A friend of mine recently wrote me an email and used this term to describe the grief after a miscarriage. I couldn't describe it better. Some days I feel so normal, and if the thought of the miscarriage comes to mind, there's a sense of sadness, but certainly not devastatingly so. And then there are days, where it feels like my heart is being ripped from me, and tears flow more freely than I'm used to.

I think one of the most difficult things that I'm feeling right now is a sense of thwarted expectations. After being terrified of pregnancy for years, becoming pregnant was a surprisingly smooth transition. It was easy to begin to mentally prepare myself for the emotional and physical changes that would be taking place in me. It was easy to be "ok" with the widening hips and extra fat. It was easy to begin thinking about life as a mom, thinking about how our schedules would change or how I would handle this situation or that one.

Expectations are powerful things and it seems like these ones are impossible to reverse. I feel like all these things were set in motion inside me, but now they have nowhere to go and are getting all bunched up in my heart. Even the little things weird me out; like sometimes when I look at myself in the mirror, it just doesn't feel quite right. I was finally prepared for that pregnant body and now to be "just me" again feels like I'm not what I should be. I have such a deep sense that I'm missing something.

In those 10 short weeks, something in me became a mother, but now I'm a mother with out a child, a confusing predicament for a heart to be in.

On June 20th, we joined a long list of couples who have suffered a miscarriage. You'll have to bear with me as I find it a little odd to write about this . Most people don't write about their miscarriage for all the world to read, but then again most people don't live 8,000 miles away from their friends & family. However, we know many of you have been praying for us and are anxious to hear how we're doing.

It's been a long time since we've done a blog update and that's mostly because we've been occupied. I know that's a weird way to describe it, so let me explain. We've been in the city for about a month and while our daily lives have progressed in pretty much normal fashion (no more or less busy than normal), our minds have been terribly busy with the unusual task of working through emotions that don't behave as they "should" (otherwise known as grieving.) Unfortunately, all this emotional and mental labor left little room for blogging.

And now that we're feeling ready to write blogs and move on, it seems wrong to just pick up where we left off with out acknowledging the loss of our unborn child and the process that brought us to this point. There are so many lessons and experiences from the past month that we'd love to share (and maybe later on we will, as we're leaving our Baby Notes Blog
active), but we really just want to share with you a spirit of rejoicing. As an Akha woman in our village recently reminded us, our little Bean is in God's country; he skipped the struggles of this world and all he knows of life is the glory of heaven.

(Note: To read a more detailed story of what has happened in the past month, you can download our most recent newsletter.)

OK readers, this one is not for the faint of stomach...

One of the difficulties of living in Thailand, especially living up North and going in and out of villages, is that we are often catching one bug or another. Orion (who we are happy to say is visiting here from the States - it's been a real blessing) and I caught a burly one a few days ago which put us out of commission for a while - lets say we were having trouble keeping anything in our stomachs (Orion might be a bit upset when he finds out I'm broadcasting this information over the internet - sorry man).

Those of you familiar with the first trimester of pregnancy, and I feel that I can safely assume I am the least educated of our readers on this subject, know of a certain condition known as morning sickness. Well, I am happy to report that my Lori has been pitching a perfect game so far in the pregnancy (thank God for baseball analogies!). To be more clear, she hasn't been vomiting (morning or evening) - not even once!

In fact, although she's been tired and nauseous at times, Lori's pregnancy has suited her very well thus far. I've been so proud of her! Unfortunately, the other night I ruined the Perfect Game.

As I was losing the remainder of my last meal into the bathtub, Lori knelt beside me and threw up into the toilet. I tried to tell her that she was taking the "in sickness and in health" vow way too seriously, but she tends to go that extra mile. Although you can't really give credit for the hit to morning sickness (after all, the vomiting was reached on an error by the husband) her perfect game is forever gone. But hey, at least she still has a no-hitter going!

I love nicknames. I make up new names for Lori on a daily basis (soup, squishy, lorna shell and babydoll are high on the list right now). That said, we have gotten tired of calling the baby "the baby" or the even more annoying "it" - uggh.

This morning we decided we have reached the end. So I promptly named our baby Nerf. Soft, squishy and round, Nerf seemed like a very appropriate name to me. Lori, however, was not as keen on naming her firstborn after sporting goods.

"Not even children's sporting goods? Well then, why don't you tell me what you are keen on?"

"Bean. or Jelly Bean. or Jumping Bean."

Bean. It has promise. Jumping Bean was immediately out because there is a child in our village named Jumping Bean (I make up nicknames for them too, Jumping Bean is in the company of the Trouble Twins, little cat, R2D2, Mrs. Santa Claus and Turtleneck). So currently our little guy is being called Bean or Little Bean or Jelly Bean.

We found out that we had joined an odd little community of baby nicknam-ers for the not-yet-born. I guess it's just the next step of many in the natural progression of parenthood.

It will probably be a whle before he/she is writing for themselves, so for now you will have to bear with the parents version of the newest addition to the Vernon Journal suite - Baby Notes. Here on Baby Notes you will find all of the info and details about doctors, checkups, pregnancy and having a baby as a missionary that only a grandmother could care about.

Thanks for caring!