The Post in Which We Remember

As some of you know, our family is larger than what you see in a photograph of us. It's not just Russ, C.C., & Damaris.



Because you see, three of our children have preceded us in their journey to Heaven. I tell our story in more depth in this blog post. Jordan Taylor, Micah Jayden, & Noah Avrey are our precious little ones who have seen Heaven before us.

Today, October 15th, is Pregnancy & Infant Loss Remembrance Day. So on this day, and every day, we remember Jordan, Micah, & Noah. And if you have walked a similar journey, we remember your precious child(ren) with you.



Glory baby you slipped away as fast as we could say baby...baby...
You were growing, what happened dear?
You disappeared on us baby...baby...
Heaven will hold you before we do
Heaven will keep you safe until we're home with you...
Until we're home with you...
Miss you everyday, Miss you in every way
But we know there's a day when we will hold you
We will hold you
You'll kiss our tears away, When we're home to stay
Can't wait for the day when we will see you
We will see you
But baby let sweet Jesus hold you 'till mom and dad can hold you...
You'll just have heaven before we do, You'll just have heaven before we do
Sweet little babies, it's hard to understand it 'cause we're hurting
We are hurting, But there is healing
And we know we're stronger people through the growing
And in knowing - That all things work together for our good
And God works His purposes just like He said He would...
Just like He said He would...
I can't imagine, Heaven's lullabies, and what they must sound like
But I rest in knowing, that Heaven is your home
And it's all you'll ever know...
~~Words and Music by Nathan and Christy Nockels



Image Credit: Here & Here

The 30 Day Blog Challenge: Day 25

Welcome to Day 25 of The 30 Day Blog Challenge hosted by me, C.C., here at I'm On My Way and my online BFF Jamee at A New Kind of Normal. Today's assignment is to post a blog post about something that you miss. Make sure you grab the 30 Day Blog Challenge button (use the code that's in the box below) to post in your blog post and once you publish your blog post, enter your link below so we can look at each other's posts.

When I saw this topic on the list, I knew what I was going to write about. Little did I know it would fall on this specific day. What I miss is our three babies in heaven and our K.C. (failed adoption). Jordan Taylor, was due on earth May 1999, but was born into heaven September 1998. Micah Jayden was due on earth September 2001, but was born into heaven January 2001. Noah Avrey was due on earth September 2004, but was born into heaven January 2004. Kerioth Cherie was a foster/adoption placement in 2003 and sadly had to be moved to a new placement because of some things that happened in her life before she was placed with us. As time has passed, most days I can handle this, but there are days like today (when we lost 2 of our babies), when the grief is really strong. There is so much we missed ~ their births, their first words, their first step, starting school, birthdays, and there is so much more we will miss ~ first dates, learning how to drive a car, high school graduation, college, marriage... God has taught us many things and good has been made in allowing us to minister to many others who have gone through similar experiences. However, there'll never be a day I don't miss our kids. Mamma loves you!

Grab the 30 Day Blog Challenge button!


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Looking forward to seeing your posts!

A Week of Thanksgiving - Our Miracle

I am linking up with Lil Kid Things in posting a week of Thanksgiving posts. For today, I want to write about our miracle.

For as long as I can remember, I've wanted to be a mother. I remember playing with baby dolls and being their mommy. I still instantly gravitate to babies and am more than willing to take on the burden *wink wink* of holding a baby so their mommy can have a break.

Russ and I started trying to have a baby fairly soon after we married. We had dreams of a large family, 4 children. If you read my post yesterday, you know about the health issues I deal with. Just before our first anniversary, we lost our first child, Jordan Taylor, to miscarriage. Devastated doesn't begin to describe how we felt. Out of our loss, we founded and led an online website that offered support to women and families who had lost a child to miscarriage.

A little over four months later, we found out we were pregnant again. This is where the miracle began. It was a difficult pregnancy. At one point, we thought I was miscarrying again. We worked at a children's home and one of the kids punched me in the stomach. Another scary time. We left the children's home and awaited the birth of our miracle. I started having significant contractions, yet every time we went to the doctor or hospital, they said the baby wasn't dropping and I wasn't progressing. If I only had known then what I know now, I would have insisted on intervention, but I was a very young 21 and just didn't know. We went through this for three long weeks, going to the hospital, being monitored and told I was having significant contractions, but not progressing. Finally my doctor said he would try to induce labor (as if what I was going through wasn't already labor). I went into the hospital and even with the doctor's intervention, still did not progress. Then, the baby's heart rate started dropping significantly. I was rushed into an emergency c-section. A few hours later, my doctor came to talk to me and explain what had happened. Our baby's umbilical cord was wrapped around her neck. Those three long weeks, every time she tried to drop so she could be born, her umbilical cord was jerking her back up. My doctor said if we had continued and tried to have her vaginally, she would have died. God's hand was on our precious girl. We named her Damaris Mikaelia. She weighed in at 7 pounds, 8 ounces and was 18 1/2 inches long. We took her home after a couple of days and then ended up back in the NICU a few days later because she was very sick. Thankfully, the interventions by the NICU staff helped her and she was able to come back home a few days later.



Sadly, a couple of years after Damaris was born, we had another miscarriage and lost little Micah Jayden. About 3 years later, we had our third miscarriage and precious Noah Avrey was born into heaven. In the midst of all this, we also had three failed adoptions. Our dreams of a large family did not come to fruition as we had imagined. Three of our four babies were born into heaven before we could even hold them. Last year, our dreams of having anymore birth children was brought to an end because of health complications and a necessary surgery. Will we pursue adoption again? I don't know. Not right now. We'll have to pray about it and see where God leads us.



But back to our miracle. She is now 12 years old going on 30. :) I am so privileged to get to spend so much time with Damaris because I homeschool her. She is so much like me in that she loves to read, she loves to do computer stuff, she loves to knit, and she and I have similar tastes in tv and movies. She is also such a huge help to me. She realizes that Mamma is sick and will go out of her way to do things for me, refilling my water glass, making my coffee, running small errands, etc.

She is a true blessing and I cannot imagine my life without her. I love you Damaris! You are our miracle! I am so thankful for you!

Happy 14th Anniversary!

14 years ago today, I married the love of my life. I, a very young 19 year old, junior in college and he, a still pretty young 23 year old, senior in college, joined our lives together in our college church on a weekend early in the fall semester of another year of college. 14 years have come and gone and I pray that we have 14 more years many times over still ahead of us.

I thought it would be fun to put together a list (of 14 of course) of things that have happened during or about our 14 years together.
#1 - We've lived in 13 different houses/apartments since we got married (the crazy thing is the 4.5 years in one of them and 2.75 years in another one, too weird!).
#2 - We have earned 5 degrees between the two of us (Russ has a BA, MA, and MDiv and I have a BA and an MDiv).
#3 - We have one beautiful daughter Damaris who is about to be 12 years old (we aren't old enough for that to be true!!!!!!) and three precious children, Jordan, Micah, and Noah, in Heaven waiting for us.
#4 - We both were ordained to the ministry in a joint service about 2 years ago. I guess that makes us "The Revds Almon".
#5 - We've come to a place where simplicity is important to us. We were able to go from needing the biggest Uhaul truck available to fitting everything for the 3 of us into a 17 foot truck. We have truly learned that possessions are not the most important thing (I'm sure you'd argue for your books though LOL!).
#6 - You are a much better cook than I am. Give me a crockpot and I'm ok, but anything else that would take me ages to figure out and probably wouldn't turn out so well, you can do without batting an eyelash.
#7 - Our marriage is one of mutuality. The respect we have for each other is a big part of what makes our marriage work even after 14 years!
#8 - Who knew that when we vowed to have and to hold in sickness as well as in health, that sickness would be such a huge part of our lives. Thank you for your constant care of me regardless of the state my body is in.
#9 - Reading has remained as important to the two of us as it was 14 years ago and we have passed our love of reading on to Damaris. She can devour a book almost as quickly as I can!
#10 - On this day 14 years ago, we could never have imagined the grief we would experience in our years together. Our three precious children, grandparents, my uncle, your mentor, and many others. God, please keep giving us strength to endure the loss we feel in our hearts daily!
#11 - Who knew how much we would love sci-fi and fantasy and that we would pass that on to Damaris. Stargate, Star Wars, Star Trek, Chronicles of Narnia, Eureka, Warehouse 13, Sanctuary, just to name a few.
#12 - Even though we keep leaving, we keep ending up back in the West Texas area. Even though we're in SE New Mexico now, I won't be surprised if we go back to West Texas in the future. Unless we end up in Colorado or Canada!
#13 - Even though you are outnumbered 2 to 1 in our house, you still keeps things in a state of semi-balance with your books and football versus my pink, pink, pink! :)
#14 - So many of our hopes and dreams have come true and we still have so many that we are still hoping and dreaming of. I can't wait to look back in 14 years and see where we are then compared to where we are now and what has happened with our hopes and dreams!

My love, I cherish every day with you! Happy Anniversary Bubba!

Encouragement

Many years ago, God gave the following Scripture to Russ & I. We had just lost our first baby, J.T., to miscarriage & we were lost & floundering, hurting, grieving, just needing to feel Him present with us. He gave us Zephaniah 3:17.

For the Lord your God is living among you.
He is a mighty savior.
He will take delight in you with gladness.
With His love, He will calm all your fears.
He will rejoice over you with joyful songs.

Turning Points

Our friend Scott wrote a very interesting blog entry earlier this week. He's been reading a book called "List Your Self: Listmaking as the Way to Self-Discovery: A Provocative, Probing and Personal Expedition Into Your Mind, Heart, and Soul”. The list he shared in his blog entry is the biggest turning points in his life. I thought I would make my list to share with yall.

The Biggest Turning Points in My Life

1983 - when I made my decision to become a follower of Christ

1997 - when I married the love of my life, Russell

1998 - when our first child, Jordan Taylor, was born into heaven because of miscarriage

1999 - when our princess girl, Damaris, was born

2001 - when our child, Micah Jayden, was born into heaven because of miscarriage; also the year that I finally finished my Bachelor's degree

2003 - when we had our precious girl, Kerioth, live with us for such a short time, we had planned to adopt her, but things did not work out the way we had planned

2004 - when our child, Noah Avrey, was born into heaven because of miscarriage

2005 - when we realized just how much many Christians truly hate and despise other Christians to the point of telling numerous lies about our family & trying to destroy our family

2007 - when we moved to Abilene for Russ to get his M.Div. degree, I had no desire to return to school, but God has other ideas, it was this year that He called me to chaplaincy as a life vocation

2008 - when I was finally able to forgive someone who had hurt me so badly that the situation almost destroyed me

2009 - when our church family here in Abilene affirmed my call to ministry by ordaining me as a minister; still ahead this year is graduating with my Master of Divinity degree & begin my clinical residency as a hospital chaplain

What about you? What are your turning points? If you share, let me know here on my blog so I can come read your list.

Wordful Wednesday

I got my Valentine's Day present from Russ & Damaris earlier this week. This is a hand-stamped necklace from Mountain Girl Silver. I then went to a local bead store and bought the silver/pink spacers to go between the disks. The middle one is self-explanatory - my princess girl Damaris' name with a spiral heart underneath it. The disks on either side have the initials of our four children who are no longer with us - J.T., K.C., M.J., & N.A. I'm absolutely in love with this necklace. Thanks Bubba & Mare-Bear! I love you both so much!

Join in on the fun at

Bullet Point Sunday

another week has passed us by, can't believe we're coming up on February already
it's been a heartbreaking week with my friend Cindy losing her 14 year old son
had an amazing time of prayer this morning during our community time at church
feeling convicted lately about the need for me to spend more time in prayer
because my mind tends to wander very easily....what was I talking about again LOL!...I do best when I pray out loud, so I've been praying in the shower in the mornings
loved, loved, loved the LOST episodes this week; seen them twice already; lots of theories & even more questions
introduced Damaris to "Back to the Future" this weekend; she's ready to watch #2 & #3 already
the weather this week has been insane; highs in the 80*'s one day; highs in the 30*'s the next
apparently scarves are in fashion again; dug out my box with scarves & wore one today; bought 3 at Walmart with some of my Christmas money too
had a bit of a trying week with someone using Scripture to say some nasty things about me; Russ was such a support during all the mess; I'm so blessed to have him!
been trying some guided relaxation podcasts and they are really helping with my stress level (when I find time to do them that is)
today is 8 years since our Micah Jayden was born into Heaven and 5 years since our Noah Avrey was born into Heaven; my arms still yearn to hold them (and their sibling Jordan Taylor) every single day
another busy week ahead, have a blessed one friends!

Day 41 of 100 Days of Blogging

Mother's Day is always bittersweet for me. Today, we should be celebrating our first child, Jordan Taylor's, 9th birthday. My arms ache for our three children I never got to hold. My heart aches for love I never got to shower on them. Memories that never occured, events that never will happen. I am so thankful for our miracle baby Damaris. I am so grateful that she understands that while I love her so much, that I still miss her siblings. I am blessed to have a husband who walks with me through this journey of heartache to get to the point of acceptance, but never forgetting. For my fellow sisters who know this pain, I'm so sorry. I wouldn't wish these empty arms and heart ache on anyone. Happy Mother's Day to each of you!

When clouds veil sun
And disaster comes
Oh, my soul
Oh, my soul
When waters rise
And hope takes flight
Oh, my soul
Oh, my soul
Oh, my soul

Ever faithful
Ever true
You I know
You never let go
You never let go
You never let go
You never let go

When clouds brought rain
And disaster came
Oh, my soul
Oh, my soul
When waters rose
And hope had flown
Oh, my soul
Oh, my soul
Oh, my soul

Oh, my soul
Overflows
Oh, what love, oh, what love
Oh, my soul
Fills hope
Perfect love that never lets go

Oh, what love, oh, what love
Oh, what love, oh, what love
In joy and pain
In sun and rain
You're the same
Oh, You never let go

Written by Mike Hogan, David Crowder, and Mike Dodson