:: Pink roses in a vintage pitcher as a forever reminder of my Trinity Marie ::
As a continuation to the Ninna Lu blog series of Soul Feed: Transformations, I wanted to write about a blog post on my most recent high-risk pregnancy last year. If you missed the first blog post on this blog series, you can find it here. On November 9, 2017, we were informed that the gender of our baby was going to be a girl. Also on top of that, we were traumatically informed that there was something wrong with our baby. Not one, not two, not three, but multiple birth defects existed in my baby girl's human form. It was ultimately a dooms day for us that morning as we walked out of the hospital in Sacramento, California. All seemed surreal, as if things continued to move around us and we both just stayed still, as we walked out of the hospital into our parked car, and I couldn't withhold my tears on the drive home along my husband too. That night, I wasn't able to sleep at all.
I called my sister that night as I couldn't keep it to myself. I immediately felt my sister's stress over the phone and she was so distraught with my traumatic news that I had to let her off the phone. After that conversation, I told myself to cautiously not share with anyone our detriment. I then called my mother next at 3 am in the morning, and just couldn't stop crying and eventually I just kept trying to survive in my burning hell of a broken heart for my beautiful baby. I knew I had died but then I was alive and just breathing. Trying to cope with it day by day.
I also reached out to a friend that I can relate with regarding my pregnancy that next morning. She also couldn't help but just cry, and it just resurfaced for her as well. After that, she hesitated to talk to me when I needed her as she was hurting for herself. But I am assuming that she needed to distance herself from me to still continue to heal for herself. Surprisingly, I felt at ease after speaking with her, as I knew I was not alone in this horrible journey of a pregnancy process being also my first semi-successful pregnancy that actually passed the first trimester. With this pregnancy, at the age of forty three, I knew I was blessed and I felt grateful for this beautiful gift of life from God. That's how I looked at things positively. I was very adamant about making sure she was viewed as a wonderful gift from God.
On the other hand, Trinity Marie helped me re-discover an inner strength that's been hidden deep inside me. To summarize, I decided to continue the pregnancy with my multiple birth defect baby. I had an utmost reverence for her life form that I was her advocate for her life. With my daily prayers, my intermittent guided meditations and me singing nursery rhymes, it helped me to cope with the fact that she will pass right after she is going to be born. This was the most difficult last eight months of my entire life.
I transformed a tragic experience into a beautiful experience for myself, Trinity and our family. With lessons learned, I was still able to invite family members for a Thanksgiving feast as well as decorated the house for Christmas to keep life going for us. I created a DIY Christmas stocking for Trinity so that I will continue to remember her every holiday. I went to mass everyday to pray for her spirit and to pray to God to give the strength to move forward. We eventually decided to cremate her and have her cremation jar near me at home as I am not quite ready to part with her.
Now, a couple months later, at this moment, I quickly learned that Trinity was the last straw for me. I sadly attained this new perspective on relationships. My husband and I were dating for almost 13 years before getting married, with an accumulation of twenty three years of being together along with being married. Even after a decade of marriage with my husband, I dedicated this blog post to him here.
All in all, in summary, marriage is hard and comes with great sacrifice. Our hearts are broken but we continue to be good friends as I don't see him any other way. Love is strange. It's not a guarantee and it can easily be divided. Strangely, me wanting to be alone because the sadness is always a reminder of that traumatic event, I contemplate about my life a whole lot these days. With Trinity's upcoming due date of April 2nd, 2018, I finding myself lost in a meadow of what ifs and what could be in my mid 40's. It's very scary. But I know deep down, things will be eventually be alright. Life will continue amazingly.
Thank you so much for reading as I share this very personal life experience. I am also planning to march with the March for Babies with the March of Dimes on April 28th, 2018. If you'd like to donate, the link is: March for Babies.
~ Marissa