A Gift from God

We disagree about our due date. My 'fertility friend' app had said April 21st while Mike's pregnancy app said April 19th. We finally agreed to disagree and gave ourselves the date of April 20th. We were never given an official due date by our obstetrician because all hell had broken loose the Friday before that appointment. So although we feel the desire for our child every day, that is our day to celebrate what would have been our child's "birth" day.

I was so scared for experiencing those days, the apprehension... the sadness was palpable, it was like feeling the loss all over again. I cried a lot. I spent a lot of time in the shower, (because isn't that the best place to cry?!) I also cried with Mike that weekend. He was feeling it too, though not as acutely as I was, I could feel the emptiness in my belly. It brought me comfort to see him wishing our child was in our arms rather than in Heaven as much as I did.

We talked about our baby a lot. We knew it was purely selfish of us to want our baby with us. I mean our baby was born to heaven! How amazing is that? Our child would never have to feel any pain or sorrow or disappointment. Our child would experience nothing but joy and the love of God. How awesome is that?! As for us? We were feeling all of it.

The day passed slowly. Very slowly. Very very slowly. For most people it was just another day, but for us... we felt like we were drowning in our sorrow. But we survived. I remember praying that night, asking God to kiss our baby for us and to tell him "happy 'birth' day" from mommy and daddy, and that we can't wait to get there and all be together... one big happy family.

I had several dreams about being a mommy when I was pregnant. In most of those dreams we had a little boy... in a few though it was a girl. We didn't know for sure what our baby was. The only name we ever agreed on was a girl's name... "Lily". This was not our Lily, that didn't feel right... so that name would be saved for later. We could not agree on a boy's name, then we lost the baby... and for a while it felt like it no longer mattered. Then I read Heaven is for Real.  Then suddenly it seemed to matter again, after I realized that our baby was born to heaven. There is a part in this book where the husband is talking about the miscarriage and how they joked to one another that they couldn't agree on a name. So they began to tell each other whoever got to heaven first would get to name the baby. That became our joke. It still is. It's like a race... whoever crosses the finish line first gets naming rights to our little one. It makes us laugh, it brings us comfort...

After we survived the day, it was time for bed. I fell asleep quickly. Sleep has always been a difficult thing for me. I sleep fitfully, I toss and turn. I have night sweats. I usually have nightmares. The kind of nightmares that are so bad, you don't even want to tell people any of the details. This night would be different. You know how sometimes in a dream you just appear in a place? ... this is what happened:

Suddenly we were in a hospital room. It was just Mike and myself. I was pregnant. VERY pregnant. I looked at all of the monitors I was hooked to. I looked at the type of room I was in. It was a maternity ward. I was having a baby! I was in labor, but I wasn't in any pain. We were holding hands, laughing. He was touching my belly, feeling it contract. Then suddenly it was like a time shift. I had the baby. He was in our arms. We were crying. He was beautiful. He had my eyes and Mike's thick head of hair. He was perfect. We had a son. We had a son. It was glorious. He was smiling up at us with those big blue eyes. We laughed about still not having a name. We pretended to argue about who would name him. We stared at him forever. Then as sudden as it began, it was over.

I woke up. I was in my bed. My baby was in heaven. I cried. We had a son. I knew this was my gift from God... for our child's "birth" day. I was thankful... I was missing my child more than ever. My arms were empty. No baby. But I had that moment.

I will cherish the memory of that dream for the rest of my life. I haven't had a dream about our baby since... except for my daydreams... I still thank God for this night. My most cherished memory of our first baby.