I wish this was my post announcing that I'm pregnant. In fact, I just deleted the start of a post I had written up just a week ago wanting to tell all of you that we are expecting our second baby.
After 7 short weeks my little peanut was taken away.
I went in to see my doctor and she gave me a few words as comfort and reminded me that this is a silent pain that so many women try to go through on their own and try to hide to forget.
And that shouldn't be. It's a real hurt with real pain and real hope that has been squashed.
So here I am. Doing what I do - write.
This week has been life changing.
Over this last weekend I had a bad feeling about the pregnancy. Then Monday I had an ultrasound that looked very bleak and wrong, and yet any strand of hope there was I clung to it. Maybe I had my dates wrong, or maybe this bleeding was just from the baby implanting. Anything to keep hope for this life alive.
But I soon came to terms with the situation. Monday night through Wednesday morning was full of tears. Times of sobbing, losing my breath, literal pain in my heart. Feelings I've never felt before all thrown in my face at once.
Part of me was scared to go through it all. Part of me just wanted God to fix this. And part of me didn't even know what to think.
Yesterday I delivered my baby. It felt just the same as when I delivered Leslie, going through all of the phases of labor. However, feeling all of the labor pain was welcomed. It was really the last way that I could act as this baby's mother. After that it will be over.
And it was over. I knew that my baby was gone. I was emptied out. My baby was no longer with me.
As strange as it may sound, that moment made me feel relieved. And until reading about David, I didn't know why I felt so relieved. But in the book, "Safe in the arms of God" it explained it perfectly:
"David replied, 'While the child was alive, I fasted and wept; for I said, 'Who can tell whether the Lord will be gracious to me, that the child may live?' But now he is dead why should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me'.
"David cherished this little child. Even though he knew his son had been conceived in sin, he loved him and wanted him to live. He fasted and prayed intensely for his fragile life. Like us, David had strong hopes that the Lord would graciously relent and allow the child to live - but he had no assurance that God would do so.
"Here's the key to the change in David. He ceased his mourning after the baby died. He felt no further reason to fast and pray because his sorrow was instantly and completely replaced by hope. He declared, 'I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me'."
My sorrow, too, was instantly replaced by hope. The days before the end I cried and prayed over this peanut that it wouldn't really be gone, that God had to do something to save it. But once it was over my fear was really replaced by a huge peace. I know where my baby is. I know he/she gets to be held by Jesus right now. And that's what makes me burst into tears. It's the biggest comfort I have. And it's the promise of heaven that keeps my eyes fixed on Christ.
Forever I'll wonder what this baby would look like. If it were boy or girl. If it would have my eyes or his smile. I'll know someday, and I'll get to love on my 'bonus baby' then.
I'm still sad. I will never forget this baby. I'm its mommy and I can't hold him/her. I can't smell it's sweet baby head or nurse it to sleep. I can't stare at its little nose. None of those things.
But I appreciate this moment in my life. There's nothing so painful and yet so amazing that I am now a part of with so many of you who have done this same thing, or even worse.
We hope to add to our family very soon, and will delight in the day when our next baby keeps us up at night and steals all of our heart and energy.
If you could just pray for us in that hope. I want a big baby belly and I want to deliver a crying, pink baby again. I want Leslie to have a sibling to fight with and torment, and of course love. We just want our family to be complete.
Can a mother forget her infant, be without tenderness for the child of her womb?
Even should she forget, I will never forget you -Isaiah 49:15
My soul continually thinks of it and is bowed down within me. But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is thy faithfulness. "The Lord is my portion," says my soul, "therefore I will hope in him." -Lamentations 3:20-23
Life is like a mountain. We may stare at the mountain top and dream to reach the top. Train for it, climb it, and sometimes we make it. But what we see from the top is all of the vegetation and growth that happened in the valley. And it's a beautiful view.
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