yes siree, we make small babies!

It’s been interesting to be pregnant.  Although, when is it not?  And I, the Type A, competitive person that I am, have always mentally had a rank/seniority mentality on pregnancy.  If you see another pregnant lady and she is farther along than you, she gets the “win” of respect.  However, if she is less far along in her pregnancy, but onto a higher number of pregnancies than you (e.g. she is on her third and you are on your second), she pulls rank and thus gets props for being farther into parenting.  It is really dumb and, up until this post, never been revealed.  Needless to say, I am enjoying pulling rank lately.  Is this your first?  Nope, fourth.  Apparently, I am easily amused.  But after that part is over, I prefer to not get into more details than that.  Pregnancy is a public thing and I am at a loss for knowing where we fit in as parents.  Certainly, we are having our fourth child, but we never had much time with Reece, Britta, and Scarlett together.  We both agree that we manage three kids and that many days, Reece requires the most energy.  Still, we don’t know the management of three both physically and mentally.  It feels a little strange–we don’t fit in anywhere other than the chiseled out, unique place we have landed.

Moving right along, if you read along with Like Olive Shoots or you know our family, then you know that we have a history with IUGR (intrauterine growth restricted) babies.  We had our 19-week ultrasound a month ago and, while most measurements were spot on, the head-to-abdomen ratio was 1/100 of a point out of normal range.  The head is smaller proportionally to the abdomen.  It is the trademark of our babies!  (And wow, has it been helpful come labor and delivery time!)  However, it was enough to send us back in today to get a repeat measurement.  This being our fourth time around, we knew to expect this and assumed we would be heavily monitored throughout the pregnancy anyway.  I went in for the ultrasound today expecting things to be pretty normal.  I was hoping that, for once, things would be straightforward.  I guess they are normal for us, because in consistent fashion, the baby’s abdomen has now fallen to the <5%.  Again, we are not overly worried, nor is our doctor, but it means that higher monitoring will occur.  The good news is that the baby is proportional, meaning that the head, abdomen, and femur (leg) measurements are all consistent.  Baby was measuring spot on the due date last month.  Now, all three measurements are consistently nearly a week and a half behind.  I had to remind Terry that Scarlett was already two to three weeks behind at this point.  This is usually what happens.  The 20 week ultrasound goes normally and then we start falling behind.  Reece was the only one of our three to have real threats to his health with the many things that were happening.  All of his complications have been considered random and neither of our girls experienced those same anomalies, despite their small sizes.  Hence, most of the size issues have to do with genetics.  (Ahem–I’ll give that credit to Terry who was also a tiny baby; I can not claim the same for myself!)  Reece dropped way off the charts right before the last month of pregnancy (measuring five weeks behind!), weighing in at 4 lbs., 2 oz.  Britta was never technically IUGR and remains our family “bruiser” at 6 lbs., 7 oz., although she tracked two weeks behind during the pregnancy.  This is comical, because she is tiny now.  She is our smallest of three small children.  At over three years old, her 2T shorts fit her perfectly this summer! She weighs 26 lbs. with all her clothing on and if she hasn’t yet gone to the bathroom!   Scarlett was our most consistently growth-restricted throughout the pregnancy and was born at 5 lbs., 13 oz.  Post birth weight, she is our biggest baby, although still not even to the 50% on most measurements.  In retrospect, while I ate well and did everything in a textbook, healthy manner with her (including exercise restrictions my last 8 weeks), I know the stress of last year probably didn’t help anything with her growth.  In summary, we have small kids and this fourth baby is no exception.

We found out last month that we are having a boy!  It’s exciting and complicated, but we are thrilled to meet him!  As it was with both girls, I only know the children I have, so it is hard to imagine yet another version of Terry and me.  With Britta, I could only picture Reece and with Scarlett, I could only imagine Britta as our girl.  So now, it is hard to think of another boy being in our family and having it not be Reece.  But he has a whole lot of cool cars, trucks, and trains waiting for him to play with!  Actually, I spend very little time thinking of that.  It feels vulnerable to start imagining him being with us, so I try to focus one day at a time.  If something should happen, I don’t want to have to erase the things I have envisioned for him.  It’s hard to do, but I guess that’s the way I’m coping with it.  Regardless, we are excited to be having another baby and this, very likely, will be our last.  I’m trying to savor this last pregnancy, but I sure could use a glass of wine these days.

my year in genesis

We finished our year of BSF on Tuesday and we reflected on what we had learned through studying Genesis.  I will admit, I was a little hesitant about studying Genesis and it was mostly due to not really wanting to learn anything further this year.  I was “learned out” from a practical application standpoint, but decided that it would be good to be studying The Word with other women again and indeed it would be good for the girls to go to the children’s program.   When I left partway through Acts last year, most of my answers to the study questions were theoretical to me.  I had lived a pretty cushy life and while I had some challenging things happen, nothing had been so big that I couldn’t muscle my way through it.  Coming back to study, after living through the isolating, pain-filled, God-dependent ordeal we had lived through was entirely different.  I mean, where was I to start?  It seemed so many questions needed several pages to answer and depending on the day, I simply did not want to go there.  I’ll admit, about halfway through the year I thought about not continuing, but it really didn’t make sense to quit and I knew if I didn’t face some of these challenges now, I’d face them in the future and have to work through them all over again.  I reminded myself again that I could not deny the girls the opportunity to attend and learn from the loving, caring women who faithfully teach them the lessons every week.  And ultimately, I knew I had to do something “normal” in regard to social interactions.  I decided to stay.  So reflecting back over the year was an important exercise for me; to see where I came from and where I am now.  Here are my big takeaways from a year in the Book of Genesis:

God is purposeful and good. 

He made everything purposefully.  We are purposeful beings.  We have ups and downs and they mean something to Him.  Because they mean something to Him, it then changes the way that I view it.  I can rest when I know that He has purpose for what we endure and the hardships we face.  Nothing feels worse than to go through something difficult and feel like it happened for no reason.  This is NOT the case with God.  When things feel senseless and meaningless, I can rest in knowing that He will use it all and it will ultimately be good, because He is good.   According to Google, “good” means something that is morally right; righteous (noun) or to be desired or approved of (adjective). How many times have we prayed that meal blessing at our table, “God is great; God is good.  And we thank Him for our food,” and not really let the words sink in?  I realize that when watching the news it is hard to believe that things will be used for God’s purposes or that any good could come from them.  The world is full of things happening that seem senseless and terrible. I don’t desire the circumstances Reece lived through or that others endure, but I know in my soul that it will be well.  It’s a matter of trust in God that He is faithful to what He has promised.

As we studied the life of Joseph–who was sold (by his brothers, no less) into slavery, believed dead by his family, and thrown into prison for being (falsely) accused of attacking a woman, he ultimately became a powerful man in Egypt and he trusted in God and His plan.  Told near the end of Genesis, the story of his life is more than the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat–it is worth your time to read it.  But here’s my other deal with it.  I’m so thankful that Joseph had things happen later in his life where he could see some, I repeat some resolution here on Earth.  He could see how his turmoil resulted in something great.  However, there are many people who never see that resolution here.  It doesn’t mean that the same promise of God doesn’t hold true or that He is only good when He demonstrates the resolution here.  It just means it will be resolved and revealed in Heaven.  I don’t think of Reece as losing a battle or not being healed.  False.  He is perfectly healed.  Being delivered into Heaven isn’t a consolation prize for not receiving healing here.  Terry and I agreed even on the day he passed away that we would not ask for him to be back here, even in his healthiest, normal state.  If we truly embrace the promise that Heaven is our home, I can’t ask for him to come back here.  I remind myself often that Reece is doing something today that far exceeds what his day or any of our days would look like here.  It’s awesome to think about!  Nevertheless, I don’t get to understand how that all plays out for probably quite sometime.  I didn’t get the chance to see it resolved here, but resolution for him did happen and I will understand it all one day.  Likewise, God knew we would suffer the loss of Reece.  This will not be resolved for us here.  We expect that we will suffer this until our own bodies give way; we will endure lifelong suffering.  But my soul is at peace here when I know deeply that it has purpose and that God is good in it.  He made the earth and everything in it and declared it good.  He is good.  He is good even when it doesn’t turn out the way we want it to turn out.  This year, in particular, I needed to see that He is purposeful and good.

My walk with God won’t be easy. 

I knew this to be true already, but it was powerful to read about the lives of the Patriarchs (Abraham, Isaac, Jacob) and Joseph and to see how while God chose these men to establish His people, they struggled in life.  They made poor decisions, they endured hardships, they wrestled with God (Jacob, literally), they struggled to trust God, yet God was faithful to them.  He showed his love for them through it all.  While I already knew life here would be tough, it was oddly reassuring to read through it this year and realize that these struggles have been going on since Creation and will always be while we are here.  It doesn’t mean that God is necessarily punishing us (although at times, it might).  It means I am guaranteed suffering here, but that shouldn’t be falsely interpreted as God not caring for me or loving me.  God’s love isn’t solely demonstrated by what He spares us from, but also includes what He helps us endure.  Since the beginning of time, God has persevered with people by His love and mercy–The Fall, The Flood, The Patriarchs, slavery, the death of Jesus, and so much more up to the present day.  It really gets back to my first takeaway.  Even when life feels raw, when we suffer, when we are hurt, when we make bad choices and suffer the consequences, God cares and He is faithful to us.  I needed to see that come through the lives of the men in Genesis.

I should preface this next part by saying it has been an ongoing process to discern what is laid on my soul by God/stirred through the Holy Spirit, what is produced in my mind as a fear or protective, innate response to something, and what is just my mind wandering.  It’s one thing to look backwards and sort through things to see God’s hand, but I have been paying attention to try to understand, at present, what the Lord is trying to communicate to me.  I will never know God’s plan for me or my family in full until I get to Heaven and God reveals as much as I need to know.

With this in mind, I had something laid on my heart a few weeks back that has been aided by my learning in Genesis and that I feel God specifically pointed out to me one day.  Scarlett, our third child, has always been a mystery to me.  She is the one child of our four that seemed to come out of nowhere.  I love her so much, so this does not reflect any sort of negativity towards her.  However, we were quite surprised to find out that we were pregnant with her about six weeks prior to Reece’s blood work.  As the pregnancy continued on, it limited my ability to help with Reece (picking him up, doing overnights at the hospital, etc.).  I felt frustrated with my lack of ability to do things with him and often had to tell him I couldn’t do what he wanted.  I felt torn between Reece’s many needs and Scarlett’s baby needs after she was born.  I felt somewhat resentful that pregnancy should be a happy time and instead my pregnancy with her was full of stress and tears.  I have felt anger over having to tell Reece “no” to anything at all in his last months with us.  There were many times I felt I had to choose between the two kids and it felt so wrong given the serious nature of the situation.  Also, I struggled with knowing that Scarlett’s birth and Reece’s passing were only 9 weeks apart…forever associating the two in that way.

In addition, while I don’t regularly struggle with this line of thinking, it is difficult to not feel at times like Reece suffered for something we did.  In my pursuit to try to make sense of Reece’s failing health, many things have run through my mind and certainly one of them is that we are somehow punished by this circumstance.  The Bible discusses punishments–even punishments for sins committed generations before.  I don’t get mentally stuck there, but it of course has come up in conversation.  However, as we continued to study Genesis, it highlighted how blessed people have been with children.  Certainly, we know we are blessed with all four of our children.  Children have been a source of blessing back to the Creation.

Keeping all of this in mind, I had this moment of peace and understanding one morning that touched me so deeply, I believe it is from the Lord.  It occurred to me that Scarlett was given purely as a gift of life at a time of earthly death.  This might seem obvious and when I read it, it seems obvious, too.  But on a deeper level, I thought about it in terms of such a contrast of blessing with both the beginning of life here for one child and life in Heaven for another.  I feel like Scarlett was, among many other things, a way for me to understand that God’s purpose for us is parenting.  He continued to show His love in such a powerful and joy-filled way through the obvious blessing of her.  The joy over (well, all three children at the time) Scarlett and Reece are so vastly different, but bringing life into this world at such a time is, to me, a sign of God’s faithfulness to us.  It really overwhelms me to think about it.  It doesn’t mean we will be spared from other suffering or loss, it just means to me that God is faithful to us.  He would be faithful without having given us Scarlett, but He chose that for us, just like He chose to take Reece away.  He didn’t have to give us a child to show His faithfulness, but He reassured me that He indeed has chosen a path of parenting for us and that we are blessed with this path.  I don’t believe He is punishing us for something we are doing or something we did.  It seems affirming in our decision to parent as though He is saying, “I’m going to take one child from you physically, but I am going to entrust you with another, so you understand that I trust you with these children and that I love you.  This is about my plan for Reece and your lives, but it isn’t about your punishment.  You need to trust Me.”  (He didn’t audibly say that, but that is what the message felt like to me.)  He blessed us in the middle of it all.  So many of the blessings felt like they had to be wrung out of that circumstance, but Scarlett was poured out over us.  He didn’t have to do that for us.  Now, what seemed so frustrating in the midst of it all has turned into a completely different realization. It doesn’t change our longing for Reece.  However, He knew our desires before we even knew them ourselves and worked it out for our good, so while in the midst of our suffering we can also literally see our blessings.

“And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”  Romans 8:28

a body never forgets

There hasn’t been a ton of time for blogging lately, mostly because I tend to blog on Thursdays when I am out of the house for a while sans children.  As time has passed this year, it seems my Thursdays fill up pretty quickly…it turns out that coffee with a friend is actually relaxing when you aren’t chasing little ones!  As of late, my Thursdays are booked with PT appointments to manage an old running injury from grad school.  This is only the third time in 11 years it has reared its ugly head, but–wow–is it painful!  It is actually an SI joint injury I managed to achieve during my ridiculously-obsessed-with-running years in the early 2000’s.  It isn’t related to pregnancy, but the last two times I have had to go to PT I have been pregnant…the pregnant part only makes it worse.  I’m hopeful that I’ll be back running and active in a couple of weeks, but it has made life interesting, considering I have a one-year-old that demands I carry her most places.

This injury is timely in light of one of our recent bible study questions, “How are you suffering the consequences of a former sin?”  When I got to this question, I immediately thought of my body–both physical and mental.  I could point out many things that I “carry” with me that have been a result of some form of sin–things that ail me either physically or in my own thinking and memories.  I really hadn’t considered this injury as a result of sin before this week, but the reality is, it likely is.  I got it at a time when I was glorifying myself and body over everything else.  I obsessed over my weight and I planned everything around when and how I would work out.  It is no wonder that an injury occurred.  Yes, I have been able to manage it so well that I am unaware of it for the most part.  I’ve reworked my running gait, changed my posture, changed my exercise habits, and have mostly been healed of the obsession–the root of the problem.  But every few years it manages to resurface and keep me humble.  I think without some of these ailments, I would forget how I have been dealt with mercifully–I would become self-reliant in an even bigger way.  I need to be reminded that sins have consequences.  Paul speaks of his own circumstance with a thorn in his flesh:

“Therefore, in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me.  Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me.  But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.”                            2 Corinthians 12:7b-9

As I further thought about the question from BSF, I reflected on Reece.  I don’t believe our bodies ever truly heal here.  I think of Reece’s body and how the biggest concern going into transplant was not all the germs that could come into his body, but rather what already lived there.  All the Work-up Week testing that was done included a history of what he had already been exposed to, as it resided in his blood already.  Even those tests had limits as to what they could tell us in regard to exposures.  It demonstrates that not only do our bodies record our own sin (like my injury), but also they record the world’s sin (like the common viruses we acquire and build up immunities to).  It’s pretty humbling. I don’t for a second think of Reece’s diagnosis as a result of his own sin.  I think his MDS was a result of a fallen, imperfect world.  In a child, I view it as more of the weight of the world’s sin, versus the result of things he chose for himself.  But Reece’s life on earth became–as most of us will eventually become–a casualty of sin.  Sin outweighs us, outnumbers us, outsmarts us…here; on our own.  Some of us will have to deal with decades of it and others, like Reece, will endure a short, but powerful few years.  At some point, our healing will have to come from our Maker.  A sub-standard, human, bandaged effort–albeit sophisticated in many regards–will not be enough.  But the reality is, until we are healed into Heaven, our bodies and minds do not forget what they have endured.

Likewise, our minds are subjected to ailments, including damage from what we have lived through; they also keep a record of hardships.  We routinely refer to mental wounds as “baggage” or “issues”.  Speaking of which, I was feeling pretty mentally damaged myself a few weeks back.  I hit a low spot as I was overwhelmed with the pregnancy, our girls, and the reality of Reece.  Terry and I had gone out on a lovely date night, but as dinner wore on, we inevitably started discussing Reece.  At first, we talked about happy things.  But then it turned to some of the memories from about a year ago and it ended the night on a somber note.  I just kept thinking about our life and how we would manage it all.  Like I said–I felt like damaged goods–unrecoverable.  Thankfully, the sun rises and the sun sets and there is a new day on the horizon.  As I have gotten a little distance, I realize that every time I look at the obvious hardships of losing Reece, it becomes completely defeating.  Outside of God, the grave nature overwhelms me every single time.  It’s only in the context of Eternity that my mind is freed, that I can feel hope in the larger purpose and encouragement in the ultimate healing that comes from knowing Christ and being forgiven of the mess of sin that devours our lives here.  There is no remission in Heaven; it’s the only place we can truly declare ourselves cured.

In this context, I can understand why we don’t ever rid ourselves of our past while we are here.  I need some reminders that I have messed up, that I continue to mess up, and that I’ll be messing up for the rest of my days.  But instead of thinking about it in terms of “just bad luck” or “overuse” or “baggage”, I am reminded this week that my own ailments are part of a much larger picture for my life.  They serve as reminders to myself, as lessons for myself and those around me, and as opportunities to examine my own self and how I conduct myself while I’m here.  I can’t rely on myself to be perfect, because I’m a proven failure at it.  I’ve got the bumps and bruises to show for it.

“If I’m thinking of the person I’m going to marry, I won’t be an easy target for seduction. Likewise, when I’ve meditated on Heaven, sin becomes terribly unappealing. Our high tolerance for sin testifies to our failure to prepare for Heaven. ‘Everyone who has this hope fixed on Him purifies himself, just as He is pure.’ (1 John 3:3, NASB).

~Randy Alcorn, “Heaven”

sometimes, i just have to ask, “why?”

We spent another weekend at Faith’s Lodge last weekend; it’s an absolutely lovely place of retreat for bereaved parents and families grieving the passing of a child.  It can be as free or as structured as you want it to be.  It is serene and inviting and there is just such comfort in being around a group of people who understand what it’s like to lose a child on earth and who can connect with you on a different level than most people.  No matter how different the background stories, there is a shared understanding of loss and the life that is led afterward.  We went there last fall for a family weekend and decided to come this year during a parents-only weekend as the timing worked better for the year and because Britta and Scarlett are not yet at a place of grieving.  Bringing them along lends itself to more chasing of them and less connecting with the purpose of being here.

It was great to be at the Lodge and I definitely think we will return in the future.  However, another mother there said it best, “I couldn’t do this all the time.”  I could not agree more.  It’s no problem to talk about Reece, but when you are able to go that deep, it can be a challenging task to resurface from it.  It was a good assessment of the realistic picture of where I am at with everything.  I operate on a pretty normal level, but there are things that have been left untouched in my own sorting process–maybe they’ll be addressed in my lifetime and maybe they won’t.  But as we spent time in deeper discussions about life and death, these untouched topics were uncovered and I recognized for the first time in a long time how deeply painful they are.

As we left Sunday morning, I found myself tearful, inconsolably and uncontrollably at times.  I couldn’t quite place what was going on.  The weekend had been positive and not a tearful one for me.  As the day passed I realized there were two main reasons for the intense emotions I felt.  One is that taking on the emotional situations of everyone and understanding what led them to visit there probably built up and boiled over.  When you spend time meeting and enjoying each other’s company you inevitably end up thinking, “These people are great, yet how is our common point the loss of a child?”  I’ve yet to meet a family who has lost a child and not had it come as a surprise—even parents of terminally ill children.  You never plan for it and you can never be prepared for it.  For me, I know that God prepared me in certain ways when I look back at so many things—He prepared me mentally for me to understand that this was part of the plan.  No one, however, can feel prepared and ready for the day-to-day challenges.

This past weekend was the first time I really let myself entertain the thought of “Why us?”  As I’ve said before, those types of questions become defeating places to live in.  Getting lost in the “why” prevents life from being lived.  But you know what?  Sometimes, the question has to be asked.  Why is this the cup we are drinking?  Yes, I know it’s for a bigger purpose and, yes, there are times when people will share how their lives have changed because of knowing Reece and his story.  I absolutely cherish what people share with me in regard to Reece and his impact here.  But that still doesn’t bring him back.  It still doesn’t make it easier to be here without him.  Sometimes, I just have to ask why this happened to us.  Sometimes, when I think about how many times I will likely lay my head down on the pillow to go to sleep or how many birthdays we will celebrate without him or how many times I will have to find a silver lining, it becomes overwhelming.  Sometimes the silver lining is only a sliver of silver and sometimes, I get weary of the thought that that’s all it will be here.  I know–we aren’t made for this Earth and God has a plan and Reece is healed and this life is but a breath in the scheme of eternity.  I know.  These are amazing things, truly.  But sometimes, when I think about right now and the intensity of everything, it just doesn’t seem like enough.

The second thing that has been tripping me up are all the parenting moments I wish I had done differently.  I hate that I wasn’t perfect for Reece.  I can’t even write it without tearing up.  I HATE that I wasn’t perfect for him.  There, I said it.  By all accounts, I consider myself a loving, caring, responsible mother.  Reece and I are very close.  We still are close.  But in light of him not being here, I don’t get to have the conversation with him when he is an adult to discuss all the things I wish I would have handled better—all the things he went through as our first child where I probably lost my temper too easily or I expected him to behave when he was being appropriate for his age–maybe even better behaved–in the first place.  We don’t get to discuss all the intense and difficult things he endured and we endured as a family, with him throughout his illness.  The irony is that he understands that better now than he would have here.  He understands it better than we ever will here.  He knows my parenting faults better than I do.  He knows how his life will be used.  He wouldn’t know that if he was here; not the way he does now.  So, in reality, I need those conversations.  I need that here, as a human, trapped here without him.  I need that as Reece’s mom.  I need him to somehow need to have the conversation with me–for my sake.  In reality, I could be needing resolution on this for another 50 or 60 years here.

As we drove home and I was thinking about these things, I realized that a numbness that I felt about things since Reece passed away had either returned or perhaps never left me in the first place.  I have an indifference to try to make these things better on my own.  It isn’t that I’m a glutton for punishment, it’s that it is a waste of my energy to do so.  Both of these things that cause me so much pain are things that either God will have to release me from here or I will be dealing with for the rest of my time here.  I realize and accept that there is no person here that will say something to me to make it better or for me to view it in a different light.  I don’t want to go to some therapist to do some exercise about loving myself more as a parent or to tell me, “It’s perfectly normal to ask ‘why’ in situations like this.”  Blah.  Not interested.  It’s my burden to carry.  The only release will come from God himself–either here or in Heaven.  It’s part of our life’s deal.

On Sunday night, I re-read a passage that I can’t ever remember reading before Reece passed away.  I know I sound like a broken record, but I have turned to it numerous times since he passed.  I underlined it one of the first times I read it, as it stood out to me in how real it was.  The words were so real–like it could have happened in this day and age.  As I’ve read it more and more, I had confusion about why I continued to turn to it.  I turned to it again on Sunday and it sort of made sense in light of how I was feeling.

“The Spirit then lifted me up and took me away, and I went in bitterness and in the anger of my spirit, with the strong hand of the Lord on me. 15 I came to the exiles who lived at Tel Aviv near the Kebar River. And there, where they were living, I sat among them for seven days—overwhelmed.”  Ezekiel 3:14-15

Some Bible versions say “deeply distressed”, but my version says “overwhelmed” which is what initially caught my eye.  The entire chapter discusses how Ezekiel was being called by God to talk to the Israelites, whether they listened to him or not.  It was not going to be an easy task for him.  My study Bible discusses how Ezekiel was angry with the Israelites and bitter with them for their defiance, not with the Lord.  I personally view it as Ezekiel being overwhelmed with what the Lord was calling him to do.  Often times, I feel overwhelmed with what God is calling us to do.  I appreciate that this passage speaks to the human capacity to feel bitter, angry, and overwhelmed, even when what makes us feel that way could be completely in line with the Lord’s will.  Maybe it’s ok to feel that, because God will still use us, despite our emotions.  It seems strange when I reflect on the passage to say this, but it encourages me to know that other people haven’t always felt like willing participants in God’s plan.  Despite our humanness, He uses it all for something bigger.

this child is loved

The evening that Reece passed away I remember saying to Terry that someone could storm in, hold us at gunpoint, and I wouldn’t even bat an eyelash–I felt so numb to life.  That numbness has gradually lessened over time.  That intense period of being oblivious to sincere safety concerns was very short, thankfully.  I then went through several months of feeling a loss of interest to make decisions that would somehow re-engage us in life activity.  It has been a very slow process of taking on small things that start to integrate us back into normal circumstances and to begin trying to really “live” life.  We are still working on this on many fronts.  However, where I really struggled those first few months was in my willingness to take on anything further than that to which we had already committed.  We had our girls, our home, and our current life at the time.  I had no desire to even entertain the thought of doing more.  My thoughts were solely about caring for the girls, figuring out what God’s ultimate calling was for me (which I accept may solely be taking care of my kids and husband), and completing it.  I really spent most of the day with my head focused on Heaven and Reece and getting there in the minimum amount of time God would require.  I could not fathom making decisions that would tie us here any longer or doing things that would tie us to this life any further.  This may not make sense to you, but my thinking was to do the best I could with what we had chosen to take on and not entertain engaging in anything that might get us invested in life here any further.  It sounds strange, but to me, it makes perfect sense in the context of what we’ve lived through.  We’d witnessed so much–our innocence had been lost–and other than raising our girls, I wanted nothing further to keep me here.  In the back of my mind, I know that God doesn’t work like that, but that was where I was at and I know that He understood it, perfectly.

Then, late last Fall, I happened to watch an interview of Barbara Bush on the TODAY Show. (Click here to view this clip.)  Interviewed by her granddaughter, Jenna Bush Hager, the former First Lady discussed the passing of their second child–a daughter named Robin–from leukemia; she was three years old.  I had no idea that George H. W. and Barbara Bush had lost a child and as the interview continued, she discussed some intimate details regarding watching her daughter pass away.  What she described hit very close to home in our own experience of watching Reece pass away.  Most people, including myself, do not discuss such details publicly and it was helpful to hear her talk about it.  She spoke of how she and the former President still discuss their daughter and how they felt about losing her.  She mentioned that now, as they are approaching the end of their lives on earth, they discuss her even more and how excited they are to see her again.  As I listened, it occurred to me that they had several other children after Robin died.  George Bush went on to work in many high level positions, including being the President of the USA.  They raised five children (four having been born after Robin died), including one future US President.  They figured out a way to hold it together, to heal, and to be active again in life.  They took on new challenges.  They didn’t stop having children, they didn’t let it cripple their plans in his career, they didn’t crumble as a family.  Watching this interview helped me to realize that it would be okay, at some point, to take new things on in life.

A few months ago, I posted this picture on my Facebook profile page:

Family

I stated that this is what my dream looks like–to hold Reece again.  I’ve actually already lived and felt my dream.  It has temporarily left me, but it will be realized again one day.  In reality, it will be different from this, as you will notice, not all of our kids are part of this picture.  My dream contains this scene, but it includes more people than what are pictured.  Reece is only part of it–the entire picture is having my family reunited.  In all likelihood, that could be close to 100 years from now, but I strongly believe it will happen.  I have come to accept that I will never have a family photo with all of us together on Earth.  We won’t ever feel “whole” here, as a family.  Once I accepted that reality, I was able to better understand that we still had a strong desire of the heart to raise three kids together.  We have wanted for quite some time to have the dynamic of three children in our home.  This desire did not go away with Reece’s passing.  Certainly, I thought we would raise Reece, Britta, and Scarlett together–I really wanted that.  That will never happen for us.  So, after careful consideration and definite prompting from the Lord, we opened our hearts to having another baby.  One month later, I was pregnant.

Here we are, beginning our second trimester, feeling blessed, overwhelmed, and slightly confused as to how we exactly got here.  We considered not sharing the news until later in the pregnancy, but this being my fourth baby, it is not as easy to hide my belly this time around!  In all seriousness, I want to share that this isn’t some attempt to replace Reece or distract us from the process we are going through.  This isn’t about trying to have another boy to somehow fill his absence.  He is “The Boy” in our family.  We are excited to have either gender and excited about the prospect of potentially having the family dynamic of three children in the house…even though we are having our fourth child.  We went into this pregnancy with our eyes wide open to the entire spectrum of parenting–the wonderful and obvious blessings, the heart-wrenching moments, and the gems that can only be uncovered through trials and tribulations.  In my opinion, it has been a much more difficult endeavor to entertain having another child–considering the understanding of what it is like to physically lose one–than it would have been to not have another baby at all.  Ultimately, the blessing of loving a child–no matter how short a period we were blessed to have him with us–far exceeds the emptiness that would have been felt by not having him in the first place.  This is true for all of our kids–born and unborn.  So, we went back to the desire and calling of the heart and it was, indeed, to try to have another baby.

We talked at length with Reece’s doctors, after he passed away, about whether or not having another baby would be a negligent decision.  They assured us it would not.  There are only a few cases of siblings having childhood MDS.  We know that anything can happen to any of our children, but we did not feel that Reece’s diagnosis should be a deterrent for having further children–at least from the perspective that we would be putting future children, knowingly, in harm’s way.

Here we are, pregnant again!  We are excited and cautious; overjoyed and still fresh in grief.  This is, indeed, a blessing.  We have no expectations for a boy or girl–no hopes one way or the other.  We hope for a healthy baby, but we know no matter what, this child is loved by us and three older siblings.