The Joy that Follows Suffering

Well, God has given us yet another blessing out of our sorrow. First, we found out my headache and dizziness problem was a result of a new migraine trigger - movement. We are now working on this with physical therapy, and things are getting better. We are thankful for answers and thankful that we can work through this.

The blessing and joy that follows suffering is another baby! Talk about a shock to us and my doctor. We actually found out about it at a follow up exam on February 1st. We all have been praying and waiting these last two weeks, and we did a sonogram this week and baby is doing extremely well with a strong heartbeat. We have another sonogram in three weeks so that we can keep on monitoring things, but we are all trusting God to keep the baby healthy and strong. Please keep it in your prayers. We are all excited. We really would love to finally get our other girl, but if God gives us a boy, we are just thankful for a wonderful addition to our family. Lilly will just be surrounded and well protected. Yes, we already pretty much have the name set if it is a girl (we have had this name on standby for quite a while now), and we also, with a lot of searching, have a potential boy name as well just in case. Regardless, Baby Sersaw is due October 12, 2012. I guess I will need to sit out from a busy orchestra schedule for a while longer unless I can find something closer to home. I am not complaining though. I am enjoying this time of having the time to practice and polish.

As I sit back and think about the last two months, I still wonder why God. Why did we have to go through what we went through? The loss of a child is indescribable until you have gone through it yourself. It does not matter if it is via miscarriage or later in life, it still is the loss of someone dear to you. I will say that talking through it does help with the healing. Every once in awhile, tears will come, but there is also a joy and an eagerness knowing that one day we will all be united in Heaven. Won't that be a wonderful time? These last two months have been a time of growth for me personally. I have grown closer to God, more aware of those around me, rearranged my life, dropped some responsibilities and picked up on some things that are more what God would have me do at this point in life, and I also have realized that I do have a lot of friends and a lot of people that God has put in my life. I hope that I can also be there for others in their times of suffering as well.

God has shown us time and time again that joy does always follow suffering. No matter how much you want to give up during times of trials and suffering remember that God is still in control. He is always on Plan A, and He is always going to get you through it no matter what. Also remember that eventually  you will have joy again. Sometimes God lets circumstances come into our lives in order to draw us closer to Him. Even when everything else fails you, He never will. Your personal relationship with Christ is the most important relationship that you will ever have. With God, all things according to His will are possible, and God does bring about miracles and blessings sometimes at times when you least expect them. Hopefully, the testimony of what God has done and is doing in our family helps show this.

When God allows your world to be rocked

It has been a while since I have written on here. God has been taking care of us. We have a wonderful home now, and of course Brian loves his job. We are very thankful. We never realized how crucial this job would come in when it came to health insurance though. Brian is finally seeing doctors who are working on getting his condition under control. He sees a specialist towards the end of this month who will finally address everything in a three to four hour appointment! We have been waiting for this for years. We thought surely God gave Brian this job to provide for us and for Brian to finally be able to get to good doctors. We never could have imagined that I would be the one in need of medical attention.

We had prayed a lot and talked a lot and had decided to try one last time for another girl. Lilly is very lonely as the only girl and is always praying for a baby sister. We had considered adoption, but God just has not led us in that direction. I remember what it was like to be the only girl, and I totally understand how she feels. She is in a house full of boys. God blessed us, and we found out we were expecting around November just before Thanksgiving which meant a due date in July. We were excited. I got really sick during Thanksgiving and we thought nothing of it. Had we known what we know now, we probably would have rushed me to the doctor. Anyway, all was going fine pregnancy wise as far as we knew, and I went to my doctor appointment on December 14th expecting a normal pregnancy check up. They ran a sonogram, and as soon as I saw the screen, I knew something was wrong. We couldn't find the baby or a heartbeat. So they did a more specific ultrasound and we found the baby (very tiny) but still no heartbeat. The doctor assured me all should be fine and maybe dates were just off, and that we would check again the next week. Somewhere deep inside, I knew something was not right. I kept asking God why and what are you trying to teach me? We prayed and prayed about this and thought it was your will and now you are going to take it away?

This was all during the big Christmas performances at First Baptist Atlanta. I was not feeling well, but I insisted on playing anyway. I had some issues develop on Thursday the 15th and went back to the doctor on Friday the 16th. They said they could not say 100% what was going on and to go on strict bed rest. I did get permission to play First Family Christmas though. I played Friday night and both performances on Saturday. I was feeling a lot of pressure during the second performance on Saturday though. When we finished, I stood up and knew something was wrong in a very serious sense. We ended up having to call an ambulance to the church, and I was rushed to the emergency room. After lots of testing, it was deemed that we were losing the baby (who they think actually died at 6 weeks gestation around the time I was sick at Thanksgiving). They were very concerned as I was losing way too much blood, so we made the difficult decision to use a medication to help things along, and it was the safest way to make sure I had no internal damage and could carry a child again if God ever blessed us again. Afterwards, they sent me home and kept me on bed rest. We went through all the emotions of fear, grief, sadness, anxiety, etc. I actually had a fear of playing the violin because it all really happened while I was playing, and I was just really afraid of memories. I went back to the doctor on December 20th, and he said all was fine, and I was totally healthy, but my iron counts were low thus explaining weakness, lightheadedness, dizziness, and headaches. He said give it some time, and all should equal out but to call him if things did not change. I am very thankful for all the loving and caring friends who helped us during that time from my orchestra family who encouraged me to play the Wednesday night Lord's Supper service to the choir who also supported us by providing a meal as well as all the others who provided meals. I also had two great friends who listened to me whine, complain, and just voice all of my emotions. God gave me the right friends in the right place at the right time.

We had thought the miscarriage was all we were dealing with, but that was not to be the case. My dizziness, lightheadedness, and headaches did not go away. In fact, they were worsening. My doctor said that that it had been too long and wanted me sent back to the ER on January 5th. This was just almost three weeks after the miscarriage. We all thought it was a blood issue such as my iron counts just being low, but when they ran tests, everything came back fine. Then they said it was time to check for other issues. We did an EKG, CT, etc. I was given some strong medications for vertigo and pain and was sent home. Unfortunately, the medications only controlled the symptoms to a point, and things did not get better, so I was sent to a neurologist. He ran more blood work to make sure there was not some sort of deficiency that the ER did not test for, but as far as we know, all came back totally fine. He has now ordered an MRI for the 21st of January. He wanted me off all medications because he did not want my symptoms masked. I have been having slight memory, speech, processing, reflex, and of course equilibrium issues (not visible to the naked eye but he detected them when talking with and examining me). He wanted to make sure that nothing was a side effect of the medication. However, once I was off the medications, I could not make it for even a 24 hour period. The dizziness was unbearable and the headaches intolerable. He ended up having to call medications in for me. The medications help control things so that I can function. I am not pain free or dizziness free, but I am not bedridden.

It is scary knowing something is wrong and no one having any answers yet. I have noticed subtle differences in things like formulating thoughts into words when speaking, forgetting things a bit more often than normal, and a change in how my brain is processing information. In college, dictation was not my favorite subject. I could do it, but it was not as easy for me as ear training and regular academic courses. Now, if I hear a piece of music, I can take it and literally write out the entire violin part in my head. I would try to put it down on staff paper to see how accurate I am, but mine is still packed somewhere. Rhythm also is more pronounced for me -- it has always been my weakest area musically speaking. While these changes are in the long run good, they also are sort of freaky. The doctor has me focusing on things when I am dizzy or overwhelmed by stimuli. For example, a house with seven kids can get loud at times. They have me putting on noise cancelling ear pieces and listening to music on my mp3 player. It keeps me focused and able to handle things going on around me. I will lose my temper very quickly as everything is amplified and echoes through my head. Our poor kids have been extremely helpful and patient with me. I am not supposed to drive, but when I do the few times that I must, they have me focusing on license plates, etc. When walking, they have me focusing not on my feet, but on a point on the floor ahead of me or something. It isn't that I am ignoring people. They are just trying to keep my world from spinning. Listening to music has become a way of dealing with it all. I probably have the mp3 player on 90% of the day. Practicing violin has been tough because I am used to practicing standing up, but I cannot do that. It is hard to stay focused, but I have been trying to have brief practice sessions. Of course, my only problem is when playing in things like orchestra the brass section and choir echo through my head. It is like I have a giant microphone in my head. I have to make a choice between watching the conductor or the music. If I do too much of looking up and then down, my world will start spinning, and I will no longer be able to focus. I just want answers of course and a solution. There is a chance that somehow something happened causing something to spark a problem in the part of the brain that controls things like equilibrium. It could be a rare side effect from the med they used in the hospital, to a blood clot going the wrong way, to just a reaction to the craziness of hormones that happens after a miscarriage. We may never know an exact cause. We will know for sure if anything has happened when they do the MRI. If so, according to the neurologist, it is fixable. We will just have to train the brain to work around the area. If they cannot find anything on the MRI, then the neurologist will work on trying to find a way to get things under control, do further testing, figure out what in the world is going on, and get it resolved. He said if he can find nothing on the MRI and further testing, he will probably start tackling it like they do very severe headaches (the ones that require medical injections) and go along that route of treatment to see if it would clear everything up.

Never would we have thought that God would walk us down this path. I have asked Him why on several occasions. Why the miscarriage? Then why couldn't it just be the miscarriage and why now this issue too? The answer has always been a subtle Just trust Me. He has taught me total dependence on Him. I took my good health and easy pregnancies for granted. Yes, I have had headache issues in the past, but we knew what they were caused by and they were controlled. I pretty much was in control of my life. I could handle things. Was I really letting God? No. Do I have times where I am still questioning Him? Of course. I would not be human if I did not. Despite everything going on, I do have an inner peace that everything is going to be ok, and we will make it through this season in life as well.

When God allows events into our life that seem to rock our world, we have two choices. We can get angry at God and reject Him, or we can trust Him and know that he is always working on Plan A and will not leave us to walk through our times of trial alone. We do not have to understand why He allows things to happen, but we do need to trust Him. He will bring us through to what is best for us. --Jennifer