Thoughts on metamorphosis

Last night I had a night filled with vivid dreams of apartment hunting, teeth falling out, and lots of bath tubs/showers and even hot tubs in one bathroom.
While doing some research on the symbology behind these themes, a common thread emerged through them all: that thread was growth. More specifically, painful growth.
I am becoming more self aware these days and I don't like what I see.
I still see the hurt little girl in the corner from 25 years ago and I don't yet understand how to help her heal.
I, however, am becoming very aware of why I seem to do or react the way I do. This is actually a big step in the right direction, when before I didn't understand why, let alone THAT I WAS reacting in a atypical manner.
For example, my husband has always said I overly analyse people's intentions. I never really saw what he was talking about until this past Christmas, when I thought his mom was upset with me about something and after I confronted her about it, she didn't even know what I was talking about.
Something very healing happened when she looked me in the eyes and said, "no, I'm not like that, Sarah. You don't have to worry about that with me.".
I can't explain it but this peace came over me and the pressure to perform "just so" fell off my shoulders. A pressure I wasn't even aware I was carrying around in the first place.
I can see now that I have preemptively tensed up in every interaction I've had with others, expecting that I would somehow upset them without meaning to.
I think a lot of this stems from my childhood
God is calling the older generations to go forth and send out His love and light to mentor and heal the younger generations. Will we answer this call?

Our suffering bonds us together

I am going to be very vulnerable here for a minute. I'm not going to mince words or stoically beat around the bush for the sake of keeping up appearances.
I'm going to be real and raw and if it makes you feel uncomfortable to read it or you're secretly judging me for coming off dramatic, maybe you need to examine if you are really being honest with the world or are in touch with your own feelings.
When I lost my son, it was hard enough. But then Easter Sunday hit and 8 o clock that morning I began having the actual miscarriage. I quietly slipped into the bathroom that morning after telling Adam's mom what was going on and giving her a few instructions about where Rachel's Easter dress was, etc.
Easter was always a big deal and we went up to my mother in laws every year, bought a fancy dress for Rachel and did at least two Easter egg hunts.
It was a time of family and celebration that was looked forward to every year.
So, here I was this year, locked in a bathroom when my daughter woke up that morning.
Grandma had to get her ready for church.
I was having bad contractions and poured a hot bath to ease them.
Adam was sitting in the bathroom with me.
Rachel kept knocking on the bathroom door to see mommy and show me her pretty dress.
I told Adam not to open that door because I was sitting in a bright red tub and every time I kept draining it and filling it back up again, it would turn red again within minutes. I knew that would scar her for life if she saw that.
I told him that he could go be with her but he didn't want to leave me by myself.
Six hours of being like that in the tub passed and I should have seen the signs that I needed to go in but I think the pain of the miscarriage, both emotional and physical, was clouding my thinking.
Plus, I knew I would start to feel faint if I had lost too much blood and I never did. I rationalized that the water was making a little blood look like a lot. I was making sure to stay hydrated. I thought it would be ok.
What I didn't realize is that the hot water was keeping my blood pressure just high enough as I lay in that tub that I couldn't feel what was really happening.
When I finally stood up from that tub six hours later, I knew I was in trouble. My blood pressure dropped like a stone and I started going into hypovolemic shock.
By this time it was 2pm and Rachel was back from church with Grandma.
I tried to get up the stairs on my own and when I couldn't, I tried crawling.
That wasn't even happening so I reluctantly let Adam and his mom lift me up on either side to get me to the car.
I was wearing a jumbo overnight pad that I had just put on five minutes ago underneath my black yoga pants and by the time I got to the car, we discovered that we would need a folded towel underneath because it was already starting to leak.
I don't really remember all that much as we drove to the hospital but I remember not being able to stand when we got there and joking a lot with the staff.
The nurse kept dabbing my head and telling me I was in hypovolemic shock. This was confusing to me because my blood pressure was high (it's never high) and my heart rate was tachycardic.
I was more out of it than I realized at the time because later I reported to my doctor having had a kind of d&c without pain meds there and he corrected me and said that I hadn't had anything like that done. I argued with him I was so sure that's what was being done because I remember it hurting so bad when the Dr was examining me and he kept pushing for more hydromorphone,  pitocin, methergine etc. to be given.
I later asked Adam about this and he says that the Dr said I was having a "d without the c".
I was just very out of it.
I remember I was super drugged up as I lay in my hospital room later.
I remember the nurse coming in and calling my name and when I responded she said, "just checking to see if you're still conscious." I remember thinking to myself that sounded concerning as I drifted in and out of awareness.
I thought I had dreamt it but Adam later confirmed that's what had happened when I asked him about it.
I remember trying really hard not to throw up from the shock and just trying to sit up to eat dinner that night.
The Dr came in the next morning and told me that my hemoglobin was at a seven and that normally they would give a blood transfusion at that point but that with my history of uterine atony they'd rather not because my body would depend on a transfusion in the future if they did one now and I hemorrhaged on the future.
At least these are the things I think I remember. It all feels like a shadowy dream now.
I remember agreeing to take three iron pills a day for the next three months and ordering oatmeal for breakfast that morning.
When the breakfast came to my room, there was oatmeal and eggs Benedict on my plate as well.
When I was discharged that morning, I felt very weak and winded.
I remember slowly making my way into the house and Rachel running over to me and hugging around my leg for dear life.
She was so worried about me and I can kinda remember video chatting with her the night before from my hospital room.
The next couple days all I could do was lay in bed. Every time I got up to use the bathroom down the hall, my ears would start ringing.
I dutifully took my iron pills even though they reeked havoc on my digestive system and made have terrible cramps and even vomit.
I dutifully continued to take my three days worth of methergine pills to stave off the bleeding.
By Tuesday night I took my last methergine pill and by mid day I was hemorrhaging again to the point where I had to go right back to the hospital.
The ultrasounds they did showed that everything was cleared out and the Dr gave me more methergine pills to take for a few more days to stop the bleeding.
He joked that I had cleaned him out of the last five pills in the entire county!
Recovery was slow and I had a lot of trouble taking so much iron every day.
My body rebelled terribly and about every three days I'd be in the bathroom, doubled over with pain as I passed blood in my stool and the pain would eventuality get bad enough that I'd throw up.
I didn't have much time to mourn or deal with the emotional aspects of losing this baby as I was thrown into survival mode after that Easter.
One thing I had overlooked and completely didn't even recognize is what this whole experience had done to Rachel.
We noticed shortly after leaving my mother in laws that Rachel was afraid to go into the bathroom alone and begged us to come with her. This was never a problem before.
I tried to be open and honest with her from the very beginning that we had lost the baby.
I didn't know how confused and afraid she had gotten in her little mind..
A few months ago, Rachel was very concerned that Jesus had died and I hadn't connected the dots.
Then the other night she was crying and when I asked her what was the matter, she told me she was so sad that Jesus had died in my tummy like her brother.
This left me without words for a minute as I tried to with through the conclusion she must have come to.
We had a long, deep talk about things and she admitted she was afraid of death.
I showed her pictures of what heaven might look like and explained to her that James was there in that place right now and feeling very joyful.
I don't know how much all this helped because as I write this, we are going on week four of an extremely clingy Rachel. She wakes up in the middle of the night crying for us and comes to climb into bed with us. We tried locking our door but she cried and fell asleep with her blanket right outside our bedroom door when we did that.
This is a girl that's so afraid of losing us that she's afraid to have alone time in her room. This is a girl that freaks out and bangs on the bathroom door if I even try to take a ten minute shower.
She has lost her sense of object permanence through this ordeal and in her mind seems to think people can just suddenly poof out of existence.
I'm unsure how to help get at the moment. Maybe we need to seek some professional help? I don't know..
So, why am I opening up and writing all of this?
Because. We need to be raw and open and vulnerable. We need real in this world where too much is pretense.
We are all human and none of us is immune from hardship.
Please don't ever feel ashamed or let someone else shame you for openly hurting.
This is how we bond with each other! Be real and know that it is an issue with the other person if they treat you differently for being real.
I was so sadened by all the friends who secretly messaged me and said they too were going through or had been through a miscarriage but hadn't told anyone because they felt they'd be judged for being upon about it.
Our suffering is part of what makes us human and if you hide that suffering in shame and shame others for being open with theirs, you are not helping to heal. You're discouraging it.
That's not to say that some people may prefer not to share these things and that's totally fine; just don't judge someone else for grieving differently than you do.
Don't we have enough pressure to appear perfect in this world?
How about embracing the beauty of vulnerability for once?
What's the worst that could happen?

Romans 2:1 Therefore you have no excuse, O man, every one of you who judges. For in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, practice the very same things. 2 We know that the judgment of God rightly falls on those who practice such things.