleillnessconf/2009/09/15/Coping-with-Crises-on-Top-of-Chronic--Chat-with-2-Gals-Who-Understand
(Note to listeners who are currently facing infertility, Lisa and I are both after-infertility moms, her through adotpion, I through childbirth, and there are some references to motherhood, including the final caller who asked about deciding to have a second child while facing chronic illness.)


As HarvestingHope.blogspot.com was the only website address that was given out during today's radio interview, I also wanted to direct you to my sidebar where you will find links to several of my other websites and/or blogs. A few to highlight are:

Hannah's Hope is my book website where you can read a free chapter of Hannah's Hope: Seeking God's Heart in the Midst of Infertility, Miscarriage & Adoption Loss and learn about other infertility and loss support resources.

InfertilityMom.blogspot.com is pretty much my "everything" page and certainly my most personal blog. It's a slice of just about everything in my life from reflections on infertiltiy and loss, to the joy of motherhood after infertility. I talk about homeschooling, and writing, and work from home businesses. Here I share more details about my personal health journey in ongoing journal format, in contrast to the more devotional and slightly one-step-back from my ongoing personal struggles that tend to be more reflected here at Harvesting Hope™. And I love to toss in some "just for fun" stuff there, like the latest contest I'm entering or occassional give-aways from me. If you want the whole package and get to know the real me with the ins and outs of my daily heartbeat, InfertiltiyMom.blogspot.com is the blog you will want to follow.

Inner Beauty Girlz is the blog I referenced on today's radio show when talking about finding a passion. It started as a little place to explore my own curiosity about natural and affordable beauty alternatives and also to journal and reflect on God's call to make myself beautiful in spirit and how I can take things I learn about caring for my body and apply them to my thought life and attitudes.
I am a consultant with both Affordable Mineral Makeup™ and Gurrlie Girl™ Christian Jewelry so I also use this blog to post product information, discounts, specials and give-aways along with my beauty hits, tips, tricks and devotional reflections.

As a quick review, my first three tips for Coping with Crisis or Chronic (click here for detailed explanations of each) were:

1. Quiet Time
- non-optional daily priority, both to refresh body and spirit

2. Laughter is the Best Medicine
- seek joy even in dark seasons, not "Polyanna theology," but "Apostle Paul theology" as found in Philippians 4

3. Support Resources
- it is critical to find, or make for yourself, a support network

Added to these, my other three tools in my survival tool belt are:

4. Find a Passion
- When chronic illness hits, it's like a rug is pulled out from under my feet. Everything I have known and simply accepted is turned upside down. Things I took for granted in the past can no longer be presumed. Skills, abilities, perhaps even joys and interests, are suddenly lost. For example, I used to do counted cross stich constantly, but when CFS hit, I no longer had the strength in my arms to hold and stich, the mental focus to count and properly follow a pattern, nor the ability to focus my eyes on those little squares without triggering a migraine. This may seem like a small loss, but it was something that had meant a lot to me and brought me much pleasure for many years, then suddenly it brought only pain and frustration. Not only did I loose something I had loved, but because of my illness and the need to lay in bed for hours on end, I had much more "time on my hands" than I knew what to do with and what I normally would have turned to as a hobby wasn't even an option.

Part of the grieving process of chronic illness is learning to let go of what I can no longer do. But on the flipside, sometimes I am forced to explore new options I might not otherwise have ever considered, and this can be a blessing. I turned to writing, initially sending long letters to my fiance who lived far away, then I began journaling in earnest, and eventually I began writing articles for publication. Had I not lost my favorite hobby, I might never have ventured onto the internet and found a world of support resources, nor written a book, nor become a blogger.

My health struggles themselves led me to search out healthier alternatives for personal care products such as makeup (since I began having allergic reactions to all the chemically based brands I tried, even "hypo-allergenic" lines) and that led me into a whole new nitch of writing on beauty, along with leading me to become a consultant with companies I found to fit my needs. So while I'm too sick to work outside the home, the hobbies that my health unfolded before me have become a small source of "egg money" income that allow me to occassionally help out with a few little extras for our family budget and I find fulfillment in pursuing my new passions in the process.



5. Be Gentle with Myself
- Others may not be, so I need to be! There will always be those who don't understand, but I am the one who lives moment-by-moment with the ebb and flow of my body's demands. I can get caught up in all the "shoulds" that other people put on me, or I can be honest with myself about my needs and abilities and give myself some room to simply "be".

In my case, my doctor has made it very clear that if I push myself as hard as I can just because I have something left to give, that my body will never fully heal. I have always had a very driven personality and want to go and do and give. But if I cannot give myself permission to make my own needs a priority, I'm headed for permant disability and continued decline that will not be able to be reversed.

Putting this concept into practice can be more painful than I wish it were. For instance, I have a heart for anyone who may be lonely or hurting. When a new woman joined church recently, she commented that she had not been able to really establish friendships at her last church, so it became personal to me to see that she felt welcome and found a sense of community quickly. She readily accepted my invitation to come over with her kids for the afternoon, though I had to postpone it several weeks due to ongoing health issues. She then exchanged the invitation and generously watched my kids for several hours while I went to the hospital to be with my parents for my mom's surgery. Since then I've not only been involved with my mom's recovery, starting a new homeschooling year with my kids, but have had a lot of medical procedures, appointments and endless medical phone calls to keep up with, including a trip out of state to see the only specalist my insurance would cover.

I simply find myself too exhausted to reach out right now. She's left the ball in my court with "call me if you want to connect," and my heart aches that she may feel like I don't want to befriend her, when the truth is that I would like nothing more, but simply have nothing to give right now. I have vaguely explained my health to her and will do my best to explain my heart and my physcial reality in more detail soon (hard topics to plunge deeply into with a brand new friend), but in the end I will simply have to accept my limitations and realize that we will have to "do friendship" on the terms by body sets forth for us, and I'll have to be OK with that reguardless of how understanding she may or may not turn out to be.



6. Let Go and Let God
- All of the above tools ultimately point to one simple fact. I can't do it all! I must let go of unrealistic expectations of myself (and of others - it's easy to become disillusioned when others I depend on or place my hopes in fall short of my expectiations) and look fully to God as not only the source of my strength, but the one who gives wisdom and directs my steps moment by moment.

He never has unrealist expecations of me. He is always gentle with me and knows, truly understands, what I face moment by moment.

My job is simply to do what He calls me to for this moment and leave the rest to Him. Some days that may simply be getting through the day without giving into utter despair that I can't raise my arms with enough strength to brush my hair. Some days that may be trusting him that if my new friend needs friendship that I'm not equiped to give, that maybe I'm instread called to pray that God will meet that need for her through someone else.

When recently undergoing some very frightening treatments that had me reflecting on my own mortality, I realized that I was not really handing the reighns of my life to God. I had written love letters to every family member and placed them in my journal where I thought they would be found if I should die. I was peaceful about the prospect of death for my own sake, but I was a ball of nerves for the sake of my husband and children, grieving for them about what they might endure should I die. And then it occured to me of how arrogant I was being, to say I could trust God with my eternal future, but then actively distrust Him to have a perfect plan for my husband and children!

Just simply realizing that a God big enough to hold my eternity in His hands would have a great plan for my family too was a significant "letting go" moment that marked a wonderful return to a peaceful heart for me. As it turned out, I was His ongoing plan for my family and I had let myself get all worked up for something that never was really even an issue, but I pray that I will hold onto that life lesson next time I'm tempted to try to micro-manage God's plan rather than just resting in Him that He will take care of every need, big or small.



I would encourage you to take advantage of any or all of the 20 Invisible Illness Week seminars available to you this week, and archived for ongoing listening, at http://www.blogtalkradio.com/invisibleillnessconf. Please log back in here at www.HarvestingHope.blogspot.com again on Saturday as well, for a special post on Hope in the Shadows as part of the (In)Courage blog tour.

Virtual Spa Weekend

The first weekend in May, Hannah's Prayer Ministires (Christian infertility and pregnancy loss support ministry I helped launch nearly 15 years ago) will be holding a retreat in OH. There will be about 40 ladies gathered to encourage and support one another. The theme of the weekend will be "Beautiful In His Sight" and the guest speaker is Ginger Garrett, author of Beauty Secrets of the Bible (as well as a devotional book on infertility and several award-winning Christian fiction titles). I know it will be a wonderful, blessed weekend for all who attend!

Unfortunately, there are hundreds of women who are regular participants on the Hannah's Prayer Community Forums who are unable to attend for a variety of reasons (mostly, the prohibitive cost of travel) but would really love to be there. As the excitement builds on our Forums for the ladies who will be attending, the disappointment for those who cannot is growing as well. And so I'm going to be hosting a Virtual Spa Weekend on my InnerBeautyGirlz blog from May 1-3.

This event will be open to everyone, but especially geared toward the ladies of Hannah's Prayer. I am looking for home-spa ideas, beauty treats and suggestions, guest blogger articles on beauty (with fun tips for our bodies, but also a focus on inner beauty), and product donations for drawings and give-aways throughout the weekend. Since my target readers that weekend will all be dealing with infertility or the death of a baby, I need to specifically avoid child-related posts and products (like using examples from motherhood in your stories).

Please share your suggestions for this event! Have a beauty topic you would like to write a guest blog about? Have a product you would like to donate as a give-away (and get your business featured in the process)? Have any creative ideas and suggestions for creating an at-home-spa experience? I would love to hear from you!

Infertility and Illness Radio Link

I've been talking about National Invisible Chronic Illness Awareness Week since my very first post here. Well, NICIAW is finally upon us and I had the joy of talking about Medication, Illness, Fertility and the Desire for Motherhood with Rest Ministries founder, Lisa Copen this afternoon. If you missed the live broadcase, please turn in to the archived program at www.blogtalkradio.com/invisibleillnessconf/2008/09/09/Medications-Illness-Fertility-and-the-Desire-for-Motherhood.

Living Fully Through Life's Trials

I've had this blog name reserved for some months now, ideas swirling around in my head. It's taken thoughts of National Invisible Chronic Illness Awareness Week coming this September 8-14 to spur me on to finally take this blog live.

Harvesting Hope from Heartache™ is a concept that captures many aspects of my life. I was blessed to be introduced to Jesus Christ at a very young age. By understanding my inability to reach His standard of perfection on my own and asking His to be my Guide through this life, my childhood was full of life, enthusiasm and hope. When painful realities of adulthood struck, my faith was tested, nearly shattered more than once. Yet hope in Him has ultimately been the anchor to my soul, even when that anchor rope seemed frayed and worn.

This blog is dedicated to hurting hearts that are reaching out for hope in any aspect of life, giving special attention to the heartaches God has carried me through - the loss of health, loss of friendships, loss of livelihood, loss of fertility and multiple losses of our children. It will share articles, resources, links and encouragement for seeking hope in the midst of life’s darkest moments. I will never sugar-coat the realities of pain, but I also cannot leave my readers floundering in hopelessness. Please join me in learning to harvest hope together from our heartaches.

Before I begin sharing resources, let me give you a little background about my own story. We never lived anyplace longer than two years until I hit high school, so I clung to my relationship with Jesus through all the ups and downs of continual moves and the accompanying need to let go of and rebuild friendships over and over. But our relationship was never fully tested until shortly after my 18th birthday. I woke up one morning feeling fine, and by mid-afternoon my life had changed forever, though I really didn't understand how dramatic the change would be for a while.

I had just moved again, this time away from home and family for the first time. I was on a crazy schedule with college dorm life and cafeteria meals, so it wasn't surprising that when "the flu" swept through campus, knocking 2/3 of the student body off our feet, I was put out of commission as well. The unsettling part came when everyone else returned to normal life while I spent the majority of the semester shivery in bed or counting the painful minutes until class would be over so I could put my fevered, aching body and swirling, foggy head back to bed.

That was 18 years ago this September, literally half my lifetime ago now. For my entire adult life I have lived under the shadow of an invisible chronic illness. It took many months to reach the diagnosis of Chronic Fatigue Immune Dysfunction Syndrome (CFS or CFIDS, sometimes also called Myalgic Encephalomyelitis or ME) and years to eventually stack up my “grocery list” of additional diagnosis also including Fibromyalgia, TMJ, endometriosis, polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCO, PCOS, or PCOD), neurally mediated hypotension, and the list goes on and on…

[Update: In October, 2009, I learned that I am positive for a newly-discovered retrovirus liked to Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. This virus was originally named XMRV – Xenotropic Murine leukemia virus-Related Virus but further research unfolded an entire family of closely related Human Gamma Retroviruses (HGRVs). It is very possible that I have actually carried one or more HGRVs since childhood, perhaps even acquiring it many years before the full onset of my CFIDS symptoms that I experienced at age 18. (HGRVs are only the third known infectious retroviral family in the human population, along with HIV and HTLV.)]

I am among the fortunate who have actually been given answers, even when there is no cure. Many are debilitated with such painful conditions, yet live for years without understanding why, struggling day to day to cope in a world that only sees a healthy looking body without many (sometimes any) obvious signs of illness. They are accused of being lazy and no one understands the effort simply to get out of bed and put one foot in front of the other. Few see the days we can’t get out of bed at all. We are told “You must be feeling better because you look so good!” and we paste half-hearted smiles on our faces because it just isn’t worth expending the effort to try to explain the daily reality of living with invisible illness.

Just a month after getting sick, I was blessed to meet a man who didn’t define me by my illness, who loved me not for what I could or could not do, but for who I am. Neither of us had any idea that we were up against a lifetime of illness, but as the months of grueling testing passed, we were faced with the very real potential that this yet-unnamed villain might easily prove to be fatal. I tried to free him from our engagement, yet he stubbornly refused to leave my side. We will celebrate 16 years of marriage this weekend and he has been such a blessing through the many ups and downs of life including the loss of our first business, deaths of many extended family members and all the daily trials of living that continue over and beyond chronic illness.

Fully knowing that parenthood could be a challenge given my poor health, we both desperately wanted children and (some say foolishly) jumped into the pursuit of parenthood shortly after our wedding. Seven and a half years later we were thrilled to bring home our 4 pound, 13 ounce miracle. The road to him took us through one miscarriage, seven adoption losses, surgeries, fertility drugs including daily hormone injections, Hyperemesis Gravidarum (severe nausea and vomiting during pregnancy that goes far beyond typical "morning sickness") and an almost indescribably emotional roller coaster of grief, hope and yet more grief. Infertility drove me to almost let go of the hope anchor all together, at my darkest hour even seriously considering ending my own life.

After two more miscarriages and being given less than 5% chance of ever conceiving again even with medical aid (with even less hope of carrying to live birth if we could conceive), our son was joined by a baby sister three years later. She kept us on our toes by launching my body into preterm contractions at 25 weeks (full term pregnancy is 40 weeks) and keeping me on bedrest, hospital visits and preterm labor medications over the next 13 weeks. After waiting and wanting so long, I was stunned to face 2 years of post-partum depression after her birth. We are still rebuilding the bonding we lost over that first two years of my emotional distancing.

After being advised not to pursue another pregnancy for medical safety, we were shocked to find ourselves expecting our second living son, born 2 days before his sister’s 3rd birthday. There were many emotions to process with this pregnancy: joy obviously, but also much fear, disbelief, even some anger. By the time of his birth we were beyond thrilled to welcome him into the family and praise God for His good gifts, but it was a surprisingly hard adjustment to have an unplanned pregnancy, especially after all the grief and heartache that had gone into trying so hard to grow our family through ten years of primary and secondary infertility! Contractions and bedrest started with him at only 19 weeks, but the severe asthma I experienced while carrying him actually proved to be to our advantage with my inhaler steroids frequently helping to slow contractions while also helping to mature his lungs for his month-early delivery.

And yes, parenthood has proven to be challenging. There are days when I cannot even care for myself, leaving me feeling helpless as the mother of 3, ages 8, 5 and 2! It is in these most challenging days where seeking joy and hope must become an active pursuit. I pray that my story can be a blessing and encouragement to others and that we can learn together to harvest hope from our heartaches. Please add your email address to my mailing list and leave comments to share your story with me too!

[UPDATE Feb. 2012  Last fall, Oct. 2011, I experienced multiple strokes with brain-stem involvement. I have vision loss, hearing loss, a partially paralized hand, and I cannot walk.]

Blogs for My Books:
Hannah's Hope: Seeking God's Heart in the Midst of Infertility, Miscarriage & Adoption Loss NavPress, 2005

Give a Thorn: Encouragement Amidst Chronic Pain and Illness, Through the Eyes of Paul (working title, book still in process)