Can't Live a Day...

I'm so thankful for Jesus!

I couldn't face my life tomorrow
Without Your hope in my heart I know
I can't live a day without You

Lord, there's no night and there's no morning
Without Your loving arms to hold me
You're the heartbeat of all I do
I can't live a day without you

Jesus, I live because You live
You're like the air I breathe
Oh Jesus, oh, I have because You give
You're everything to me

--"Can't Live a Day" by Avalon

A New Name...

Over the past few weeks, I've been contemplating changing the name of our blog to something more creative and meaningful.

So, "Considering It All Joy" is now the new name, based on James 1:2-4, which says,

"Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials,
knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance.
And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may

be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing."

My friend Charissa and I actually memorized these verses together several months ago, and I had no idea back then how much meaning they would have in my own life.

Another reason I chose this title is because of our baby girl, Alethia Joy. Since I was a little girl, I have always wanted to have a little daughter with the middle name "Joy." I've always thought it was beautiful, and it's also a family name--my sister's name is Natalie Joy, and my aunt's name is LaVonne Joy.

We are learning to consider everything in life "joy" as the Lord has commanded us to.. because He is producing in us a stronger faith and endurance.

This is not an easy thing by any means, and oftentimes I wonder about these verses.. how in the world can I consider losing our baby girl a "joy"?

But that's where the faith comes in. We are learning to trust the Lord that no matter what comes our way in life, He has already written the end of the story and is giving us His joy through it all.

From my heart...

Sometimes it feels like in the busyness of life, many have just moved on with their lives and have forgotten about baby Alethia Joy.
Some days I think, how can I really move on with my life and pretend like everything is fine when our lives will truly never be the same?
I will always be missing a piece of my heart.

And yet this week, almost 3 months after baby Alethia passed away, I had three different people approach me at work, expressing their condolences and just encouraging me and showing that they care.
God knew that I needed those reminders that she hasn't been forgotten.

I have found that it means so much to me to hear people talk about baby Alethia Joy and call her by name, to acknowledge that she was a real person, and has been and always will be a significant part of our lives.

Baby Alethia Joy,

I will never forget how it felt to hold you in my arms, to kiss your soft face and caress your smooth skin.

I will never forget how badly I wanted just to hear even one little cry come out of your mouth, and yet there was silence.

I will never forget the first time I saw you. After carrying you for 9 months, feeling you move and grow inside of me, and imagining each day what you might look like, it was incredible to finally see you, our beautiful precious baby daughter, your daddy's and my own flesh and blood.

I will never forget how it felt to watch your daddy cuddle you and just gaze at you with such a mixture of tenderness and sorrow in his eyes. He loved you so much.

I will never forget the faithfulness of God as He wraps His arms around us and comforts us in our sorrows.

I hope and pray with all my heart that the Lord will bless us with more children...but you will always be the big sister. You will always be our firstborn daughter.

You truly were the "little joy" of our lives.

I will always love you and miss you with the deepest part of my heart.

Love,

Your Mommy

A Totally Different Easter...

The day before Easter, which also happened to be my birthday this year, was a bittersweet day.

We had a great weekend with my family and I'm so glad they were able to come and be with us, but my heart and my thoughts were filled with baby Alethia Joy.

Over 2,000 years ago, this same day, the day between Good Friday and Easter, must have felt like such a hopeless day for all of those who loved Jesus and witnessed his crucifixion.

Many of them must have felt like they would never see His face again.

On Saturday we went to visit our baby's grave for the first time.

Thinking back about one year ago on Easter, we had no idea what was in store for us.

We had no idea how much our lives would change in just a moment's time.

Some might think it ironic that the first time we visited our baby's grave was on Easter weekend, but I like to think of it as a God thing.

What better time to be reminded that death is not the end.

One of my favorite songs is called "Mighty to Save," and whenever I hear it, the line that rings strong and clear to me is "Jesus conquered the grave."

Each Easter, we celebrate that fact--Jesus did not stay in the tomb, He Arose!!

And we have the hope and the promise in His Word that death is not the end for our sweet, precious babies who have gone home to be safe in the arms of Jesus.

I can't wait for that day.. when I will see Jesus face to face, the One who died in my place.

And I can't wait to see our precious, perfect baby Alethia Joy.

Dr. appt update

Yesterday morning, Tony and I went to see a dr. at Duke who is a specialist in high-risk pregnancies and fetal loss. Those of you who keep up with our blog know that I've been anticipating this appt. for a few weeks and have asked for prayer for a beneficial visit.

Thank you so much to those who prayed!!
First of all, I wanted to share a huge praise--the blood tests all came back normal!
Even the one that had come back positive when I was in labor apparently had skewed results the first time. So, according to the drs., I don't have any type of blood-clotting disorders!
I am so thankful to the Lord for this huge answer to prayer. It's so good to finally just know that I don't have to worry about that anymore.
This dr. said she wonders if maybe there was some type of placental dysfunction that could have caused everything. The reason why she thinks this is because Alethia Joy was on the smaller side for being over 39 weeks gestation.. 6 lbs, 7.4 oz. I guess I hadn't really thought that was very small...but the drs. know more than I do! There isn't really any way to know for sure if this was the case or not.
Overall, we just really don't have any clear answers. But God is good, and He knows.
We still don't understand, and we still hurt, but God understands our pain.
For that, we are so thankful.

Easter weekend #3

Here are some things that we did on Monday and Tuesday...

More books to read!

We took a trip to see the school that I teach at (Kindra decided to drive).

She also wanted to be part of my 1st grade class; as you can see, she's growing up fast!

Isabelle and I painted each other's fingernails.

We enjoyed milkshakes from Cookout!

And more quality time with Uncle Tony!

Unfortunately, we will have to say good-bye to our family in just a couple of hours :-(

For those of you who read my blog called "Medical Update," I did have my dr.'s appt this morning, and will write another blog later with info about that. Stay tuned.

Easter weekend #2

The fun at the Myers household continues with our special guests...

Here are some pics of Friday night, celebrating my sister Natalie's birthday.

My birthday was on Saturday. We went to one of our favorite Mexican restaurants, where the waiters and waitresses put a HUGE sombrero on me and serenaded me with some kind of Spanish birthday song.. I wasn't paying attention enough to the lyrics to figure out what they were saying!

Then, for supper, my wonderful husband cooked hamburgers and hot dogs on the grill--it was great to not have to cook on my birthday!

On Sunday, we enjoyed an Easter celebration at church and then went over to Tony's grandma's house for a delicious Easter dinner.

After the meal, we took the girls out to the backyard for an Easter egg hunt. They had a blast!

Here are a few more random pictures of our weekend--

More pictures to come...

Easter weekend #1

All of our visitors arrived safely last night!
We found out that we will be having our first nephew in September!! :-)

Today has been a fun day....
Isabelle and I started out the morning by making a cake for Natalie's birthday!

The rest of our day consisted of--

Playing the piano and singing,

Fun times at the park,

Quality time with Uncle Tony,

and now we are getting ready to eat some cake and celebrate Natalie's 20thbirthday (and mine too, sort-of)

It is so great and refreshing to have them here with us!

Praise the Lord for this Good Friday, when we remember the sacrifice that Christ made on the cross that we may have life forever!!

Visitors coming...

Tony and I are so excited about our Easter visitors...
All of siblings (2 brothers, 1 sister, 1 sister-in-law) and my 2 sweet nieces are flying from IA to NC tonight!
They will be spending tonight through Tuesday afternoon with us, and my sister Natalie and I will also get to celebrate our birthdays together like we always did growing up (she was born 1 day before me, so we are almost exactly 6 years apart).

Can't wait to see these sweet little girls...

My brother and sister-in-law also have #3 on the way in September and when we see them tonight we will get to find out if we will be having another niece or our first nephew!!!

A Little Blessing...

Just wanted to write a little note in addition to my last blog, "Medical Update.."

Today when I was at the gym finishing up on the eliptical, I heard a lady's voice beside me saying, "Did you have your baby yet?"
I turned to see a sweet lady who I had spoken to about my pregnancy a few months ago (when I was probably around 28-30 weeks along). She was one of the only people that I ever talked to at the gym about my pregnancy.
(I had actually been sort-of avoiding choosing a machine close to hers over the last few weeks because I had a feeling she would ask me that question.)
Anyway, I proceeded to tell her what happened, and of course she felt so bad for asking and I'm sure she was expecting to hear good news.
It turns out that she is a oncology doctor at Duke and so of course she knew all the medical terminiology for the blood tests that I've had done and everything. While we were talking, she mentioned that she knew some drs. who are great specialists in the areas of blood clotting, fetal loss, etc... then she mentioned the name of the dr. that I actually already have an appointment with on the 14th!
This sweet lady also said that people come from all over the world to see these specialists, so I am blessed and will be in very good hands! What a huge blessing and reassurance.

The best part was that I had a brief chance to just share with her that it's only by the grace of God that we can get through this, and that He is teaching us to trust in Him all the more in the process.

Medical Update and Prayer request

So I posted a few weeks ago about my dr. appt and said that the preliminary autopsy results had come in... so I just wanted to update since my 2nd postpartum dr. appt.

The final autopsy results came in and they could not find anything at all wrong with baby Alethia Joy.

When I was in labor, they took what seemed like a gallon of my blood to perform multiple blood tests to determine the cause of the stillbirth--basically to see if there is anything physically wrong with me that may have caused it.

One test came back abnormal--it's called a "protein S" test. They told me that it is a test that is done to determine how blood clots and since it came back abnormal, there could be a problem with my blood clotting too fast. But my o.b. dr. wasn't totally sure, since blood clotting levels are higher during pregnancy anyway.

So, when I met with my dr. the second time, he told me that it sounded like the blood clotting wasn't a problem after all, but he had talked to another dr. at Duke who specializes in fetal loss and blood clotting, etc. She recommended that I go get some more bloodwork done and get the "protein s" test done again just to be sure, along with another blood test.

It has been a week since I got that bloodwork done, and I haven't heard anything about the results yet, but I do have an appt. with this specialist on Apr. 14th.

The Lord has given me peace and I really haven't been worried about it too much, but I would also really like to just know whether the clotting disorder is something I'm going to have to deal with in the future.

So...please just pray for a clear answer and a beneficial appt. on the 14th. Thank you.

2 months

Baby Alethia Joy would have been 2 months old today.


I often wonder what it must be like, what she must be experiencing, in the awesome presence of Jesus Christ our Savior.
This week in my 1st grade class, our Bible lesson was about Heaven. As my students and I discussed what the Bible says about Heaven, it was just so reassuring and hopeful to think that there is no death, sadness, no tears, no sickness, no fear, no pain there...far greater than anything we can ever imagine.

Some days are tough, some moments are tough, and different random things bring on the emotions...
--Like seeing other babies Alethia's age
--Getting things in the mail addressed to "the parents of Alethia Joy" saying "Congratulations on your new arrival"
--Hearing new parents talk about how tired they are and how their babies cry so much, when I would give anything just to have a baby to keep me up all night... I wouldn't care.
--Reading about all the little milestones that babies experience at this age
--Thinking about how different we anticipated life to be right now--this last week would have been my first week back at school after my maternity leave. I would've been coming to school every morning with baby Alli (who would've stayed in our school's nursery) and leaving with her every afternoon.



Looking back on all that has happened in the last 2 months, it seems in a way like it's been soo much longer than 2 months.. more like a year.
A few people have told me that this experience in a privilege.. the fact that God chose us to walk this road. They have said that He found us faithful and worthy to suffer for Him in this way.
It's often hard to understand how something so difficult as this could be considered a privilege.
I don't feel faithful. I don't feel worthy. But God is teaching us little by little, day by day, that He sees the bigger picture. Our biggest hope and prayer is that somehow, some way, even just one soul would come to know Jesus Christ through the short life of Alethia Joy Myers.
We hurt, we grieve, but we know that God can and will use this for His own glory.

This necklace is Alethia's name in Greek, meaning "truth," a gift from Tony's mom.
The little lamb's New Testament was a precious gift from one of my aunts.