Abigail's Gifts

Not everyone can say that they have baby sister in heaven. I can. And I love her so very much. I gave her two very special gifts. 

Above is a picture of my two stuffed animals. The one on the left is the one from my birth. I once lost it and my mom bought me another one (the one on the right). I eventually found the stuffed animal that I got from my birth. I always wondered what I would do with the second one. Now I know exactly what to do with it. I am going to give it to my sister. I know that even though she can't really play with it, I have something to remind me of her. I will never lose it again the first one again.

Above is a letter that I wrote to Abigail. I am going to keep the pencil somewhere safe. Here is the text if you can't see it:

Abigail,

You mean everything to me. You give me so much hope. I love you. I love you so so much! I know that even though you probably won't live long on this earth, you will live forever in my heart. I can't wait to see you in heaven someday.

Till we meet again,

Sam Lantz

I know that God loves Abby and I and that families can be together forever. These gifts will help me remember Abigail and keep me close to her. No one can take my hope away.

Hope, Not What I Thought it Meant

Source: https://pixabay.com/photos/hands-open-candle-candlelight-1926414/

I used to hope that my sister would miraculously survive. Now I know that that is not what I should be hoping for. Now I hope that Abby will help our family become spiritually stronger. 

I did a short study on the word "hope".

In 2 Nephi 31:20 it says:

"...press forward, having a perfect brightness of hope..."

That scripture teaches me that if you lose everything, you can still have hope, and if you have hope, you have faith, and if you have faith,  you have God,  if you have God, you have everything you need.

Hope can also be defined as "a feeling of expectation and desire for something certain to happen."

I used a search engine that shows the origin of certain words. I looked up "hope" and this is what I found:

"Some suggest a connection with hop....on the notion of 'leaping in expectation' [Klein]."

"Late old English hopa 'confidence in the future,' especially 'God or Christ as a basis for hope,'..." 

There is also "Old Frisian and Middle Dutch hope, Danish haab, [and] Dutch hoop"

I also realized that "hope" sounded like "hoop" since the formal is eternal and can never be taken from you.

I also like the explanation hop for "leaping in expectation" listed above.

Words that are similar to hope are faith and trust (but not pixiedust!).

Here is a quote that I found:

The people of the Earth Kingdom are proud and strong. They can endure anything, as long as they have hope.

-Prince Zuko; Avatar, The Last Airbender 

Now I see that I was hoping for the wrong thing. I now know what the true meaning is. I know that Abigail and I will see each other again. I hope that she helps my family to be worthy enough for the Savior's return.

Born the Same Month as Her Brother

Source: https://pixabay.com/photos/michelangelo-abstract-boy-child-71282/

My birthday is coming up tomorrow (Feb 8th), but I'm not quite as excited for that as I am for Abigail's birth. I used to think that it was coming in March, which was true until Mom decided to have an early one on the 25 of Feburary. "Is that OK?" she asked me. I was astonished. Why would that not be OK? Then it hit me. My mom was born the same month that her older brother was. My uncle's birthday is a day before my mom's. He is exactly 4 years and a day older than her. Now I saw why my mom asked me that question.

I am both excited and nervous for Abigail's birth. Being nervous can be a good thing sometimes. I once went to a Tween Author Boot Camp. I was very nervous. The last thing I expected to happen was that I would win. Those who didn't win were thrown into a pit (I just made that up but it was still pretty scary). I won first place in my age zone. That experience exceeded my expectations greatly. I'm glad I didn't have pride before I knew the results because I would have had less enthusiasm finding out that I won. I believe that being nervous for Abby's birth is a virtue. I know that she will bring love to our family. I know that she will do other great things for us that we just don't know about yet.

Source: https://pixabay.com/illustrations/puzzle-heart-love-two-hearts-1721592/

I can tell that my little sister's birth will be a very special one. I can feel her love and I know that she will never really die. I will always have room in my heart for her. Nothing can give me more peace than to know that she will always be here with me. I am proud to say that I have an angel as a sister. Abby is my angel friend now and forever.

BIRTH UPDATE:

Abigail's birth was very special. You could just feel the love reflecting off of Abby and onto everyone else. She is and was a very special baby and we love her just as much as she loves us.

A Spoonful of Sugar-Coating

January 7, 2020
I've mentioned how powerful and peaceful temple service has been during this time, helping me to grasp at eternity and to broaden my perspective to see Abigail's life in terms of forever, rather than the deeply felt loss of her life here on earth. Last week, we missed our temple date because Wednesday fell on New Years, and we just didn't make it out the weekend after.

This, combined with a rather unpleasant visit to the doctor's office on Friday, sent me into a dreary gulch emotionally that lasted beyond the weekend. Despite a long and cathartic conversation with my amazing midwife, I've struggled to shake this wave of grief. It's a grief renewed by some phrases and images conjured by a doctor who thought I needed to relive the diagnosis of ABS (Amniotic Band Syndrome) and the prognosis of certain death for my baby and potentially a very difficult labor for both of us.

He had communicated with the maternal fetal medicine doctor about her findings via ultrasound, and for some reason thought I needed a rehashing of the situation and his own worst-case scenario fears.

This was unwelcome and unhelpful.

Since November 8, I've gotten used to the phrase, "I don't want to sugarcoat things, so..."

It's not my favorite phrase. Like I've said, I'm the type of person who asks questions and wants to understand the full picture. I appreciate honesty in medical practitioners.

I also value my emotional health and sanity, and I understand that where you train your focus can often build your reality in incredible ways. I wish more medical practitioners understood that the mental and emotional state of a woman about to give birth is intimately married to her outcomes. A woman in panic will not have a peaceful birth. I can only imagine how a woman in grief will fare. As I fight for my emotional well-being in the face of discouraging worst-case scenarios, I could use a little help from the people tasked with supporting my physical well-being.

Mary Poppins famously sang about a spoonful of sugar helping the medicine go down. I appreciated the way Dr. Feltovich struck this balance. She may have had fears and worst-case scenarios going through her head, but she wasn't bent on planting them in my imagination. She didn't sugar-coat things, but she didn't knock the spoonful of sugar from my trembling hands either.

My biggest complaint, and this comes out of my gulch, the one I'm still trying to fight my way out of, is that some obstetrics practitioners take their detachment to an extreme. I am weary of hearing about how they are going to prioritize my physical health at the expense of Abigail's, simply because her expected outcome is poor. I am tired of being told that, since she's going to die anyway, the goal is to get her out without too much damage to me, as if she weren't real or important.

That's my baby you're talking about.

I know that people generally don't know what to say. Heck, I don't know what to say either. That's why you see so few comments from me after other people's beautiful and supportive comments on my facebook posts or here on the blog.

My wish would be that everyone who has something to do with bringing Abigail into this world could be on the same page about something: she's a person. She's our person. We LOVE her. We are grieving her and celebrating her at the same time. The language we use to talk about her is not detached, and we don't want your language to be detached, either. We are all humans dealing with other humans, and Abigail is just as human and just as valuable as I am. We want her birth to be handled with human dignity, and not with fear-based urgency.

I am trying to learn from the many, many mothers and babies who have gone before Abigail and me. One thing I've heard repeated from these mothers is how they wish they had spent less time dreading or fearing or mourning the future outcome of their angels, and more time enjoying the life within them. I feel that the well-intentioned lack of sugar-coating is creating more obstacles than we need to the goal of celebrating and enjoying Abigail's life while she is here.

It is unlikely that I will die during Abigail's birth, but if I die, it was meant to be. Neither of us needs for our final days to be made up of fearful dialogue and depressing thoughts.

I'm watching on social media as my favorite people all make New Year's Resolutions. It's a joyful and optimistic time for most people.

It's a beginning.

Though I know that something difficult and devastating awaits my family in the first few months of 2020, I also want to focus on what I can bring to this new year. The message I feel coming strongly through the veil between heaven and earth is to trust God in everything.

The saying goes that the devil is in the details, but I love to say that God is in the details. I have witnessed many miracles throughout my life, from prayers for the starting or stopping of rain to priesthood blessings to overcome serious illness. I have cheated death a few times, with angelic aid. I have healed from past trauma and sin through the atoning grace of Jesus Christ. All life is a miracle that I witness every day, flowers, mountains, pets, and people.

On facebook, a friend shared this Carrie Ten Boom quote:

NEVER BE AFRAID TO TRUST AN UNKNOWN FUTURE TO A KNOWN GOD.

The future is always unknown. Prognosticators will try to predict it, and we will always have wars and rumors of wars to keep us busy and fearful. But, "...God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power and of love, and of a sound mind" (2 Timothy 1:7).

That doesn't mean that difficult things don't exist. They are here mixed in with the good, like the life-constricting amniotic bands mixed with the life-preserving amniotic fluid in my womb right now. Opposition in all things is what makes this world grow and each human heart beat against the anarchy of the blood. We push up through the soil or out of the chrysalis or egg shell, and are born, over and over again, until we become ready for that final birth, the one called death. And there we are promised to enter into Christ's rest.

As my husband gently reminds me on a regular basis, because I need the reminder, we ARE keeping Abigail. But if we were allowed to keep her here on earth, Abigail would have soon learned to love to dance as much as I do. Like my five-year-old said, she would have gone to ballet with me. This necklace is the one I wear to remind me that she does dance. Club foot or no, she is dancing now in my womb. And soon she will dance with all the heavenly hosts. I do believe that one day we will dance together.

That's hope. It is as real and powerful as fear. Today, I choose hope.

Feel free to hope along with me, and thank you for the prayers and emotional support you have given to me and my family. I will never forget it.

Abigail's Stocking

This blog is called Abigail's Stocking, even though we'll be sharing our journey throughout the seasons. During my long commute to campus at BYU, I had a lot of time to think. I grieved for the life I thought Abigail should have, and I grieved for my own lost moments with her, from talking to her about boys to teaching her to dance, to sending her off on a mission and crying at her wedding. My grief was intense, and I prayed in between the tears. I felt like this idea was given to me as a prompting from the Holy Spirit, and as a partial answer to my grief.

Abigail's Stocking.

Yes, we would make her a stocking. She was part of the family, after all. But what would we put inside it? We would have to make gifts in her honor, or we could make promises about how we would honor her life with ours.

Yes! This would be a way to help the whole family heal, and a way for us to remember her and our family goal of meeting up at that big reunion in heaven someday. It felt so right. The more I thought about it, the more I loved the idea. I shared it with my husband and he agreed it would be a good thing.

Tonight is the last Sunday before Christmas, and we chose tonight to write in the Christmas journal that lives in Abigail's stocking. We started our entries with, "Dear Abigail," and ended with our signature with love. Each person thought of something unique to give to Abigail. Some thought of doing service in her name, or mentioning her in their prayers every day. Some chose to promise to visit her grave every month this year. I promised her the gift of life, for as long as she keeps it, and I told her I am writing a song for her. Our youngest, who is three, told her that this year he would read her the book, The Diggingest Dog. Every gift came from the purity of our hearts, and each one was signed with love.

Already I have seen the blessing of this new tradition. We talked about how even though we can't see Abigail, or Heavenly Father or Mother, or Jesus, we know they are real. We can picture them as we pray and as we live our lives in honor of them. Abigail has a real physical body. We believe God the Father and Jesus Christ do, as well. And while Abigail will be separated from this broken body in the next few months, she will be resurrected with the rest of us, following in Christ's footsteps. Her body will be perfect and we will see her face at last. That will be my new favorite day.

Peace Like a River

For thus saith the LORD, Behold, I will extend peace to her like a river, and the glory of the Gentiles like a flowing stream: then shall ye suck, ye shall be borne upon her sides, and be dandled upon her knees. Isaiah 66:12

On Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday, we grieved for Abigail. My heart broke. Bill's heart broke. We cried and we toyed with hope and then felt hopeless again.

On Wednesday, we went to the temple.

In the temple we do vicarious work for those who have already passed, and the veil is thin there. People have seen visions and felt the presence of loved ones long gone on. As we go through a ceremony of an ordinance for someone else who has left his or her body behind on earth, we also get to remember when we went through this ceremony for ourselves, and it's a beautiful reconnection with God. It's a time when we remember our promises to Him and His incredible promises to us. Bill had a family name, an ancestor whose ordinance work hadn't been done yet, and he brought a little piece of paper with that name to the temple to go through the ceremony on his behalf. I didn't bring a family name, but planned on getting one in the temple. On our way in, we met with a woman who asked me to take one of her ancestors' names for the ceremony.

This was our first time in the Payson temple. We moved up here in July, at the very beginning of my pregnancy and hadn't been able to get all our temple things together to go until now. I looked up at the beautiful building and took a deep breath. Temples have always been places where the Prince of Peace can reach me with His peace. We went inside, changed into white clothes, and met in the temple chapel where we waited with others who were about to perform the ordinance. We met Bill's parents there in that quiet, contemplative room. In the pews, there were book holders containing scriptures, and I picked up a copy of the Book of Mormon, opening it up randomly. It's one of my favorite ways to hear from God. I opened it to Moroni chapter 7 and read:

"Wherefore, my beloved brethren, have miracles ceased because Christ hath ascended into heaven, and hath sat down on the right hand of God, to claim of the Father his rights of mercy which he hath upon the children of men?
....and because he hath done this, my beloved brethren, have miracles ceased? Behold I say unto you, Nay, neither have angels ceased to minister unto the children of men." (verses 27 and 29)

I silently thanked God for these passages of scripture which spoke to my heart and told me it was not at all wrong for me to pray for a miracle.

If you have walked through a temple prior to its dedication to the Lord as His house, you have seen a Celestial Room. It usually has a high ceiling and chandelier, and is like the Holy of Holies of ancient temples, except that instead of there being one priest allowed inside with a rope tied to his leg, all who have come to covenant with God in the temple are admitted into it. The ceremony ended here and we sat on a couch and prayed and whispered reverently to each other. I was happy to see my parents-in-law there, and they spoke words of comfort to us. Abigail will be ours forever. She will not ever be truly gone. And she counts as one of our children. These true ideas had been difficult to get hold of. They kept slipping away from me as I was grieving before. But here, in this holiest place, I felt the truth and the comfort wash over me.

My soul experienced a vast transformation from the sorrow, anger, fear, and deep grief I had been feeling before. The grief was still there, but all fear and anxiety and anger disappeared. That night, I slept sweetly and awoke with words from the ceremony running through my mind. I repeated them in my mind over and over again, cherishing them and turning them into a prayer for Abigail. God's promises are sure. His love is real. His peace is unlike anything this world has to offer.

On the previous Monday, I had stopped by a store to pick up some clothes for Bill, and almost hit a whole flock of seagulls, Utah's state bird, sitting there on the asphalt.

Seagulls are the state bird of Utah for a very special reason. It hearkens back to the days of the Mormon pioneers who settled here and experienced the highs and lows of farm life right off the bat. A whole crop of wheat, still tender in the fields, was being devoured by a swarm of locusts. The pioneers went out with pans and bonnets and anything they had to beat back the swarm in a desperate attempt to save their fields from the devourers. And they prayed for a miracle. God sent an enormous migration of seagulls to devour the devourers and the pioneers were saved.

When I was a teenager, only fourteen years old, my mother made me a gorgeous pioneer dress with a full-circle skirt for dancing so I could be part of a pioneer play called Promised Valley. I didn't play a specific character, but I did get to sing and dance and act, and I will never forget taking off my bonnet and smashing at invisible "crickets" during the scene that reenacted this miracle. Seeing these seagulls at such a moment, when I was in the middle of my worst grief was a small miracle. And yet, I had so much trouble accepting it. It was as if they represented someone else's miracle, not mine. At that point, I was sure I would not be receiving a miracle. Who can argue with an ultrasound image like that? My baby was going to die and there was nothing I could do about it. No amount of healthy eating or daily walking would change what was. Neural tube defects are not something that resolves by itself in the womb before birth. 
It was just a flock of seagulls.

But I took a picture and kept it in my heart.

Sunday, that permission from the Lord to pray for and hope for miracles soothed my soul, and I came to see the seagull as a symbol not just for their miracle, but for all miracles.

Right next to the women's dressing room in the Payson temple is a giant painting of a pioneer woman holding a little girl while looking down at the sunflowers that have fallen from the little girl's hands. The expression on her face held me captive as I passed it, and I stood for several moments just connecting with her in her sense of loss. I knew that she was grateful for the child in her arms but that, all the same, she was experiencing grief. I knew that look because I had been wearing it for the past several days.

Loss looks the same on everybody, I guess.

And yet, there was a quiet strength in her visage, and I drew strength from that, too. Not only did this pioneer woman survive through everything that had happened to her, but she was only just beginning to create the foundations of a beautiful culture in a new land. She had more to give, even though her heart had been broken. There was just so much of the tragic and hopeful mixed in this painting, that I couldn't get it out of my head. The next morning, I was still thinking about it, and talked to my husband about how it had made me feel. Then I started singing a hymn: Blessed, Honored Pioneer. I didn't even know I knew so many of the words to that song. It is rarely sung except on July 24th, for Pioneer Day in Utah. I decided to look up the painting so I could see it again, and was awestruck when I saw the title: Blessed Honored Pioneer.

I cannot reproduce the picture here, but if you'd like to see it you can either visit the Payson Temple yourself or see it on the artist's website. Because it was commissioned for the temple, it is not sold in prints anywhere, so these are the only places you can see it.

Blessed Honored Pioneer

As if this weren't enough communication from heaven, there was more as the day progressed. On my way to class, I began to feel the anxiety creeping in again, and I determined to hold on a little longer to the peaceful spirit from the temple. I turned on the narrator on my Gospel Library app and listened to Moroni chapter 7 read aloud to me while I drove. It was comforting to hear those words again, and in the context of the chapter. It was a letter from Moroni's father, Mormon, to him. My scripture app automatically went to chapter 8 when chapter 7 was finished (it's a long drive) and I was startled to realize that the very next chapter was about infants who die without baptism, or the baptism of infants.

Verse 8: Listen to the words of Christ, your Redeemer, your Lord and your God. Behold, I came into the world not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance; the whole need no physician, but they that are sick; wherefore, little children are whole, for they are not capable of committing sin; wherefore the curse of Adam is taken from them in me, that it hath no power over them...

Little children are WHOLE!

For a mother with a baby that had just been diagnosed with a defect that left her without parts of her skull, brain, and face, these words could not have come with greater power. I was struck by the word "whole." It is comforting to know that my baby, whether she dies in the womb or lives a few hours or days, will be whole in Christ. When I meet her, on this side or the other side, I will see her that way, knowing she is whole eternally because of Christ.

I am thankful for the temple, for scriptures, the word of God, and the power of music and art in communicating to my heart. There is so much to be grateful for, though I still don't understand why this has happened and is happening. I know we are not alone. As my mother keeps reminding me, God loves me and God loves Abigail, and He has a beautiful plan. I just have to believe that there is beauty in this and that one day I will see it.