He's learned the sign for "more" and seems to have a great time making it. He thinks it's a game and sometimes really means "more" when he makes it.
He doesn't cry when he goes to nursery at church. He never really cried long before, just a few seconds, but now he just goes in like a big 'ole boy.
It's exciting and a little sad too.
They grow up so fast--it's like I'm blinking my eyes and he's becoming this little boy and not a baby anymore.
The other day someone asked about my children.
I said, "Yes, I have a little boy. He's fourteen months."
I wanted to say and I have three other children, but they're not here with me. They've returned to their Creator.
But that makes things awkward and people don't know what to say.
Still I wish I could say it because it's how I feel; it's how I think. And sometimes I don't care that it'll make people feel awkward--sometimes the truth does that.
It's funny how we can be pro-life and believe that life begins at conception, but when a woman loses a baby before it has a chance to take a breath in this world, it's not called a "death". It's a miscarriage or we say "she lost the baby".
Where'd she lose it? When we say that it's like we left them somewhere and can't find them now. It's like we misplaced our watch or a favorite pair of earrings and don't know where they are. Or we didn't get good directions and can't find our destination now.
I understand what people mean. I used to look at early pregnancy losses the same way.
Until I had one, and then another and then another.
Then I had to say, "That's not how it is at all. That's a terrible way to describe it."
It hurts not to be able to say, "Yes, I have a son and he's fourteen months old, but I had three other children; one was a girl; her name was Ella Grace; they all died."
Because that's what happened to them--they died--even though they never took one breath of this world's air, they were alive one day and not the next.
Since I've walked this journey, I've felt remorse for the times that I've thought having a miscarriage wasn't as bad as actually losing a baby (as if sorrows can be compared, right?).
But sometimes you have to walk a road to fully understand. And I'm sure that the longer a person or child is with you, the harder it is to say good-bye to them. But, miscarriages are deaths and maybe we don't miss the actual child because we never held them, but it is the death of dreams and ideas and "what would have been." I think those things need to be mourned and then released because they can haunt us and turn us into bitter, sad people.
The hospital where I delivered three of my children (yes, according to the medical profession, miscarriages are forms of birth) has a Perinatal Mourning Support Group and every year at Christmas they host a candlelight ceremony. In 2008, when I lost my second child, I received the invitation to this service and I didn't go because I thought, "I just had a miscarriage. It wasn't that bad. Not compared to what some people go through."
The truth is regardless of our sorrows and sufferings, God's grace is sufficient. This I KNOW to be true. And there is a time for mourning and then a time for joy again. We have to choose to walk towards the time of joy and leave the time of mourning behind.
I think I will attend the candlelight service this year, not because I need closure or I can't move on from my losses, but because it's important (to me) to recognize the lives that God allowed to grow (for however long or short) and to celebrate His gifts. That's why I want to go.
Because I'm the mother of four children; three have passed away and one is still with me--my son, John Owen. He's fourteen months old.
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