Remembering Our First Angel

A year ago today was the due date for our first pregnancy.  Today we would have a one-year old if things had gone differently.  This week I've been very quiet inside as I remember the one we didn't get to keep.  I've always been a date person...I can remember people's birthdays (although not as good as my mom), anniversaries, and random events.  So, even with all the joy and gratitude I have to be carrying baby B...I can't help but remember a time with this date held so much promise for us.

I found out I was pregnant in mid-December 2006.  It was Christmas season and I can still hear the songs on the Sarah McLachlan Christmas album I was playing over and over when I think about that month.  Our niece had just been born a month and a half earlier and I was so excited that these cousins were going to be so close in age.  Both of our parents were with us that Christmas...so, we got to share the news and excitement with them together.  It never even crossed my mind to be worried that something would go wrong.  My great-grandmother had 8 children, for crying out loud!  Losing a baby was probably the furthest thing from my mind.

I guess part of the pain from losing that first baby came from my naivete.  It probably didn't help that the miscarriage itself was pretty traumatic...complete with a night spent in the ER.  And for a girl who's hardly ever been sick, much less in the hospital, it was all a shock to my system.  But none of that compares with the utter heartache I felt in the days, weeks, months that followed.  I had no idea my heart could break the way it did.  For a long time I couldn't see how I would get out of muck of that grief.  

A year ago today I remember bracing myself for what I was sure was going to be a hard day.  I took the day off of work and Kit & I went down to Savannah to work on the house.  I wanted to spend the morning by myself to have room for tears and a kind of final remembering.  For the past 7 months I had been plagued with thinking things like, "Today I would be in my second trimester" or "We would be having our big ultrasound this week."  This day would be the last date that held meaning for that pregnancy...and I was hoping to have some kind of release.

And wouldn't you know it...God surprised me with joy that day.  I couldn't even find a tear.  I spent the morning taking a long walk and going over with God everything I had to be grateful for that had happened the past year.  It was definitely not how I expected to spend that morning...but, I am so thankful for that memory.  During the months after the miscarriage I remember thinking that I wouldn't be happy or feel joy until I was pregnant again.  God wanted to show me a different way.  I had grieved...and healing had occurred.

So today I'm remembering the baby we never got to meet...the angel that gave us so much in such a short a time.  I remember the way my heart broke and truly grieved that we would never hold that baby during this life.  But, I also remember how losing this baby brought me so deep into the presence of God's healing.  I remember how He very carefully sewed up the hole in my heart and once again gave me joy.