Women always say that after childbirth you forget the outragous horror of delivery. I haven't labored and delivered to know. After one labor over 19 hours long I ended up with my first c-section to retrieve my fat, wide shouldered first born who never fit in new born clothes and had feet so big that all footied jammies had to be cut to accommodate them.

However, I suppose it's similar to forgetting the nervous energy that walks me to the O.R. for the other deliveries; the fear of being cut open, seeing nothing, hearing only nurses and doctors chatting about their weekend plans.  Of course all that fear is totally worth it when they lift that sweet new face above the sheet.

Similarily forgotten, is the horror of morning sickness. It's always bad. Puking all day, all night, and growing worse each pregnancy. Although it may just be the three boys already here that make it seem so much worse.

This time though, I'm a tangled mess with headaches and nausea and for the first time, fear. So much terror. It's  like nothing else to stand in the shadow of the Strongtower and still be afraid.

I can't figure out how to grapple with losing Grace and doing this again. Morning sickness has always abated about the time we learn the gender. And there's this amazing shift physically and emotionally when you see him or her on a sonogram and can name them,and prepare for them, and all the energy that has been drained by morning sickness is replaced with a joyful drive.

But we didnt have that last time. Five months of puking and exhaustion and then her heart just stopped.  I never got to deliver her, or see her, or hold her. It just ended. It was 20 weeks of all the hard parts and it didn't end with a new face above the curtain. It ended with a burial in a field and a stone angel marker that I can't avoid finding when I look out the window. 

So weeks into this morning sickness I am terrified. I force myself to remember, I am not growing Gracie. But i wish that I was. And in the same breath I'm so thankful for a new son or daughter. And I am so hopeful, so desperately hopeful that this baby will not die. And one day this morning sickness will pass and we will know the gender, and the name and we will move forward in preparation, believing that I will have the privilege once more of feeling the nervous energy as I walk to the O.R.

Faith Proved

The test came back positive; two pink lines confirming that we are indeed running this course again. Im relieved. And terrified. I look out the window and follow the curved tree line hedging the field until I find the crepe, the bench and the stone angel. 

Chanting scripture like a mantra to still my racing heart; casting cares, running for a Strong Tower, and begging for this baby to live.

Even still, I have little expectation that in less than 8 months time I will have another son or daughter. 

We told them about you today. We debated on when to tell them, but you're here right now and growing, and if we have you for 20 weeks and then you're gone, then we will have one more chance to point our sons to Jesus, to Hope. My boys have hope. It resonated in their eyes in the seconds they first knew. They've prayed a million prayers for you to come and they have hope because He answered. They're dreaming a million dreams of you and praying for you to live.

Little one, I'm desperate for your heart to beat. I am desperate for you to hear your brother's rowdy yells and hear them singing and laughing and playing. I am desperate to carry you to term and fufill the vision of delivering you into the hearts of family and friends that have walked this road with us. I am desperate for your biggest brother to hold you in his arms and smile at me with that know-it-all look in his eye, because he was confident this momemt would come.

So tonight I'll choose hope, and faith, and peace. I'll choose to rest and trust that a year from now my fear will be faith proved.