Exhaustion.

I wanted to post an update, but I have to be honest - the words aren't coming. Not in any sort of coherent stream of thought, anyway. I'm exhausted. In a way I've never experienced before and everything in my body hurts, yet I feel like I'm living someone else's life. Someone else carries quadruplets for 26 and a half weeks. Someone else goes on bed rest for 10 and a half of those weeks. Someone else delivers those four babies and then says goodbye to one of those precious children only 10 hours later. Someone else plans the funeral for that sweet baby while trying to figure out insurance and FMLA and the ins and outs of the NICU for the surviving three babies. Someone else sits in the front row of the funeral looking at the only pictures she was able to get of her beautiful son before he was placed in the box that sits beside those pictures. Someone else pumps every two hours in the midst of all of it so that her other three babies might be able to grow and thrive and have a chance at life that her other baby won't get. Someone else gets an infection and ends up back in the same room to be treated for it as she spent three weeks on bed rest in only two weeks before and weeps because the last time she was in that room she had all four of her babies with her. Someone else hates Wednesdays because of the reminder of what week gestation those babies would be and how her angel baby might still be here if only she could have kept them in longer. Someone else almost loses another baby this week and freaks out and struggles to feel any comfort in trusting the Lord with her one pound baby's health because the Lord already saw fit to take her brother home, so who's to say He's not going to take her as well? This has to be someone else's life because I can't do this.

But it's not. It's my life, and it's Nick's life, and by the grace of God (and ONLY by His grace), we're doing it. We're not doing it well, but every day we get out of bed and we put one foot in front of the other, and we make it another day. And every day we experience the goodness of God in amazing and tangible ways, and we are reassured that we will be okay. And we are also reassured that it's okay that we aren't there yet. And in the midst of our not okayness, we've got thousands of people who are literally holding us up in so many beautiful ways, and we are experiencing the body of Christ in a way we could have never fathomed. We've got an amazing medical team that is fighting so hard to get our babies healthy. We've got amazing friends and family who are fixing meals and cleaning our house and helping with Jeremiah and sitting at the hospital with us and crying with us. We've got an amazing church family that is sending freezer meals and helping us through our grief and who hosted a lovely celebration of Oliver's life for our family. We've got sorority sisters who are raising money for our NICU stay and funeral costs and who named a star after Oliver so that we would always be able to look to the sky and see him. We've got best friends who drive the two hours from Kansas City just to be with us for an hour or two and let us cry with them. We've got co-workers and employers who are so gracious and generous with us and have given us the time we need to be together as we mourn Oliver and celebrate each victory we see with Mavis, Amos, and Lena. We've got strangers from across the country who are sending cards and gifts and sweet words of encouragement and praying so diligently for our three tiny miracles and rejoicing with each "win" they have. Truly, I could go on and on. We have been blown away by people's kindness to us - throughout our entire pregnancy but especially in the weeks since we delivered.

So while it feels very much like we are living someone else's life, Nick and I have found so much comfort in the midst of our pain. Not only in the way you all have been the hands and feet of Jesus to us, but most importantly in the Truth of who Christ is. He is not unfamiliar with suffering, but He Himself endured the unthinkable. This world is not as it ought to be, and God does not delight in our hurt, but instead meets us in it and reminds us that in the midst of the brokenness, all WILL be well. It's not yet, but it will be. God weeps with us over the loss of our son, but He also reminds us that Oliver is safe in the arms of his Creator and we will see him again some day. So while my arms ache for the baby I won't get to raise, my heart is comforted in knowing where he is. I have been clinging to this passage from Lamentations 3, and my prayer in sharing it, and really in sharing all of this - our entire journey and even the ugly rawness of my hurt and my fear - is that you would find encouragement and peace in knowing that there is HOPE. No matter how dark the days, no matter how deep the pain, no matter how feeble the faith, there is always, ALWAYS hope.

19 Remember my affliction and my wanderings,
    the wormwood and the gall!
20 My soul continually remembers it
    and is bowed down within me.
21 But this I call to mind,
    and therefore I have hope:

22 The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;
    his mercies never come to an end;
23 they are new every morning;
    great is your faithfulness.
24 “The Lord is my portion,” says my soul, 

“therefore I will hope in him.”