The Unexpected

This post has been simmering for a while and now that Sam is happily tucked away at Mother's Day Out, I have a little time to write a few things down. I really should be driving myself to the grocery store right now, but in the interest of sharing my life and facilitating a bit of procrastination, I think I'll do this instead.

I had a lot of ideas over the past couple months for what this post would eventually be called. "Bun in the Oven" was one thought, and then there was "Sam's a Big Brother!" which felt too obvious, and I briefly considered the Amish favorite "In the Family Way." None of those seemed to be as clever or as interesting as I needed them to be. Luckily, I held off and didn't write that post despite the fact that I was dying to so that I could atleast confess to someone how many Krystals I'd eaten in three days and all the hormonally-induced reasons why that calorie-laden tragedy had happened. But, instead, I waited.

And then something sad happened a couple weeks ago that we were not very prepared for. We're still wading through it and I have a feeling we may not ever completely be able to wrap our minds or hearts around what we've just experienced. Essentially, the baby we thought we'd be grafting into our lives come next spring isn't coming. And there really aren't any good or satisfying explanations as to why.

We've been pretty sad lately and to be honest, I've been a bit of a hormonal train wreck of sorts, but time passing has made things better and we continue to be reminded of how blessed we already are with the little family that we have. I think Sam has been hugged within an inch of his life these last couple weeks, as if he wasn't already the most hugged little boy to ever breathe. The weight of how intensely fragile and precious and fleeting life is has hit home and we are keenly aware of the MIRACLE it is to have even just one healthy child.

If I haven't talked to you lately and you're reading about this on a blog during your lunch break or between cleaning the bathroom and folding laundry, I hope you don't mind that I've just mass communicated something I would normally tell you in person over coffee or on the phone. It's been a strange thing to know how to tell anybody about what's happened and yet it's been hard not to shout it from the rooftops because it's all I can think about lately. I'll admit that blogging about something so personal seems a little inappropriate and even a bit crazy, but it's also a relief because I can say all the things I want to how I want to without having a minor breakdown on your shoulder, potentially in public, which I wouldn't like at all.

The upside of this is that the pregnancy hormones that make me someone who eats Krystals for breakfast and lives on the sofa 24/7, those have made their exit and left me feeling like a normal human being again. This experience has also made Matt and I that much more aware of our need for community and our desperate dependence on our Creator for pretty much everything. I think it's even made us more patient with the constancy of Thomas the Train in our living room and the occasional meltdowns our little guy has over not being allowed to play with scissors and other such household weapons.

We are so thankful for the encouragement and the prayers and the hope that we have been offered through the friends and community who have cared about us in the midst of this. I'm really hopeful that this part of our story will help Matt and I be better parents to Sam and better friends to others who are walking through a hard season like we're in right now.

And, after this is all over, I can't help but already hope toward the possibility of other babies in our family and that Sam will finally get to wear that Big Brother shirt he's got hanging in his closet.

Romans 8:28a- And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good.