Why Does Christmas Always Hurt So Bad?

Christmas has hurt worse than ever these last few years, ever since we lost Eli.  I've put extra thought into why this year and come up with a few possibilities.  One is the difference between the boys' pregnancy timelines.  When I was pregnant with Wyatt we spent a blissful, ignorant and happy Christmas season.  We received his Potter's diagnosis less than a month after Christmas.  Eli was diagnosed just before Thanksgiving and so I spent one of my saddest Christmases ever.  Surrounded by my entire family, pregnant and suffering in silence.  Very very few times was my pregnancy even acknowledged.  It was so sad.  I wonder if I'm haunted by that pregnancy.  If it has somehow carried a shadow through each year.  Same house, same decorations, same family members, etc.  When I was pregnant with Wyatt we lived in an apartment and I never spent another Christmas in that place.

The second possibility has religious roots.  I'm Catholic and so Advent is our time of preparation for the tiny Savior's arrival.  I find it hard to prepare myself in any way for the birth of a boy.  It has too many parallels for me.  I wonder if anyone who has lost girls struggles with those same thoughts at Christmas or if gender really does have a part in this.  I also remember my preparations for Eli's birth which was less than three months after Christmas.  It's just too painful.

I wrote a few years back that our family was able to escape and that was a wonderful Christmas filled with less sadness.  I don't know if it was because of the exciting things we were able to experience with our girls for the first time or the change of scenery or a combination of both, all I know is it was different.  This year is not.  I drug my feet in every way possible when it came to holiday preparations.  The only thing that really keeps me going is my children counting on me to hold fast to our own traditions.  Others that are not as important I am letting go.  Something has to give.

Imaginary Friend or Something Else?

Our youngest daughter, born a year and a little over a month after Eli has begun to talk about Eli.  In fact, she's quite fixated on him in a way.  So much so that I made her a little photo album of him which she cherishes.  But it's more than that.  She talks about Eli a lot.  When he was a baby and how she held him.  She talks about little fights they've had while playing or what kind of things they've been playing together.  He talks to her and she will tell me what he says.  It's always her voice that comes through but nonetheless it makes me wonder.  Does she have a connection to Eli?  Is this an imaginary friend?

It is bittersweet to hear his name so often.  I love to hear it and it is nice to think that he may be nearby, visiting every now and then, taking care of the little sister he never knew.  I don't know.

This year Dia de los Muertos really spoke to me.  I dug into it a little deeper and found out that November 1st is often considered the Day of the Innocents and it is on that day that spirits of children and babies visit their loved ones.  I baked my little ones the Pan de Muertos and miraculously we still have marigolds in our yard so I hope that yesterday at some point the breath of the wind may have been sweet little kisses blowing in the breeze.  Maybe just maybe they were drawn to us for that one day because lately I have been missing them both so much.

The moments between alertness and sleep are tricky for me.  So many of my nights I have spent worried.  The last thing I have thought of before drifting off is the safety of my children, in the womb and out.  The other night I found myself re-feeling emotions from over a year ago.  (It was my nightgown's fault.  I bought the most beautiful flowing empire waist nightgown while pregnant with baby girl and because it was purchased while pregnant it tends to bring me back to that time.)  I don't know that I fully conveyed my subsequent subsequent pregnancy emotions.  By that I mean the things that my heart felt and that my brain felt after having carried two babies to term and then having them both pass away shortly after birth because of Potter's Syndrome.  The things that I felt after having carried three healthy girls in between and then being pregnant again shortly after our second Potter's loss.

Two ultrasounds showing a perfectly healthy little girl did nothing to put my mind and my heart completely at ease.  There was always a disconnect in that pregnancy.  A fear.  Fear of getting too attached and then having to say goodbye again.  Having my heart broken once was devastating but to have it unexpectedly broken twice for the same reason was shaming.  I can't quite put it into words but I felt some level of responsibility for what happened.  Those feelings definitely permeated my pregnancy with our littlest girl.

She is a wonderful addition to our family but she has turned our already upside down lives topsy turvy.  Her first year has been frought with tears, hers mostly but mine too.  She was not a very happy baby, absolutely attached to her mommy and pretty demanding.  Add to that exclusively nursed and would not take a bottle.  Let's put it this way.  Every single smile she gave me was a precious moment because there were not many.  Our first daughter was extremely fussy and demanding but this little one and her inability to be semi-pleasant really pushed our limits.  She has just reinforced the laws of nature which I have become quite familiar with.  That I can't control anything in nature but myself and my reactions to the world around me.  I couldn't stop Wyatt and Eli from dying and I can't shape the personalities of my living children.  But I can choose how to react to them.  Little baby has changed much over the last year.  She now smiles freely and even (gasp) giggles!  She loves to play games and be silly and she is such a sponge.  I can't help but feel my heart go all gooey when I hear the word "mama".  I chose not to give up on her, I chose to smile even after screaming into a pillow.  I sang, I read and I kept at it day after day even when that day passed without a smile, a laugh or even a glimmer of hope with her.

She's proof that I don't always get what I deserve.  I mean, after losing two children and just losing one of those children, I thought perhaps I might deserve a baby infused with joy, a baby that would have caught some of her brother's spirit as she breathed her first breath.  Maybe she did, but not in the way I imagined.  She's proof of the ferociousness of nature and the relentlessness of hope.  She is one more testament to my strength and determination and perhaps more importantly, proof of my healing broken heart.

Ushering in a New Period of Mourning

My littlest little girl is going to turn one next week and I find myself not only now sleeping mostly through the night but also feeling that old pull.  The one that catches my eye as I pick out our infant daughter's clothing in the morning.  Those little boy outfits that have been hanging in that same closet on the same hangers, untouched, for about nine and half years now.  The ones for my son.  The baby blue Winnie the Pooh outfit lovingly washed and hung, ready to wear.  Frankly, those outfits have done nothing but make me angry lately.  Angry because even though those outfits weren't for Wyatt, they were for Eli.  He was the son that came after Wyatt.  He was my boy.  I knew it soon after he started growing in my belly.  I knew he was a boy.  I knew it just as surely as I knew that something was wrong with him before I even walked into that ultrasound room.  What I knew then doesn't matter now.  I now know that I will never again hold another little boy from my own body and that I will forever mourn those two little boys I did get to briefly hold but that I will also forever mourn the absence of another son.  At the same time there is great peace in my heart knowing that I will not carry another child.  There is a very real possibility that we could have had another child with Potter's syndrome.  I am so thankful to have welcomed our healthy little girl one year ago.  It has been healing for all of us.  After Eli died I wrote about how heartbreaking it was to watch our three daughters love him and then have to say goodbye.  They had empty arms too.  I have now filled their arms and their hearts.  They still miss Eli and talk of him often.  We know that Baby cannot take away all that hurt but we did not expect that she would.  She just fills a different place in our hearts.

Untangling the Knots

I feel that I am just navigating a complicated web of knots lately much like an unraveled ball of yarn.  Some strings are loose and easy and others have inexplicably wound themselves into the tightest of knots.

I think it has a lot to do with number four.  More than ever, watching her grow up and move through the babyhood stages has made it crystal clear what I am missing and what I will always be missing.  When I went through this stage with number one I was so overjoyed just to have a living baby it really didn't matter as much whether she was a boy or girl and though her babyhood was bittersweet it was also elating in the celebrations of each little milestone.  With number four I know what's coming and I know what has passed.  The surprises aren't what they are with a first living child.  There is still joy and celebration but there is also a level of comfort and knowledge.  I've done this three times before so the little things don't send me into a tailspin of doubt and worry like they used to.  There's an ease to raising a fourth child and that ease has paved the way for my mind to wander down a different path.  A path on which I have at least one little boy, though hopefully both, in my life.

It probably doesn't help that Eli's birthday is just two months away.  Last year at this time I was pregnant and all of my focus went into getting this little girl here safe and sound.  I focused on a little person wriggling in my belly.  She didn't have a face, a personality, a smile, a laugh or a cry.  I couldn't make her happy or scare her or soothe her bad times away.  This year that is most of what I find myself doing and it's just too much sometimes.  I wonder how things will feel once his birthday is passed.  As my four year old says, "One, two, three, wait and see".

The Heart Wants What the Heart Wants

I'd like to say that I'm completely comfortable being done having children.  But that would be a lie.  My heart betrays any words I could ever utter.  I want to raise a son.  My body just doesn't understand.  Six full terms pregnancies, six cesarean sections, two funerals and two periods of mourning and raising four little girls in ten years has taken a toll.  Okay, a pretty big toll.  I have done two back to back pregnancies twice, both on the heels of a c-section and smack dab in the middle of my period of mourning.  My body and my mind finally told me it was enough.  My head knew that ending my child bearing years was the right choice before my doctor told me that my uterus had thinned out to the point where another pregnancy would be inadvisable.  Tell that to my heart.  There is not a day that goes by when I am not aware of what is missing in this house, this family.  It's not always a conscious "whoa" type of thought.  It most often draws no tears.  But it's there nonetheless.  So I still haven't come to terms with what is and what it is that I deeply want.

Molding the Clay

Exhaustion, two successive pregnancies, four living children and the grief for two children living only in my memories has colored my recent days.  Some days  I wonder if my poorly managed days are because I didn't allow space in my life.  More space for anger, sadness, tears, joy to intervene before becoming pregnant again.  Some days I wonder if it is just my precious baby girl who is less demanding than our first but much more so than the other two.  Is it wrong to tell her that since she's our number four daughter she is just not allowed to be demanding?  Clearly, the natural order of things is allowing her to be queen bee at her ripe old age of four months which is displeasing most members of the household much of the time.  I don't know children without grief so I really don't have these answers.  I raised my first living child fraught with fear that she would die before the day she was born and while that fear has loosened its grip over time and through experience, it has not let me go.  Nor my children, apparently.  It was just a year ago March when they welcomed and said goodbye to the only baby brother they have known, Eli.  They were ages 6 (almost 7), 5 and 3 at the time yet that day and all that followed have stayed with them.  Our hairstylist recently had a baby boy and while eating one night we were discussing the girls' upcoming haircut with her (while she was still pregnant).  Our oldest was asking a question about her and the baby and phrased it in terms of "if her baby doesn't die".  Just.  Like.  That.  It was matter of fact to her that her baby could and very well may die.  Not the most uplifting dinner conversation.  It required an explanation again that most babies don't die.  Except in our little family where there is a great risk of babies dying.  We also informed the girls that it's best not to say things like that to other people.  Then there was yesterday when the girls inadvertently explained to me why they may be clamoring so eagerly, to the point of arguments and fights often, for the chance to hold their baby sister.  While chatting about babies they were lamenting how they barely had a chance to hold Eli after he was born and how they are glad to have our newest little girl.  The ability of children to absorb and incorporate experiences and emotions into their being should never be underestimated.  They can be so amazing.

The Rainbow Connection

This post is about what happens after my rainbow baby is born (rainbow baby for those unfamiliar is a  child born after a storm, in this case the storm which was Wyatt and Eli's birth and death) and what I have imagined would happen after my rainbow baby is born.   Mostly it will relate to our first rainbow, our first daughter, born just one year and four days after her big brother Wyatt's birth and death.

I spent nine long months pregnant with her imagining what it would be like to again hold a child of mine in my arms.  I imagined all of the late night snuggles that I had missed out on and the sweet coos that never graced my ears.  In my mind it was smiles, hugs and kisses.  It almost made the waiting unbearable.  And for the first few days it was smiles, hugs and kisses.  Then I took my baby girl home and reality set in, a reality which had not even cracked the outer edges of my imagination.  My little girl was fussy, only slept when laying on me or my husband (which may sound really awesome but it awful when you need to eat, drink, go to the bathroom or goodness forbid - shower, and then you must listen to your baby's awful screams for every second of your absence), she projectile vomited and was not a natural by any stretch of the imagination at breastfeeding.  There was a lot of physical and mental pain in those early days.

Pain which was only compounded by all those months of imagining what it would be like and then having it actually be nothing like that.  Now, in all fairness our oldest daughter was a pretty high needs baby and from what I later discovered by having other children she was not a typical baby.  Nonetheless, I know I am not alone with my imagination.  How could it be helped?  Many of our memories of our babies gone too soon are faces that are stilled, voices that are silenced.  My little boys never screamed, nursed or even wet a diaper.  My memories of them are gentle, much like falling asleep.

However, I've found that the reality of a rainbow baby is like being struck by a semi truck.  Life changes, it actually becomes about life, not death, and how to sustain and nurture that life while trying to maintain one's own delicate balance.  It's a celebration and a grieving simultaneously.  Gratitude for what has been given and a greater appreciation for what has been taken away.  No one said it would be easy but for some reason it's so easy to imagine...

Filling the Closet & the Clothes

This post will embody the bitter and the sweet.  Baby girl is growing like a forgotten weed in the garden.  She's getting big, tall and strong.  Which of course means I am spinning my wheels trying to keep her clothed.  She was 9lb 5oz at birth and at her two month checkup already over 13lbs!  She's in the 90+ percentile in both height and weight as of her two month measurements.  That was when she was in 3-6 month clothes.  Now she's three months and already filling out most 6-9 month clothes.  This is both exciting and disappointing.  Babies collect so many cute clothes and often just don't get the wear out of most of them so it's always a little sad to pack them away again when they're outgrown.

It wasn't the packing that got me this time though.  It was the unpacking.  Because I discovered hopes and dreams in that bin of 6-9 month clothes.  Three adorable little safari sleepers, boy sleepers, along with safari onesies and the cutest little blue striped sleeper adorned with hippos.  Those were bought at least two girls ago in the hopes that one day a little boy would wear them.  Now it seems that little boy will not be ours.  My second oldest was picking out baby's jammies a few nights ago and saw the striped sleeper.  She immediately selected it and said, "Mommy, these were Eli's".  You see, after we bathed Eli during my husband and my time alone with him we dressed him in a little preemie blue and white striped sleeper very similar to the one that she had selected for baby's jammies.  Over a year later and the little girl who was barely five when Eli died remembers the outfit he wore.  

So there you have it, the bitter with the sweet.  A beautiful healthy robust little girl in my home and two little boys who will never wear 6-9 month sleepers in my heart.

A Son By Any Other Name

I attended a baby shower last night, the first one that I have actually ever attended since having children of my own (weird, huh?).  Anyhoo, the mom-to-be doesn't know the gender of her child which for some reason affected me more than I could have anticipated.  It's that whole boy thing again.  I realized how blessed I have been emotionally within my own family circle.  Five months after Wyatt was born my sister gave birth to a little boy.  I held him and never wanted to let go.  Then about seventeen months later she gave birth to another little boy.  Those little boys are now eight and seven years old and they don't bother me (emotionally) like they did as babies.  Because really, that's all I know of my boys, just babies.

My brother and sister-in-law have had two little girls.  My brother and his wife just had a little girl.  I can handle girls.  In fact, I have exhaled sighs of relief upon their births when their genders were given a finality and there could no longer be any little boy surprises.  But now my cousins are also embarking upon starting their own families and inevitably some of them are having little boys.  That realization grips my heart with an unexpected panic and sadness.  I have my girls, four to be exact, and with baby girl's birth I also have the knowledge and satisfaction that my family is complete on earth.  There is no question about it.  But with that knowledge I find a dull ache in my heart because before there was always a possibility.  Always a possibility that we would have another child and that child could be a boy.

I will need to find a way to soothe this ache.  Because I also know that if I don't it will eventually eat me up.

She'll Never Know

As I look at my newest baby girl I realize that she will probably never realize what a special baby she is.  She is my fourth rainbow baby but a rainbow has not shined brighter in this house.  After weathering two storms this rainbow is especially brilliant.  Nothing against my two other rainbows but the two rainbow babies born right after a loss seem different somehow.  Both of my "right after rainbows" (RARs) were born just a little over a year after their brothers and as many of us know, carrying a baby after a loss, especially soon after a loss, is so very difficult physically, emotionally and mentally.  I hope she never understands that when I see her sleeping and her eyelids look purplish I immediately check to make sure she is breathing because at that moment I can only see her almost lifeless brothers.  I hope that her childhood is not tinged with the protective and fearful emotions left behind after her brothers' deaths.  Yet I do hope that someday in the future she can appreciate how special it is that she was born at all.

This poem, "A Different Child" written by Pandora Diane Waldron seems appropriate.

A different child,
People notice
There's a special glow around you.

You grow
Surrounded by love,
Never doubting you are wanted;
Only look at the pride and joy
In your mother and father's eyes.

And if sometimes
Between the smiles
There's a trace of tears,
One day
You'll understand.
You'll understand
There was once another child
A different child
Who was in their hopes and dreams.
That child will never outgrow the baby clothes
That child will never keep them up at night
In fact, that child will never be any trouble at all.
Except sometimes, in a silent moment,
When mother and father miss so much
That different child.


May hope and love wrap you warmly
And may you learn the lesson forever
How infinitely precious
How infinitely fragile
Is this life on earth.


One day, as a young man or woman
You may see another mother's tears
Another father's silent grief
Then you, and you alone
Will understand
And offer the greatest comfort.


When all hope seems lost,
You will tell them
With great compassion,
"I know how you feel.
I'm only here
Because my mother tried again.

Buds & Blooms

"Six roses we now have.  Two will always be beautiful rosebuds.  The other four will bloom & fill our home with the sweet fragrance of children's love."

These are the same words that graced our first rainbow baby's birth announcement, only the numbers have changed.  Eight years ago when I first settled on this phrase after researching "subsequent birth announcements" I never imagined having any more than one rosebud even though I knew of other families with two or more.  I feared it but never truly accepted that it could become reality.  Now that it has become reality it is what it is.  I can't imagine things any differently.  

I like how these words gracefully announce the birth of a healthy living child while at the same time gently reminding others that there is and will always be two more children in our family and memories.  For us it is impossible to welcome one without missing the others even more than ever.

Nine Years Come and Gone

Wyatt's birthday was nearly perfect.  The only hiccup was the wind which forced our picnic to happen in the car rather than alongside Wyatt's grave.  He got his birthday present, cupcake and even some bubbles blown courtesy of Mother Nature's gusts.   My husband is made the day even more special in the small things he said and did which meant so much.  Every year he takes the day off work for Wyatt's birthday just as he does for each of our girls.  Birthdays in our family are almost sacred.  A day to remember the miracle of life and celebrate it no matter how short.  My parents also added to the day by sending a very touching e-card which was the only family remembrance but also more than we received last year.

A picture colored for Wyatt by his second oldest sister which is surrounded
by birthday gifts from years passed.

I realized that this is it now.  We've always celebrated Wyatt's birthday with our girls in the same fashion each year but it all changed after Eli was born.  The girls began to know Wyatt through experiencing Eli's birth and death.  He became real to them in a way he wasn't before.  Sadly, baby will never know her brothers like they do.  She will only know them through pictures and video.  She will have been spared the pain of their deaths but will never really understand the joy in their brief lives.  As I was putting them to bed the other night our second oldest (six years old) told me that she still remembered when Eli died and how she and her older sister cried when they were told that he was dying.  She was only five years old at the time (just turned five) yet it made such a huge impression on her.  Her words were precious.  I responded that I hope she always remembers that day and how she felt.  I never knew such sadness as a child and have no idea the long term effects such an experience will have in her life.  I can only hope she will carry her brothers in her heart as
I do.

Number Four? No, This Is Number Six

What's in a number?  Years, pounds, feet, inches...children.  We are now a visible family of six.  Two parents and four girls.  Which of course draws many good-natured inquiries when we are out and about.  People tend to ask if baby is a girl which is then followed by comments, many of which are surprisingly pleasant from other parents of three or more girls about how much they enjoy their daughters.  Some are teasing, especially when my poor husband is around.  Depending on how the comments are made, some lead me to mention our two invisible sons.  You see, there are really eight of us, there are also two boys.  We will never know what it's like to show them off or simply just observe them as we do our daughters while out walking in the evening.  I will never have the privilege of hearing them say "I love you, Mommy", not even once or seeing just how brightly a smile could light up their faces.  I honestly don't mind the questions or comments, I am immensely proud of my daughters and wouldn't trade any one of them for anything.  I no longer cringe or pause before answering, my responses are finely tuned to the question, the person asking and my own feelings that particular moment.  I no longer feel guilt in the times that I acknowledge only my daughters and I no longer feel guilt at the reactions I get when I acknowledge my sons.  It is what it is and nothing I can say or do changes my reality.  I own my feelings, my family and my love completely.

Drinking in the Bittersweet

Let me start of by saying baby and I are doing wonderfully.  She has already gained one pound since leaving the hospital (where she lost 12oz after birth)!  For having had my 6th c-section I am recovering fabulously and feeling better than ever before- I guess all of those mornings I was up at 5:30am exercising have paid off in spades!  :)

Love and happiness (as well as a healthy dose of sleeplessness) are abundant in our household these days.  This is what I envisioned a year and half ago while pregnant with Eli before finding out about his Potter's.  I dreamed about his sisters cuddling, snuggling, hugging and kissing him.  I saw the smiles and wonder on their faces as they watched their baby sibling interact with a brand new world each and every day.  My visions were so clear that the Potter's diagnosis hit that much harder.  This is what should have been.

That is what I find myself thinking now and then.  It stabs my heart to hear our 3 1/2 year old playing baby dolls and talking about how one of them died.  Or when they tell me that they hope their baby sister doesn't die like Eli.  Again, what can I say?  A crystal ball is not part of my toolbox so I can only respond that she is healthy and we are taking good care of her and that I hope she doesn't die too.  These are conversations I would just love to erase, or at the very least forget.

Perhaps this is life at its fullest, abundant joy tinged with the deepest sorrow, hand in hand.  One there to make the other shine brighter, impossibly intertwined.  I don't know that I could experience this purest of joy having not lived through our sons' lives and deaths.  My husband  has asked me many times since baby's birth if I'm happy.  Which is funny, because when I say "yes" he responds with "I know, you seem happier than ever", and that is the truth.

She's Here!

As some of you probably expected based on my last post, our littlest (and biggest, but more on that in a moment) girl has arrived safe enough and sound enough.  She was born on Wednesday via c-section at 39 weeks and weighed a very hearty 9lb 5oz (at 39 weeks!)  In my case, thank goodness for c-sections  :)  It's a little nerve wracking when your OB is using the word "enormous" when delivering your baby!!

I crocheted this hat after the girls picked out the yarn and only later realized it is a true rainbow hat for a rainbow baby.

She has developed jaundice serious enough to require bili lights so that is a bit worrisome but we trust our ped and will faithfully keep her under the lights in the hopes that tomorrow's level is much much lower.  Thankfully she is able to be under the lights at home so she can remain under our watchful eyes.

We are all extremely relieved and excited to welcome her into our fold. Life is super busy around here right now and I wouldn't have it any other way (though I could do without the jaundice).

Life is truly beautiful.

Redefinition

I am writing this post especially for Franchesca's Small Miracles blog hop at Small Bird Studios. I recently posted about chasing hope but that post didn't seem to fit with the theme of choosing hope. So, back to the drawing board I go and I will start with the basics this time.

The noun "Hope" is defined in Webster's as "desire accompanied by expectation of or belief in fulfillment". For eight years my definition of hope has been something a little different. Anyone who has read any of my many postings on this topic probably has an inkling how I define hope though I've never spelled it out. Hope for me is found in new life, specifically life that I have created. When Wyatt died my hopes died too. This may sound conceited, but stick with me. Until the moment he died I had achieved everything I had intended to in life. I had a husband perfectly suited to myself and in him I found my best friend. I had worked hard to earn the money I needed to attend college and graduate school with the most minimal of loans. I owned my car and had just begun a career which I chose as a teenager and had persisted to achieve with little support from my family. I had intended to start a family and though I was no stranger to failure I usually found a way to make things work but with Wyatt there was no wiggle room. Probably for the first time ever I accepted the bitter taste of defeat for what it was, loss in the purest sense. I was told there was no reason to believe it would happen again and that we could try for another child but hearing and feeling are two different things. It is so very hard to rid yourself of that bitter taste. I could have named our first daughter hope, because that's precisely what she was. She became my definition of hope. My chance to find good again in what had become a horribly sad world.

She is now seven years old and I realize my definition must change. I have found hope and she has changed me. Hope has reignited my desire for life, for my life, and my need for fulfillment. These things cannot be defined by others - not my husband, not my children. Desire and fulfillment are things that I must strive for myself. I desire to live a good life (one spent balancing service to others and self while being mindful that a candle loses nothing by lighting another candle). My expectation is that a good life will lead to fulfillment. Today, I have changed hope.

Rainbows Fade

The topic of rainbow babies has been in my head and heart lately. Prior to Eli, I had three, he was to be my fourth. I didn't realize for a long time that Eli too was a rainbow baby, brought to life in the wake of a terrible storm many years prior. Eli's rainbow was not meant to be, it was the kind that appears faintly in the sky and then you blink and it's gone. I realize that I have much to be thankful for in my life, our three girls, and so much more than many have or may ever have. This in no way diminished the pain I have felt or will continue to feel the rest of my life for the loss of our boys.

My rainbows don't blind me to the pain of watching others have their babies. Yes, even though I have three healthy daughters I still feel pain when others have babies of their own. Especially baby boys. Something which my family, myself excluded, seems to excel at. I don't believe that I have ever shared this particular heartbreak. I was twenty-five years old when I got pregnant with Wyatt, my younger sister was just nineteen and unmarried. I was equally surprised and devastated to hear, sometime after Wyatt's Potter's diagnosis, she was pregnant. It was unplanned and she was more than unprepared. She appeared to be lacking in every aspect - financially, emotionally, in maturity and stability. She appeared at my bedside the June morning that Wyatt was born five months pregnant with a healthy boy. The day that baby was born was one of the worst days I could imagine. I was not there. I did not call. I did not even see him until he was a month old when they came to visit for Christmas. My family was less than understanding of my feelings. They in no uncertain terms told me to get over it and see my sister. He was the first and only baby I held after Wyatt was born and before our daughter was born. I could not understand how she was given this wonderful little boy to care for and I was given a grave to tend instead. Less than a year after he was born she was pregnant again. This time was worse, she never revealed her pregnancy but it was nonetheless discovered when she was seven months along. We believe he was carried with no prenatal care prior to that. Yes, I said he. She had another little boy. Still unmarried, unstable and even more unprepared. I harbored a lot of anger for a long time. Witnessing the hand that they had been dealt which is a bum one in the very least is difficult. Loving them is much easier thankfully. They didn't ask to be born and they couldn't choose their parents. I however can choose my emotions and I have to choose what is best for them.

Since then I am aware of at least two extended family members getting pregnant as unmarried, unstable teenagers and giving birth to perfectly healthy little boys. I will never understand why them and why not me. So I've stopped asking the question. I've for the most part stopped comparing. The inequities never make sense and they certainly don't ease the aching in my heart. I don't know why some people have so much more suffering it seems than others. I'm not convinced it isn't random. Rainbows fade, they are not permanent and are not meant to be. In a Biblical sense they are the sign of a promise. So today I reflect on my own faded rainbow and promise.

Chasing Hope

I've spoken before of hope. I've chased her for years. At times I believe I've caught her and then she slips from my hands again. She is beautiful, magical and extremely elusive. I imagine her as a tiny translucent being. But I don't underestimate her. She is deceivingly strong and persistent. She has found me in complete darkness yet walks at my side unseen on the sunniest of days. Again I find myself chasing her. Months and months ago she filled the emptiness in my heart which was created by Eli's Potter's diagnosis. She gave me purpose more than anything. Wyatt's short life taught me that even during my darkest days there is hope. Our hope was delivered to us in the form of his baby sister. Yet hope again slipped away as we settled into life with a new baby born just one year after the loss of our first. So much grieving had been lightened by hope, so much grieving could not have occurred until that birth happened. By the time I found hope once again within my grasp I learned that miscarriage had already stolen it away. But hope did not give up on me and we soon learned that we could again hope for more when another baby sister was born. When hope crept back into my life again she slipped in and out through months of doubt, fear and worry about whether my body could carry another child. The little girl that resulted was so healthy and happy that I wonder if she didn't just plant her plump little bottom on hope to hold her in place for awhile. I thought hope was still with me last summer when our precious Eli was growing within. I had so much hope for our family and our final addition to it. Hope, like she had done with Wyatt, transformed herself. My hopes became defined by minutes and hours. She did not leave me until Eli did. I have chased her ever since. Hope and I have changed much in the last eight years. I probably don't need her now like I did then. I have tinier hopes that float through my house with laughter, tears and everything between every day. For that I am thankful. In their eyes I see hope and I feel her presence but I know that I haven't caught her yet.

The Little One and I

School starts tomorrow. Our oldest will go off to second grade and our middle daughter will have her first day of school at kindergarten. Then it will just be me and my three year old, who holds a strong belief that she is a puppy (which seriously is the cutest thing when she decides to wag her tail). My head is looking forward to the peace of those hours during the day. It has been a tumultuous summer having all three very energetic little girls home and me at their beck and call. This summer we celebrated four birthdays, Wyatt's, our oldest and mine in June and the little one just turned three a few weeks ago. We attended a parade and fireworks for the Fourth of July. We blew countless bubbles, walked endless miles, our oldest ditched her training wheels, the youngest learned to ride bike and scooter, we decorated our concrete with sidewalk chalk frequently and all three girls took swimming lessons for the first time. There have been days much cooler than normal which stunted my garden and has left me hopeful for next year already, days when it was already dripping wet at 6am and far far too much water this summer. I have been a constant referee and find discipline a formidable challenge.

Tomorrow that will change. My head is ready for this, it needs the silence, the time for reflection and possibly even the extra space to grieve. That perhaps moving that one extra child out of the house for a few hours each day will allow me space to grieve the one child whose absence will be especially stark for a while now. "It wasn't supposed to be this way" my heart says. I had been so excited at the timing of Eli's pregnancy. We would have had a beautiful summer together, all of us bonding and enjoying the new little life who would change before our eyes every day and also change us. Then I would send the older two off to school and it would be me and my youngest two, keeping the status quo.

But that's not reality and over these last few months I have come to accept that. Instead of living under the sadness of what should be I will do my best to enjoy what I have, which is a beautiful little girl who is so easy and so deserving of this time alone. We are going to have a great year together. Perhaps next year will be different.