March 15, was our second baby’s projected due date. Our second child and the 4th grandchild to our parents was coming! After nearing 10 months (at that time) of trying, we had been blessed with our “lucky” baby. We longed for this day and gosh we were so so so excited and so ready. I found out about 20 minutes before Steve got up for the day. I very quickly planned a little scavenger hunt around the house to share with him the news that we were expecting. It ended with him finding a positive pregnancy test in the oven and glassy eyes, big embrace, and giant smiles to follow. Immediate planning and mental preparations were coming together to welcome our new family member. Shoot, I even started to set aside frozen breastmilk from feeding our first born, who was nearing 15 months at the time, as a “just in case” when this baby came along. But it seemed just as quick as we learned we were expecting, the dream of being a family of 4 was taken. In that moment, you are unsure which pain is worse – the shock of what happened or the ache for what never will. It’s just a gross feeling thinking about your baby that you’ll never actually get to know. You’ll never know who they would’ve turned out to be. And then you start thinking about all the “what would have beens”…
You hear about miscarriages happening really quite frequently but you never think it would happen to you. Most people know someone who have experienced loss or have themselves. Just a really surreal feeling. I find it incredibly sad that it is not openly discussed either. Support is HUGE. Because, just about everything becomes a trigger at first after a miscarriage: baby announcements on social media, baby commercials, watching a show that has a woman in it who is pregnant or deliver a baby, seeing a picture that was taken when you knew you were pregnant, being at work and hearing the lullaby over the speaker of another baby being born. I would find myself tearing up each time it happened out of grief for myself as to why it took so long to fall pregnant just for it to be taken, and why we still hadn’t fallen pregnant again. I find that social media was triggering but also a place to find like feelings. I have learned so many other people who have shared their stories made me feel less alone. Due to this feeling like such a hush subject (and it really shouldn’t be!), I am not one to turn down open discussion; I’ve realized we are more than ever not alone with this lived experience.
I’ve been thinking about how I would feel when this day comes around each year. Would I be super emotional, cold and quiet, angry, dismissive? While I certainly have felt all those emotions at some point, I am grateful that today I am at peace. I read this little blurb somewhere online and it helped center my trust in God which in turn has helped me during some of these hard times and above all, given me that peace: “I wanted to sit my baby on my lap and tell her all about Him, but as I can’t now do that, I KNOW He is sitting her on His knee and telling her all about us.” (her or him)
The most precious things in life and perhaps the things that make us feel most vulnerable are absolutely out of our control. While March 15th should have been a day to give a birth announcement, I decided it would be a good day to share with you the love we hold for Baby #2. We will forever have more babies than you see – some are in heaven and some are on earth. If I’ve learned anything, this child-bearing-season-of-life is way out of our control and is definitely with the big man upstairs.