Two Weeks/Six Years

Another week down and two to go… if our new baby girl doesn’t arrive early! 🙂 This journey continues to be such an awesome and strange mix of emotions as we prepare to meet our third child/second daughter.

The closer we get to her scheduled birth (via c-section) on September 17, the more real this is all starting to seem to me. Though I still have difficulty picturing us actually getting to bring her home, I am also letting myself think more and more about what it would, and very likely will, be like to have her here. I realize that this is partly because of having lost our first baby girl last year and it is also where the six years comes in…

It has been almost six years since we had a newborn baby living in our home. Sean’s due date was September 25, 2003 (though he was born a week “late” on October 2) and so as I may have mentioned before here, there have been many parallels, at least in terms of the time frame, with our current pregnancy and our first in 2003. However in retrospect, and understandably so, I/we were a lot more naive (which wasn’t necessarily a bad thing) back then about what can gone wrong during a pregnancy.

It wasn’t that we didn’t worry about miscarriage in the beginning when we were expecting Sean or fear other problems arising the further along we got. Rather we just didn’t really know anyone personally at the time that had lost a baby and we certainly had no idea that someday we would know what it felt like to watch one of our children die in our arms.

So as I feel our new baby girl moving around inside of me as I write this and throughout each day that we are blessed to still have her with us, I find myself alternating between excitement, for what is hopefully to come in our life and hers together, and fear, that somehow she too will leave us before we ever really get to know her.

I still have a strong faith in God, but as I may have shared here before, am confused more than ever about what role I believe God has in the outcomes of our lives and especially those of our unborn children’s. I use to think that “everything happens for a reason” and that “God has a plan.” However, after all our family has been through over the past six years, I find it hard to believe that “part of God’s plan” was for four of our six pregnancies to end in loss.

That being said, I do believe that whether or not our three angel babies and our daughter Molly’s deaths happened “for a reason” that there is plenty of good that has come from their lives and deaths, no matter how long they were here on this earth. Though grieving over losing each of them and healing since has been a long and painful journey for me, I have been able to carry on and find hope in trying to find and focus on those good things that have grown from their short lives and memories.

Getting back to the six years that have passed since Sean was born, I am finally allowing myself to feel some of the things that I would imagine most parents do (and probably at lot earlier on in their subsequent pregnancies) who are preparing to welcome another child into their home. I am overjoyed that Sean will hopefully get to find out (finally) what it is like to have a living sibling and know that he is going to be an incredible big brother to his baby sister here on earth, as he has been to the one watching over us from Heaven. I am also a bit overwhelmed to think about what it will be like to care for and share my love with two living children.

Sean has been our only living child for so long and the three of us have gotten use to our life together, that it is going to be a huge (though incredibly wanted and welcome) adjustment having another person/child/baby living with and becoming a part of our family.

Also, as I reflect on what it was like to care for Sean when he was a newborn, I recall the joys and struggles of learning to/getting comfortable with nursing, getting up frequently in the night for feedings and changing diapers, etc. However, I also understand that, as with everything in life, it will take some time, but I will get use to all of this again, as will our family and though it may not be easy, it will be wonderful.

So that is where I am at right now… anticipating, pondering, reflecting, hoping, wishing and praying.

Thank you for your continued kind words, support, encouragement, thoughts and prayers.

Two weeks from today, if all goes well (and she doesn’t arrive early), I will be holding our new baby girl in my arms!

I never dreamed that it could or would take six years to get here, after Sean was born, but I am grateful and hopeful as we await the birth of his new baby sister! 🙂