That tiny boy

Today is Friday again. It's hard to believe another week has already gone by. But it has .... and they will continue to do so, one by one.

And what a week it's been! Emotionally, it has been [as you are coming to expect from me :)] pretty turbulent. There have been days that I have gotten through and felt totally ok at the end of them - paired with days that I've certainly made up for my afore-mentioned 'control' and lost it several times during the day. At the slightest mis-spoken but well-intended word, at something Anna does that just makes me want another little mini-her to watch grow up and do goofy things, at a song or something I hear on the radio. Like the other day - I heard a letter written from the perspective of a 6-year-old to his mom on the first day of school. It was filled with little phrases and messages that I expect would have been very comforting for a mother in that situation to hear, but it just made me fall apart and I could not for the life of me reach over and turn the dumb radio off! "Don't worry, mom, I know today is hard for you and you feel all alone when I'm gone, but this is somewhere I have to be right now. But I am thinking of you and my face is still covered with all your kisses (oh, what would I not give to kiss that little face!), and I'll come home and hold your hand at the end of the day."

Sigh. See what I mean?!?! Basket case on the highway, powerless to turn it off.

Physically, I am doing better now. I had two consecutive nights of waking up having hours of contractions and feeling like my entire uterus was bleeding out. The contractions felt like when I had Anna; I had to focus on breathing through them, try different positions to relieve the pain, just like a normal labour and delivery - but without the promise of a baby at the end! Fruitless. After those two nights the bleeding didn't really start letting up, so my doctor scheduled me in for a dilation and curettage (D&C) yesterday. Had I not been travelling to England early next week I don't think we would have made that arrangement ... but it was something that he and Mark and I all felt better about under the circumstances of my travel plans.

I wasn't excited about the prospect of having a D&C. I knew that especially after those two nights of contracting, the start of our baby's little body was not still in my womb, and I have received a lot of reassurance from Jesus that He is holding our tiny boy. But something still felt to me like this would be the day that he died and I lost him, because of something I (kind of) chose to do. In the very appropriate words of my good friend Amanda .... suckfest.

The procedure itself went really well, according to my doctor's report to Mark while they both waited for me to wake up from my rather long Anaesthetic-induced nap! I'd never been under general before, but I apparently don't have any kind of wacked-out adverse reactions to it, for which we're thankful. I'm not having any pain now, although I am single-handedly keeping Ibuprofen in business! :)

I don't (for two days in a row now...!) feel like my world is still falling apart, and I feel more sociable. I think I mentioned before that if you had any idea of what Mark and I were going through, it became slightly more acceptable to hang out. But otherwise, I pretty much didn't want to see you if you weren't family! I think that although I dreaded having the surgery, and definitely had a lot of pre-conceived notions of what my emotional state of being would look like as a consequence of the D&C, God in His mercy has redeemed it and made it a time of closure and healing.

One of the things I anticipated from the D&C was losing the feeling of still being near to our baby. Even though I knew he wasn't here any more, and really hadn't been since his tiny heart never started beating, I still somehow felt close to him. (Although, as I mentioned in a previous post, that feeling didn't really start till after we found out for sure that we were having a miscarriage.) So I was afraid that having the procedure would take that away from me. But, in His seemingly endless mercy, as Mark drove me away from the hospital I was so very aware of not only God's closeness to me, but also our baby's. Is this theologically sound? Who knows. I certainly don't, but you would be hard-pressed to convince me that what I experienced didn't happen on theological grounds!

As we ate dinner last night, Mark was sitting next to Anna's highchair feeding her, and all of a sudden this feeling of Jesus and our baby being near to me became very intense. And I realised that I could sense an almost palpable presence in the room with us. Now - this is something I didn't see with my physical eyeballs and retinas, but I know that God was opening my mind's eye to be able to see what I was sensing. (Poor Mark - he just sat there feeding Anna, waiting for me to stop bawling and explain what was going on!) Jesus was standing in the kitchen with us as we ate, and he was holding this little bundle in His arms. Anna started laughing at her own goofiness, as usual, and I saw a little arm poke out of the bundle to grab and wave in her direction when she laughed. A fold of the blanket moved and I could see a little chubby face with skin a little lighter than Anna's, and big dark eyes. He didn't look like a newborn - I guess time in Heaven is like time in Narnia or something :) - but more like a 4 or 5 month old baby. He was a little chubs, with those alert eyes that can really look at you and see you. He didn't ever take his eyes off of Jesus' face, though, to look over at us. And I think that made me happy. I know he was aware of us, because he waved at Anna ... and that was enough for me. He has something that I will never be able to - a life lived entirely and fully in the presence of Jesus, captivated by His face, from the moment he became alive. What more is there that a mother could desire for her child? Of course I miss him with my whole heart - indescribably so - and will still have broken-hearted days, and would give almost anything to hold him in my own arms rather than being a spectator ... but I could never wish him to leave the arms that are now holding him.

I will see you again one day, sweet boy ... I love you so much!