a year ago...

A year ago, our lives were changed in an instant.

A year ago, we anxiously waited as the ultrasound tech searched the monitor for our baby. We waited afterwards for the Dr. to come in, for what we knew at that point to be inevitable. "I'm sorry" he said, "the news isn't good." I don't remember much after that. He explained our options, and I told him I just wanted it to be over. I was scheduled for surgery 2 days later.

I can't believe that is has been a year since that moment. Our fall was hard last year. I don't know how many times, we cried together, separately, and in the middle of the night. We both struggled to come to terms with our loss. I am often amazed at how quickly, I can be transported to that moment a year ago, and how quickly I can be brought to tears. To be honest, it still hits me when someone asks if this baby I am carrying now is our first. I politely say yes, but in tugs at my heart strings every time.

I really think there are two ways in which people respond to miscarriage.
1) it rocks you to the core and forever changed who you are
2) it rocks you, but you pick up quickly, and get back "on the bandwagon."

Mike and I easily fall into the first group. There are times where Mike and I can share a look and I know he is thinking about our baby. There are times that I lose my breath, when I see someone with a baby who would be the same age as ours. I often wonder if those feelings will ever ease, or if we will always carry those emotions with us.

Our miscarriage, however, has made me so much more sensitive and aware of other women and their pregnancies. Our grief helped us to realize that so many people grieve differently, that often, grief is silent. Silent. One of the most meaningful moments to me after our miscarriage, was when a dear friend and I saw each other. She and her husband lost their first as well. She sat down beside me and with tears in her eyes said, I'm so sorry. We cried together, we shared the pain of each other in that moment, and it meant more to me than I can even express to you now. In fact, it brings me to tears now, to think of it.

I am incredibly thankful for the women I have met along this path of life, for those women who I have been able to be with as they have gone through their own miscarriages. I am even more thankful for the sovereignty of our God who, for reasons we may never know, chose for us to go through this experience. God chose us to walk through that valley, and while, we may never fully comprehend why He had us there, I am thankful for those times that we learned to walk more faithfully to our God, and grow more closely with each other.

There were so many moments last fall, where all I wished for was to have our baby back, to have them growing inside of me again. After our miscarriage, I, rather quickly, decided I wanted a piece of jewelry, something, to remember our baby by. This morning, I was washing my hands, and I caught my necklace in the mirror and it just made me stop for a moment. It's become a piece of jewelry that I always have on, and this morning, it just made me stop and be thankful for how far we have come in a year.

We are blessed to be expecting another precious baby who is growing inside of me, keeping me up at night, causing me to throw up, and kicking my ribs. I am overwhelmed with the feeling that had we not lost our May baby we would not be waiting on our precious January baby. That thought consumes me at times. Why this baby, and not our May baby?

Slowly, I have realized that we will probably never know why, but we can rest peacefully in knowing that God's ways are not are our own and sometimes we have to walk through the valley, to see the magnificent sunrise on the other side. I'm not even sure the sunrise is quite here yet, but I sense it's presence daily as January inches closer with each passing day.

Thank you, dear friends, for walking with us,

and helping us move to the other side.