beauty

This mothers day has been quite special to me. Even though I am not physically holding baby hope yet, Mat decided that I should get to celebrate as well. He has treated me like a queen. Church, brunch, cards, a gift, time walking around the plaza and relaxing with our dogs have all combined for a great day. 


Call it my third trimester hormones, or an emotional day, I've had moms in all different situations on my heart today. Moms who have recently miscarried. Moms who have buried children this year. Moms who long to be moms. Moms with a houseful of beautiful, healthy children. Friends who have lost moms this year. 


My heart today is torn today between loss and celebration. The celebration of life & the loss of life cut short. Its occurred to me over the past week that I've let myself be in denial for the past month or so. It's been so easy to become enraptured with creating a nursery, planning for Campbell, preparing for birth and dreaming about holding her in my arms for the first time that I haven't let myself think too much about Parker. Is this a bad thing? Not necessarily. One huge answered prayer is that I have still been able to find joy in this pregnancy. After we lost Parker, I remember thinking that the rest of pregnancy was going to be hell. I hated the idea of the next 18 weeks and dreaded worrying every single moment if Campbell was still with us. Truth be told, there has been heightened anxiety, but there has been abundant joy. There has been happiness and excitement. God has truly been faithful and allowed me find joy where I didn't think it could be had. Back to this week - as I have had extra time to think this week, Parker has been on my mind. As we are getting closer to d-day and my braxton hicks contractions have greatly increased, I knew I need to finalize some things.  The number one thing I have avoided trying to think about too much are the "plans" for Parker. I knew we had to get this taken care of before delivery, but I just didn't want to do it. Something about it made it so much more final. While I long for the validation that I had / have two babies, making final arrangements for one of them was something I just couldn't face. There is something so unnatural about making plans for a baby that will be stillborn. So I put it off. We had discussed it. We knew what we wanted the plans to be, we just hadn't made them official. Mat was going to take care of it for me as I didn't want to make the phone calls. But suddenly this weekend, Mother's Day weekend, I found myself picking up the phone and making the arrangements for what would be done with her little body. For those of you who are a little lost right now, both babies are still inside of me. I see both of them at our weekly bio-physicals. While Campbell has grown and thrived, Parker has gotten smaller. In all reality and bluntness, we don't know exactly what she will look like, just that she will be small. It has been incredibly important to us that we have plans for her in place before delivery. If we don't the hospital takes her "to the lab". I know what that means and its not okay with us. Regardless of what her tiny body has become, she is still our daughter and will be treated with respect and love. The idea of birth is quite bittersweet to us right now. 


So today on mother's day, I am faced yet again with the juxtaposition of celebration and loss. Celebrating two precious lives that thrived together. Preparing for the official loss of one of those precious lives while at the same time preparing for the child that will grow up in our home. Identifying with an expectant, excited mom while also identifying with a mom who has gone through loss.


Ok, hang with me - I really am going somewhere with this post that isn't so dreadfully sad.


Our minister today spoke about beauty. Not worldly, fashion model beauty, but the beauty that draws us closer to God. The beauty that sends us searching for something deeper, something bigger.  Something he said today really captured my attention: what often isn't pretty in the worldly sense is truly beautiful. (Maybe I am stretching his sermon today to apply it to my own life, but I'm okay with that.) There has been nothing "pretty" about the path we have walked down the past 4 months. There has been nothing pretty about the tears shed, the questions, the heartbreak. And don't get me wrong - I don't think God finds our sadness "beautiful". He grieves and hurts along side us.  But I truly believe that there IS beauty in this... somewhere. I don't believe I have seen it completely yet - but I believe I will. This beauty might never reach completion in one act, but I expect to see small glimpses of it throughout the rest of our life. The truest "loss" in all of this is if we let it become a growing source of bitterness and anger instead of desperately seeking the beauty through the grief. After the loss, I wrote about finding beauty from ashes. I'm still not there, but I still believe that beauty will be found. After all faith isn't getting what you want in life, it's knowing that no matter what happens, God will get you through and show you beauty.