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Summary

Talk about the emotional couple of weeks right after the last episode, how to help me get some gas money, with music from Laura Clapp, Matthew Ebel, The Reverse Engineers, Black Lab, along with Rob Costlow providing piano accompaniment.

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Related tags: jimmpodcast jimm journeyinsidemymind journey+inside+my+mind daniel+johnson+jr family laura+clapp rob+costlow matthew+ebel the+reverse+engineers black+lab

Keisha, who is almost 10 years old, is opening up about her feelings related to the events this past week.

She wrote a song to “express how [she's] feeling.” I can tell she’s mad at God and very sad.

Please keep us in your prayers.

Related tags: journey+inside+my+mind journeyinsidemymind jimm daniel+johnson+jr

On Wednesday I mentioned the emotional day we had. It’s been an “up and down” week, really.

Yesterday Jennie returned to the OB/GYN and had some more bloodwork done. I went to work up in Dayton. She called me at 4:30 PM and said that the HGH level had dropped from what it was when we went to the ER. I took that to mean that we’re losing the baby.

(Tears are welling in my eyes as I type this.)

Yesterday at work I was feeling okay, feeling surrendered. I left work and picked Jennie and Keisha up at the mall from Keisha’s keyboard lesson, and we went home. Jennie went to the store to get some groceries while Keisha and I warmed up dinner.

When Jennie came back, she broke down, crying. She guessed she wanted to somehow compensate for the loss by buying some clothes to make her feel better and felt ashamed by that.

(I’m having a hard time holding back the tears as I type this.)

I held her and we both cried for awhile. Then it was over, and we went to the dining room area and ate dinner. Keisha did most of the work in setting the table, chopping up tomatoes (we had tacos). At first I thought it was her way of maybe not dealing with how she was feeling, but she later said she was doing it to see if she could earn some money – how funny.

After watching some Thursday night TV, I went to bed, but I overheard Jennie talking more with Keisha about what’s going on before she put Keisha to bed. Jennie read Psalm 46 (“God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in times of trouble.”). She told Keisha that the baby was in heaven with God because God felt the baby wasn’t ready to be born.

Keisha then said, “But I told all my friends that you were pregnant. They’re going to think I lied.”

“Do you think Mommy and Daddy lied to you?” Jennie asked.

“No,” Keisha said.

“Then neither did you,” Jennie said.

Also last night Jennie talked with some of our close friends in Dayton, who had a miscarriage a few years ago themselves. We had planned on meeting them for dinner in Dayton, but because of things they had going on and how we’ve been this week, decided not to.

I’m really glad once again that we’ve had people close to us that we can talk to about all of this. And I’m really grateful to you for all your prayers, words of support. Maybe you’ve contacted me directly, or maybe you’ve done something on your own. Whatever the case, we’ve felt comforted.

Jennie will go back on Monday for some last bloodwork. I think this is to see whether anything still exists and whether a D&C is needed. I just browsed the About.com page for D & C, and I almost wish I hadn’t. Ugh. I don’t even want to talk about it right now.

Waves of sorrow still sweep over us from time to time, and, while I realize it’s natural, I long to be able to move on from all of this.

There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under heaven:

a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,

a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,

a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,

a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain,

a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,

a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak,

a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace.

– Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 (emphasis added)

It’s been an emotional time for Jennie, Keisha, and me. Last night I mentioned the trip to the ER. I also mentioned it on Twitter a couple of times.

I took today off work to help get Jennie to her OB/GYN appointment. The doctor said that it doesn’t look good, but for Jennie to return tomorrow for some more bloodwork. The ER did some bloodwork last night, and tomorrow’s bloodwork will help determine whether the “pregnancy hormone” (HGH? Human Growth Hormone?) is increasing or decreasing. If it’s increasing, the pregnancy is hanging in there. If it’s decreasing, it’s not. More signs from home are indicating not, but we’ll see.

Even as I type this out, looking at the words, I can feel tears welling up.

This afternoon I let Keisha know what’s going on, that the pregnancy isn’t going well right now, and it could be lost. You might have seen my IM status change or have read the Twitter post:

telling Keisha about what’s going on w/ Jennie & why we’ve been going 2 the ER and the OB/GYN. She wants 2 cry. Me too. Crying is good.

There have been several times that tears just come out. Weeping tears. Sobbing. It’s a natural thing, but crying is always weird because I have no control over the emotion. I digress.

Tonight I got to hang out with some guys from church. Two of them wanted to buy me dinner to celebrate my birthday, which was two days ago. Afterward we went to an all-men’s midweek church meeting.

Talking about stuff like this with other people is SO therapeutic. Even your notes and emails saying you’re thinking of us and praying for us are tremendously helpful. Keisha and Jennie are very impressed to know we have people in Canada, Oklahoma, California, Illinois, Indiana, Florida, Utah, Oregon, and elsewhere thinking of us and praying for us. We’ve never met you in person, but somehow through this “social media playground“, we’ve touched one another’s lives. It’s such a good thing.

I spoke with our minister briefly before tonight’s meeting about what’s been going on. It’s been a very weird dynamic. Five days ago we found out we were going to have another child; today it looks like it might not happen.

He shared that he and his wife went through several instances like that. They even had a son that was about to be born (full-term); three days beforehand, the heart stopped beating and he was gone.

I guess human nature is to wonder why things like this happen. I know I often wonder why. I believe that God is so good, and He knows what is best for us. I believe He operates on a completely different plane of understanding from us – that’s the lesson of Job in the Bible. Maybe it’s not for us to know why. All I can say is that there is so much other stuff that’s going on around us and within us as a result, and this can only be for good.

So, tomorrow we may find out we’ve lost the baby. I noticed that I’ve held back from using that term on purpose. A loss like this hurts bad, really bad at times; but it’s not more than we can handle. Your comfort goes a long way in helping, to be sure.

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God. For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows.

– 2 Corinthians 1:3-5

We’re all feeling really emotional right now. On Saturday Jennie took two home pregnancy tests and both tested positive. Head over the the shownotes for episode 083 of the podcast and click on the link to the photo at Flickr. It’s also the album art for the mp3 file.

This morning Jennie noticed some spotting, and, as the day progressed, was experiencing more bleeding and cramping. I took her to the ER so that they could run some tests. We found out that there’s a big threat of a miscarriage.

It doesn’t even look like Jennie was that far along; a week or so maybe. I’ll be taking Jennie to the OB/GYN tomorrow for an appointment, where they’ll probably do some more tests. I don’t know specifically what a D & C is, but it was brought up as as a procedure that might need to be done.

Jennie is not going into work tonight, and I’m taking tomorrow off to take care of her.

As an added dynamic, we’re being really careful about how much of this we tell Keisha. A lot of the details are too much for her to understand, so we’re just telling her that Mommy has to take it really easy.

“The eternal God is your refuge,
and underneath are the everlasting arms.” — Deuteronomy 33:27a (NIV)