It was a sad, sad day

I woke up that morning and excitedly told Nate that we had made it to 11 weeks. You see the 9th week is a hard week in our house. That is when we had our first miscarriage. We had breezed past that date and were feeling good. After all, God had whispered in my ear that Lil Bit was not my last. Surely that meant we would see this baby, right?  We had that promise, I heard it. But you see, no matter what, from the day of conception, God had fulfilled His promise. From day 1, Lil Bit would no longer be our last. I knew that. I kept that feeling and that emotion buried in my heart from day 1 because I didn't want it to surface too soon. But it finally had to surface this week. After I excitedly proclaimed that we made it to 11 weeks, I went to the bathroom and realized I was spotting. Immediately, I was taken back to the bathroom stall at FRA 6 years ago and just like that, I knew. I didn't want it to be true, I wanted it to be different, I still held on to some frail thread of hope that it might be different, but I knew.

We had to wait the entire day before we could go in. We tried to hold it together for our girls and we did pretty good, but there were hard moments. Lil Bit's 1st birthday is Friday and I just kept getting angry at the timing of everything. We celebrate the life of one child the exact week we mourn the loss of another. It doesn't seem right, but then again a lot of the things the Lord chooses for us never seem right to the human mind. I will tell you this though, right now it makes me very angry. Like I want to throw something across the room and hear a ton of glass break into a million pieces.

On the way to the doctor that afternoon, I was looking out the window and words finally came to the feeling I had been having all morning - I felt empty. There is a full feeling that comes with pregnancy. You are carrying another life. I no longer felt that. My body and my heart already felt deflated and empty. We headed into the ultrasound room and she began. I knew the first picture up, I knew and just started crying.  I was 11 weeks and our sweet little one was only measuring 8 weeks and 2 days. That means we lost this baby almost right after we saw their heart beating.  That's exactly what happened last time.  In that moment I wanted to shove the ultrasound machine across the room and scream. The only 2 times we have gotten pregnant without some sort of medical intervention, we have lost those two babies at the same time.

I somehow stupidly always used to think that a second miscarriage would somehow be easier, but it's not. It's much, much harder. We have 2 beautiful girls that I am so very thankful for.  Seeing their faces and holding them makes it easier. But seeing the hole in our family makes it harder. We understand this loss greater now because we have children. The hole almost feels bigger this time, and I guess it is because there are 2 babies filling it now. Please pray for us. We are grieving, we are angry, we are numb.

And I have a huge fear. We have 3 people very close to us that are all due within weeks of our due date. September and October are going to be very painful months. If you are one of those people and you happen to be reading this, we love you and we are so very happy for you. I never want to steal the joy of life from anyone. You can share everything with us. We will wrap your babies in our arms and love on them and rejoice with you, but please bear with us when we have to excuse ourselves or if we cry in front of you. We will be dealing with thousands of emotions at that point the largest of them being grief.  We will be able to hold new life, but the hole in our arms will be all the more evident during that time and it will be oh so painful.

I pray that my grip on my heavenly Father gets ever stronger by that point. For now, I'm hanging on to every thread I can find. My strength has always been faith, it just might be a little thin sometimes. I'm clinging to my threads.

Thread 1: God created this life. This little one never knew the pain of this world. the only life it will know is praising the Lord.

Thread 2: God is with us, His plan is bigger than ours.  He fulfilled His promise and I need to remember that.

Thread 3:  We will one day hold our babies in our arms.

Thread 4: We have 2 beautiful babies on this earth with us and we must continue living life with them, rejoicing that God has given us each another day.

Thread 5: God gave me an amazing man to walk this journey with.  We will come out stronger on the other end.

These threads will begin weaving one into the other and they will begin to form a stronger rope each day that holds me closer and tighter to my Father. I will not let go. The weaving will be a long, messy process. But I'm hanging on with all my might and I know my Father has His grip on the other end. A grip that will never falter. He has us and we will try to rest in His arms as He carries us. Thank you for reading, this was my therapy for the morning as we wait out the miscarriage.