Saying Goodbye to Our Little Joy Baby

“The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away;

may the name of the Lord be praised.” - Job 1:21 (NIV)

I had calculated in my head that this would be about the time when we would be making the announcement; right around Lu’s first birthday. We were so excited to announce that she was going to be a big sister! We wanted to shout from the rooftops that we’d be welcoming our 3rd child into the world in early February. Instead we spent the Fourth of July holiday saying goodbye and walking through our 3rd miscarriage.

I thought about writing a piece on some “Do’s and Don’ts” of walking with a friend (or even an acquaintance) through miscarriage and I thought about writing about the details of “What No One Ever Tells You About Miscarriages”, but after spending some time in prayer, I felt the Lord do a MIGHTY work in my heart and change the direction of not only this blog post but my perspective. So here’s where we are...

We have been blessed. The joy we experienced when we found out we were pregnant right before my 30th birthday blessed us...OH how it blessed us! Handsome totally outdid himself in the surprises and celebrations this year but this...this was the best 30th birthday surprise of all! Just a couple of days before we found out we were on a date talking about how we really felt surprisingly ready to start trying for another and laughed about how we were going to scrounge up the money for a minivan. Those first few days or weeks when just the two of you know that there is a life inside of you, they are so sweet. Those moments when we dreamed together; imagining life with 3 (so close in age!), talking about names, realizing we only had a couple of months before we’d need to move the girls into the same room so that they’d have a few months to adjust. These moments brought us joy! Celebrating with family and a few friends that we “slipped” to :) was so much fun!!

Even over the Fourth of July weekend while we were losing the baby, the Lord gave us many moments of joy - dinner outside with sweet friends on a beautiful summer evening; an S and Momma date where we snuggled in a booth and ate donuts together while I told her all of the things I love about her...JOY! And playing Duck-Duck-Goose in our front yard with our little family of four when Daddy was really the only one that could run or that S could tag “goose” (as L is a baby and I was in no physical condition to be running) - hilarious!

It was a blessing to carry that sweet baby for 9 weeks. In those 9 weeks we experienced joy that we did nothing to deserve...nothing! We now have more babies in heaven then we do here on earth but what’s beautiful is that for the three we’ve yet to meet, Heaven is all they’ll ever know. And here’s what it looks like in Heaven:

“Blessed are those who dwell in [God’s] house; they are ever praising you.” - Psalm 84:4

So I choose to JOIN our little one(s) in praising God; for who He is, for what He has done, for what He will do that we still don’t know but trust is for our best, and for the JOY that He blessed us with for those 9 weeks!

Hear me say that we were and still are devastated to lose this baby, words cannot express our sadness. But I pray that you see this supernatural work of God in our hearts and our perspective for what it is - a work of GOD. This is not my natural response, nor is it me mustering up my own energy to find the strength inside of me to pull myself up by my bootstraps and move on. I also hope you can see that it’s definitely not me/us putting on a facade that we are doing ok and trusting God when deep down we are not doing ok and we are hurting but feel like “real” Christians don’t show weakness. We feel genuinely thankful for those sweet 9 weeks and for the unexpected and undeserved joy we were and continue to experience. God is the only one who gets the credit for this. We are thankful, and humbled, and longing for Heaven all the more! 

We celebrate you, sweet baby! We celebrate you and God's goodness. And we miss you every day.

A Time to Cherish

Where are these little years going?! Both of my babies are sleeping and I just stood in both of their rooms and watched them for a while. It's warm in their rooms - L is in nothing but a onesie and S is wearing bike shorts and a t-shirt that's too small, knees up in the air and an arm over her head. Both audibly sucking on their pacies. I love the sound of the fans - makes it feel like summer; falling asleep with pink faces and sticky skin.

God has graciously helped me to step back this week and enjoy my girls. He's made me aware that these days are short. S had her first ballet class today and I got teared up watching her. She is stunningly beautiful. Her beauty has literally been taking my breath away lately. I sat there and watched her sitting and listening to her teacher - her hair pulled up into a messy bun with whisps falling down around her ears and neck. She sat with perfect posture. She looked like the perfect ballerina. She just kept giggling as she danced around the room in her pink satin leotard and her tulley pink tutu. They did a little routine to "Somewhere Out There" and I just about died. She danced so well. The other two girls have been practicing this dance for months and we just joined so this was S's first time and she did better than both of them (in my humble, biased opinion)! She just amazes me! We skipped to the car together afterwards, something we don't do as much of these days since I'm usually carrying L. Getting individual time with each of them is so precious to me!

Then there's Lulu-bug. Oh that face. Her entire face lights up when she smiles, and all you have to do is look at her. It is hands-down one of my favorite feelings in the whole world. She is so sweet and she's getting so big. I love this stage! She's cruising everywhere and exploring everything (although if we sit her outside in the grass she just plays or watches the world go by, but doesn't move an inch:)). She has big feelings and her volume level is like nothing I've ever heard before! But when it's time for bed and she's had her bottle she snuggles her face into my neck and I could stay there for a thousand years! Then there's her thighs...her thighs I could eat with a spoon - they're wonderful. Our family absolutely would not be complete without her.

These sisters love each other fiercely. I love bringing L into S's room to wake her up from a nap. As soon as we walk into S's room and L sees her, she gets a huge smile and starts leaning out of my arms because she so badly wants to climb all over S and take her paci out of her mouth. She is next to impossible to wake up from naps right now, but when L is the one to wake her up, S is blissfully happy. Still sleepy-eyed she hugs and kisses on L and laughs while she tries to take her pacis out of her mouth. It's one of my favorite moments of the day. I see so many adult sibling relationships that struggle, sometimes to the point of not having a relationship and I don't understand it. As a mother, that would kill me to see in my sweet girls but I know it's very often a reality and so for that reason I started praying as soon as L was born every night that nothing would come between them all of their days. Not that they would never have to work through and talk through things together but that they would always CHOOSE to work through and talk through the tough things/times together.

I am indebted to the Lord forever for the past 3 years that He has allowed me to enjoy S and for the past 9 months that He has allowed me to enjoy L. It's more than I could ever deserve.

(Look closely in the background of these two, above and below :) )

It's a Choice

S went into the play place at Chick-Fil-A all by herself (which I hate to do but I was feeding L). All of a sudden I look and see her crying, trying to come back down the playscape. She was crying so loud that all of the kids cleared a way for her and stared at her (and it’s loud in there!). I ran in and picked her up. Another mom was in there asking her what happened and S said that a little girl kicked her in the stomach! The mom said she thought it may have been her daughter b/c “she’d been bullying kids by the slide.” She kept calling for her to come down but the girl never did. Eventually the mom left and I could see she wasn’t going to bring her daughter down to apologize, so I brought S back to our table and talked to her in my lap while she finished her ice cream. 

S said she felt sad because the girl kicked her and she asked me why she kicked her (break my heart!). By this point the little girl had come down and S pointed her out to me - it was that woman’s little girl. She asked me why she wasn’t saying that she was sorry. Everything in my Momma Bear’s heart wanted to bring that girl over and talk to her and ask her to apologize because it was so unfair to S! But God reminded me that I won’t always be there to fix it or make it better for S, so how can I use this situation to prepare her for life?

I looked S in the eyes and I said, “You know what, Baby? Sometimes people do things that hurt us and make us sad and they don’t say that they’re sorry even though they should. Maybe because they are struggling or they’re making a bad choice, but do you know what’s amazing?!” “What?!” She said with a big smile and ice cream on her nose. “Jesus CHOSE to forgive us - even though we had hurt Him and made Him sad by going our own way instead of His, and we hadn’t even said that were were sorry. But He CHOSE to forgive us anyway! And He can help us to do the same thing! Isn’t that awesome?!” “Yeah,” she said, “Momma, is she still here?” “Yes, she’s getting ice cream over there, why?” “I want to tell her that I forgive her.”

The mom, her baby and the little girl were heading towards the door and so I waved them over and said to the mom, “We are working on forgiveness and she told me that your daughter did kick her in the stomach. And I know, it’s so hard because you’re not up there and don’t know what’s going on and maybe your daughter was struggling, but she’s been asking me why she’s not saying she’s sorry and so I told her that we can still forgive people even when they don’t say ‘I’m sorry’.” “Absolutely!” the mom agreed. “So she wanted to talk to her if that’s ok?” The mom said, “Of course!” and S looked at the little girl and said, “I fuh-give you fuh kickin’ me.” The mom said, “What do you say? Say you’re sorry!” but the little girl just hid behind her mom. The mom shrugged and said, “We’re working on saying I’m sorry! Yeah it’s so hard because I feel like I can’t get up there and with two little ones...well, you know! Thanks for taking this so well.”

I smiled and nodded and told her to have a good day. Then I sat there holding and kissing S in my lap and squeezing a baby food pouch into L’s mouth, choking back tears. I just kept saying, “I’m so proud of you, S! I’m SO proud of you!”

I cried as I drove home and God brought to mind people in my life who have hurt me or my family and have never apologized. What they've done is hurtful but even more than that is the fact that they won't apologize for it. I've never been able to get over that hurdle of hurt and "fairness"...until now - it's a choice. Praise Jesus for the Cross and my 3 year old!!!