Wednesday, August 1, 2007

Thankful

So I've been reading a friends blog that has a big following of women who have lost babies. And let me just say... I'm humbled. Although we've lost a little one too, I feel somewhat unworthy to be having a healthy little girl in a few weeks. Just the other day my friend posted a contest asking what you were most thankful for. (she had a prize for the best entry). As I thought about it more and more I realized, right now I'm most thankful for all of the aches and pains in this pregnancy because it reminds me that this little one is thriving inside of me - how awesome is that!

At the same time, I'm really fearful of all of things there will be to worry about once she comes - all of the external forces that I will have no control over and all of things she COULD have wrong with her that the doctors may not know about yet. I'm taking precautions to buy an expensive monitor to alarm me if she stops breathing in the 1st several months and I'm wondering if I'm going to have a hard time leaving her with different people that I'm not sure would watch her as closely as I would. Yet, I don't want to live in fear and hold her so tight that she can't grow and thrive and be her own.

I guess after losing one, you just feel guilty - guilty for celebrating another's birth. I have so many cute outfits lined up for her, the room is starting to come together (I'll have pics next week!) and we're really looking forward to her arrival with a lot of anticipation. But, in a way, it feels like that excitement in some way is helping us "move on"... And that scares me, because I don't want to "move on" if it means forgetting. At the end of this month, we would have had a 2 year old running around our house. In so many ways, I can't even fathom what that would be like. I just know and appreciate all of the good things that the Lord has brought into our lives instead. However, I want to FORCE myself to imagine a 2 year-old boy running through the house and playing with the cats - because if I don't, then I feel like somehow he didn't exist. And I think it's the fading memories of his life that scare me the most.

I may always keep a stocking up for him at Christmas - after all, Joseph was a member of our household if only for a brief period of time. I guess I don't really think celebrating our future children is forgetting his memory. But I realize now that choosing to preserve his memory is a choice I'm going to have to fight to make. His memory is what makes this upcoming celebration that much sweeter.

4 comments:

Unknown said...

agh. tears, tears. beautiful, Lauren. What a wonderful tribute to the J man.

Unknown said...

agh. tears, tears. beautiful, Lauren. What a wonderful tribute to the J man.

Ms. Burly said...

I second that, pregnant or not - the tears were flowing. Love you girl & so happy that we can celebrate the joy of being pregnant.

Miriam said...

It is a sobering thing to have already lost a little one! I think about the one we lost as having one heck of a good time up there with God and saved from all my bungling efforts down here! : ) I really looking forward to meeting him/her in heaven - curious to see what we so briefly had. I like that you remember Joseph - you'll always be his mother even though he is up there and you are down here. Love you lots - can't wait to meet your little lady.