Our Little Boy

Over a year ago I had the most vivid dream of my life. I was in a hospital room holding my newborn daughter, I was alone. Neither my husband nor the doctor was in the room. Just me and my beautiful baby girl. She was so tiny and I thought my heart was going to explode because of how much love I had in my heart for this tiny baby of mine. I had never felt a love quite like that in my life. In the corner of the room, there was a precious blonde hair, blue eyed little boy. He looked just like me, but a little one year old boy. He had such a sweet smile. I knew he was my son, but I had no urgency to take care of this child, I knew he was fine on his own. 

I woke up excited that God had given me a dream about my daughter. I couldn’t quite make sense of the boy, so I brushed it off. When I retold the dream to my husband and our close friends, I mentioned my son in the dream. I didn’t put a ton of thought into it, I thought, “oh, maybe someday I’ll have a son! How exciting!”

About a week and a half before I got a positive pregnancy test, I knew I was pregnant. I had weird tummy twinges and my body just felt… different. I knew. My husband thought I was insane. I frantically looked up all my weird symptoms “are eye twitches an early sign of pregnancy or am I going through caffeine withdrawals?” “Can you feel implantation without having cramps? What do tummy twinges mean?”

I am trying to explain to Noah, “I can just feel it, I’m pregnant.”... I say with 3 negative pregnancy tests in the trash. “Lilly, I think you just really want to be pregnant. Our time will come, but I don’t think you are pregnant.”

I laughed, “well, I guess I’ll just laugh when I get my positive test”. 

October 28, at 6am, I took my typical morning pregnancy test that I had been taking every morning for a week (okay, maybe I am a little insane). I saw a second line. I was so excited and cried quietly so as to not wake my husband. But I had this weird anxiety in my stomach from the moment I saw the second line. I was so excited to be a mom, but I thought back to the little boy in my dream. My mom brain immediately thought, “what if that boy was a heavenly baby?” 

I brushed it off. It was time to be excited! We were having a baby!!

We told our friends. I told my close girlfriends, “please pray for us, I am so scared of losing this baby.” Of course my precious, God-fearing friends reassured me and prayed for me. 

I heard our baby's heartbeat the last Monday of November at 8 weeks 4 days. So strong. Measuring perfectly. I bawled on the table and told my Ultrasound tech, “I was so scared my baby wouldn't have a heartbeat. Thank you”

I started showing extremely early on. Way earlier than I had thought. I bought a belly band to make the whole pants situation more comfy and started looking at cute baby clothes. We planned to do a gender reveal the first week of January. 

But through every step I couldn’t shake this feeling that I wouldn’t get to meet my baby. I desperately told everyone I thought we were having a girl, because I knew deep, deep down that if we were having a son, I wouldn’t hold him in my arms on earth. 

December 16, after what I thought was round ligament pain starting, everyone from our homegroup went home and I went to the restroom. I saw what I feared my whole pregnancy. 

The smallest amount of blood. 

I cried and my husband sat on the floor with me while I muttered through gasps in tears, “something isn’t right, I know it.” He prayed over me and our baby and we tried to sleep. 

The next morning I called my OB and told her what was happening. She told me to go to the ER, it was probably nothing, but since I didn’t bleed at all during my pregnancy, I needed to check on my baby. I dropped off a couple things at work and called Noah to meet me at the ER. 

I thought about the boy. 

3 hours. So much blood. Pee tests. Ultrasounds. That stupid sterile, white room. 

“I am so sorry, there’s no heartbeat”

I screamed so loudly in that room. I wailed and begged God to make my baby breathe. The doctor gave me minimal information about what the next few days would entail. That’s a different blog. 

We left. I got my stuff from work and had a 15 minute drive to pick up Noah from work. 

I thought about the boy. I screamed.

We went home and we wailed. Screamed. Cried. Laid in bed for hours. 

But I thought about that little blonde haired, blue eyed, perfect boy. 

We drove that night to get cookies (because duh), and we talked about names. We didn’t have a gender test to confirm, but I tenderly told Noah, “I know this baby is a boy. I have seen him”. 

We found the name Jesse and knew it was perfect. 

I won’t go into detail here about the terrible realities of a miscarriage, but that Saturday night, December 18th at 10:30pm, I caught our son in a strainer. We held his perfect little body. 

And I remembered the boy and my mama heart knew. That’s the boy. 

Our son likely died the day after our first ultrasound in November, so he was tiny. No where near the size I thought he would be. His sweet body was so small and cold and helpless. 

We buried our son on December 20th and as I cried I remembered my boy. 

When I think of our J, I don’t think about the traumatized dead baby I held that horrible December night, I think of the son God let me see in my dream. How sweet and happy he looked. I thought of my daughter that I held. I thought of the fullness I had in the dream as I was feeling the emptiness. 

I don’t know why God took my baby. I don’t know why I didn’t get to keep him here. I wish I did. I have asked God, but I just don’t know. We are still in the thick of walking through the grief and mourning of our son, and mourning the life we didn’t get to have, but we have this peace that surpasses all understanding. We have this comfort that makes no sense.

I am actually not really sure why I am writing all this on my blog. I haven’t written here in forever. I just know that though the miscarriage community holds 1 in 4 women, this walk feels lonely. Each miscarriage is so different. Each parent deals with it differently. But I wanted to share the hope I have, hope I can’t see yet. I have this hope that my baby boy, my son, is in heaven with Jesus. My baby boy never experienced sin, he was never hurt, his heart was never broken. He was my perfect child and he went right from the embrace of my womb to the embrace of Jesus. When I think of my son, I think of the boy. The sweet boy who looked just like me. I think of how kind it was of God to let me see him so long before I had him. 

I miss my son today, yesterday and I will miss him all the days of my life. I won’t ever not think about and miss my baby boy, but I am comforted beyond understanding knowing my baby is safe with Jesus. His death marked the beginning of his eternity. As a mom, we all just want our babies to be safe, right? 

Mine is. 

I hope to share more about our miscarriage experience and shed some light on this taboo experience. But today I am sitting in the hope that God sees me as he holds my baby.

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