Due Date

Back in October I imagined this day being different. I imagined pulling into the hospital with our bags, I imagined holding my husbands hand while pushed with contractions, I imagined having his coming home outfit all picked out with his name personalized on it. I imagined being so excited and so nervous all at the same time to meet him. I imagined hearing his first cry when they lay him on my chest and kissing his head for the first time. I imagined being moved to the postpartum care room and learning how to nurse him and changing his diaper for the first time. 

When our Jesse died back in December, I thought it was going to take me out. I remember wailing in the cold ER room like it was yesterday. I remember delivering him in my bathroom and holding his cold body while we cried on the floor. I remember so vividly what it felt like to bleed so much, and to have to call my mom as Noah rushed me to the hospital. I remember the doctor holding my hand and crying with me, because she, too, had a little baby in heaven. I remember that sweet doctor giving me anxiety medication so that my body would relax, I was profusely shaking from anxiety, blood loss, stress and lack of eating. I remember the feeling of waking up the Sunday morning after I delivered him and wishing I just didn’t. I remember when our friends came over with tacos and literally held us while we wept on the couch, then they force fed us tacos because they knew we hadn’t eaten in days. I remember taking intense pain killers to help with the pain. I remember realizing that I had lost over 16 pounds in a week and a half, and having to crawl out of the habit of restricting eating to have control. I remember thinking that this hell would never end. I remember crying everywhere I went for a month. Every friends house, every gathering, every holiday, every conversation. Tears. 

I remember every moment of the loss like it was yesterday. 

I remember everything like it was yesterday. 

And somehow it wasn’t. Somehow it’s been 9 months since I saw that positive pregnancy test for the first time, and 6 months since our baby died. Today I feel a lot of things. I feel disappointed that much of my joy around pregnancy was stolen when our baby died, I feel overwhelmingly sad that Jesse isn’t with us today, I feel frozen in time while I watch the world continue to move. But I also feel thankful for the short weeks I got to have him in my belly, I feel so thankful for his baby sister who is half-baked. 

Joy and sorrow. Hope and disappointment. I hold it all in the same two hands. 

Though I wish I was in the hospital meeting our boy for the first time, I’ll visit his grave instead. I will bring him flowers and a new headstone instead of a onesie. I’ll cry tears of sadness as we clean up his burial site instead of tears of joy hearing his first cry. And I will allow myself to feel every ounce of sadness that comes with being the mother of a dead baby, and every bit of hope as I carry our promised daughter. 

I posted a blog awhile ago about the dream God gave me a year before I got pregnant. I shared about the beautiful, tiny baby girl I held in the hospital room and about the little one year old boy in the corner of the room. As soon as I got pregnant with Jesse, I knew that was the boy. When he died, it nearly killed us. But when I think of my son, I think of the beautiful blond hair, blue eyed little boy who smiled at me in that hospital room. That little boy reminds me that not all hope is lost. That little boy reminds me of the one who holds us both, our Jesus. That little boy reminds me that no matter how sad I feel, no matter how bad it gets, I get to have hope that rests in a place where there is no more death, no more pain, no more tears and no more sin. 

I love you my sweet Jesse. I love you forever and longer. I wish your baby sister could meet you, but since she can’t, we will tell her all about you and the way that God had used your short earthly life to change many. Happy due date, son.