hope

2014 Blur

Amy Daws 2 Comments

Looking back on 2014, I’m shocked and awed at all that I have accomplished.
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Before you think this is going to be a brag session…please hear me out.

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2013 ended on a very sad note for my family when I lost my sixth baby.
Nevaeh Peace was a true gift and I cherished being able to carry her inside me for those 18 weeks.
Holding her tiny body on my chest is a sensation that I will never forget and I still get tears in my eyes just thinking about it.

 

Prior to losing Nevaeh, I had started taking some notes about my losses. Writing had always felt therapeutic to me and getting out all my sad stories while sobbing over top of a keyboard is what helped me process. However, when I lost Nevaeh, I wanted to do more than “process.”

I wanted to memorialize.

Quotes-LaughableSo, Nevaeh inspired me to make 2014 MY year. She inspired me to turn a negative into a positive. A sadness into a happiness. And a depressing story…into one of HOPE. So birthed, Chasing Hope, and the beginning of a crazy, beautiful, and challenging journey of becoming an author.

 

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Seeing my family’s story of heartbreak in a bound book was an incredible sense of achievement. And receiving emails, facebook messages, and letters from people who my story personally affected, was more than I ever hoped for.

So doing what I do best…I pushed for more. When I’m passionate about something, it consumes me until I finish. I’ve always been this way. Whether it’s reading all the Twilight books in one week, pouring over discussion forums on how to train our new puppy, or even researching recurrent pregnancy loss specialists and textbooks. I go all in.

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So birthed…
The London Lover Series.
I’ve always loved reading contemporary romance.
So when I had an idea that I thought sounded interesting, I decided to go for it.
I wrote A Broken Us in two weeks and now have another book in the series, Becoming Us, releasing January 13th.

10339330_319347571560072_3760225789755140282_oBecoming an author and publishing nearly three books in 2014 is a complete surprise. But I’ve been welcomed into the writing community with open arms. Am I successful at it? HECK NO! Does it make me want to quit? Not a chance. And the reason for that is because I have this rockin’ family at home rooting me on. I know that I would not be able to write down one single word if it wasn’t for the incredible support of my family. My husband picks up the slack, listens to my rants, does my accounting, and tolerates this crazy writing obsession of mine. He’s the shiz. And my curly-haired, two-year-old, miracle baby is all the inspiration I need to keep chasing my dreams and never giving up.

Hey, it’s that very attitude that got me her.

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You Are Enough

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enough
Today is National Pregnancy Loss Awareness Day. Just saying those words is depressing isn’t it? The fact that pregnancy loss happens to so many people that we need to designate a day to raise awareness just sucks. It sucks bad. But there it is….so now what? We’re talking about it, posting about it, tweeting about it. But what’s it really doing? Who’s it really helping?

When I started writing Chasing Hope, I wanted to write it just to get the nightmares out of my head. And to show to my family the true  trauma Kevin and I went through. No one knew and it was killing me that I had endured these ugly, life altering events and no one had any inkling the scary situations we were put in.

But something happened during my writing process. Something amazing. Hope found a way of sneaking in. HOPE of all things! After five losses in a row…five gory, ugly, bloody losses….how they heck could HOPE get in there? But it did. I laugh because the working titles of my book were nowhere near “Chasing Hope.” But it was like my story wanted to name itself by the time it was all over.

Maybe it’s because I’m one of the lucky ones. I have a daughter. After all our pain and anguish, I was granted a sassy, spirited little toddler with curly hair, big eyes and has miracle baby plastered all over her precious chubby face. Getting her granted me perspective. Getting her made me proud of my HOPE and not embarrassed by it.

But I know there are so so many couples out there right now that are grieving their losses without a little miracle to comfort them. And my heart breaks for them because we had those tragic, dark days too. Those days where I would hole up in our home office with the lights off and just cry and cry and cry and pray that hubby wouldn’t come in because I was just so so tired of sympathy.

So, try this thought on for size…

I am not going to give those couples sympathy today. I’m not going to give them awareness. I’m not even going to give them HOPE.

I’m going to give them a glimmer of the BIG PICTURE. The BIG PICTURE…is that someday, it will all make sense. I PROMISE you. Someday you WILL find your purpose, you will find your PEACE. You will find your own ENDING. It may not end with a child, as hard of a pill that is to swallow, it’s a distinct possibility. But you have to find a way to make yourself okay. You have to find a way to make yourself be ENOUGH. Because you are ENOUGH.

Grieve your losses today. Light your candles. Hug your spouses. But look into each other’s eyes and say, even without all of this…YOU. ARE. ENOUGH.

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October-Pregnancy & Infant Loss Awareness Month

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In honor of October being pregnancy and infant loss awareness month, I’ll be dropping my Chasing Hope e-books to $2.99 for the entire month. Finding something to connect to when you are grieving a loss can make all the difference in the world. I love connecting with my readers and sharing in their grief, sorrow, heart-ache, and especially HOPE. This picture is an excerpt in the acknowledgements section of my new novel. Even though I’d rather have these babies here with me….the gift their short existence has given me is worth more than I can fathom. I’ll love them forever.
#chasinghope #chasinghopealways #infantlossawareness #pregnancylossawarenessmonth
Kindle–> http://amzn.to/YTApMf
iBooks–> http://bit.ly/1rwjNGk
Lulu–> http://bit.ly/1BzF42I

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