Acceptance

It amazes me sometimes, how the human heart can grow to accept and embrace our life experiences, and how these experiences...or maybe the acceptance itself...can have such a profound power to change us.

I've only consciously known about my babies, their fleeting existence, and their silent passage from my life for a little over two months.

After having this time to process it all, I can honestly say I am at peace with what has happened. I don't know exactly when this peace came over me. I do know that it took a lot of prayer, tears, and long nights of God working His healing miracles within my heart to get here.

That does not mean I'm not sad. That doesn't mean I don't miss them. I am not by any means happy that I've lost my children. That's just absurd. I am happy...no, not happy. Glad? Maybe relieved is the word...to know that I actually was able to conceive. Apparently more than once. All this time, seven years, I believed that I had never conceived. That I truly was infertile. That we truly were incapable of creating a child. That we were destined to never become parents.

What is still hard for me to reconcile in my mind is that I will never know when they were conceived, what their due dates were, or when I lost them. I don't have those "anniversaries", no matter how morbid or sad some may think they are, to remember. To time-stamp. To mark down in my history. To say definitively "this is when I lost my first baby" or "today was my second baby's due date". I have approximate time frames in my mind when I believe these events occurred, but nothing concrete. I have nothing tangible from my pregnancies, from my lost babies. No positive pee-sticks, no ultrasound pictures, no cute little onesies or baby blankets, nothing. My children were here and gone before even I knew they existed; perfect tiny souls that slipped through me on their path to Heaven.

This not knowing, I've noticed, makes it hard for other people to fully accept my losses as valid or significant. There have been a few (albeit very few) people that have been wonderful in helping me to process all of this. Others, like they've done with the rest of my infertility, would like to gloss over it. Sweep it under the rug. Pretend it never happened. What they don't realize it that while my miscarriages might not have been recent, my grief still very much is. That I may still be hurting. That I may still cry when thinking or talking about my babies. That I need to talk about my babies. Even though my losses occurred what I believe was between four to six years ago, I JUST learned about them. I need and deserve acknowledgement and validation of my feelings just as much as someone who lost their baby six months, six weeks, or six days ago.

I have been changed by the knowledge of my pregnancies and the loss of my children. Not just emotionally, but fundamentally changed. I have been given a gift. That gift is the knowledge that I am a mother. I can hold on to that knowledge for the rest of my life and know that I was able to do something that I had believed for seven years I was incapable of doing. The sad realization of all of this, of course, is that I will have to wait until I get to Heaven to see and hold my babies. Oh how I await that day...

"Sweet babies,

I never truly knew I was carrying you until you were long gone.
I never knew I lost you until now.
I never knew I could miss someone I never knew, that I never felt, that I never held.
But I do, my sweet babies. I do. So much.
I know one of you would have been about five, almost six, years old. The other about three, maybe four.
I think one of you is my precious little girl, and the other, my sweet baby boy.
You are my sweet shooting stars. You were here and gone before we ever knew, yet you have left your mark upon our lives. The path you traced through your fleeting journey from my body to heaven will forever be emblazoned on my heart and soul.
There are so many things I've missed. Holding you. Rocking you to sleep. Nursing you. Sleepless nights, dirty diapers, colic, first fevers and first smiles. First steps. First words. First birthdays and first days of school. Teaching you about the world and discovering the world anew through your eyes.  Watching you both grow from babies to toddlers to childhood. Watching your sweet personalities develop. Are you laid back like your daddy, or more anxious like me? Whose eyes do you have? What color is your hair? What would it feel like to hold your chubby little hands as you toddled up the aisle at church?
My sweet babies, my beautiful shooting stars, I will love you forever and miss you always.
Until we are reunited through God's everlasting grace, I will always be...

Your loving Mommy"

2012 Reading Challenge

It's time again to sign up for Kristin's annual Book Challenge! In an effort to encourage people to broaden their literary horizons and get us reading more, Kristin has been hosting the Book Challenges for a few years now. Now, if you know anything about me, you will know this is right up my proverbial alley. =)

I love to read. I love books. I've loved reading and books since I learned to read at the age of 3.

However...for the past two years, I have miserably missed my mark on the reading challenges. This is tragic for such a bibliophile as myself.

For 2011, I challenged myself to read 24 books. Sounds easy enough, right? Just two books a month.

Sadly I only read 13 books.

However...

In my defense...

One of them was the Bible.

The WHOLE Bible.

In 90-ish days.

So, I'm satisfied with my reading, even though I "officially" didn't reach my challenge goal, that was a huge personal goal met.

These are the books I read in 2011:

The Holy Bible
I Would If I Could - Betty Miles
Ice Cold - (Rizzoli & Isles) Tess Gerritsen
Love Letters From Ladybug Farm - Donna Ball
At Home On Ladybug Farm - Donna Ball
A Year On Ladybug Farm - Donna Ball
The Help - Kathryn Stockett
The Hunger Games - Suzanne Collins
Change of Heart - Jodi Picoult
The Shortest Distance Between Two Women - Kris Radish
The Keepsake - Tess Gerritson (Rizzoli & Isles) (Feb '11)
The Mephisto Club - Tess Gerritson (Rizzoli & Isles) (Jan/Feb '11)
The Bone Garden - Tess Gerritson (Rizzoli & Isles) (Jan '11)

If you'd like to take part in Kristin's 2012 Reading Challenge, head over to her blog, Dragondreamer's Lair to find out more and sign up for the 2012 Book Challenge!

Happy Reading!!!

International Blog Delurking Week 2012

It's that time again! 

This is the week when we gather up all our courage, take a big deep breath and venture out from behind that screen and say "Hi!  I'm here!  I'm reading you!"
This is your time to make your presence known.
 
I love finding out who is out there, reading from the wings.  Don't be shy!  Leave me a comment, tell me how we "met" and what keeps you reading, ask me a question (I'm pretty much an open book, so be warned...you ask and I answer!) or leave a suggestion of what you would like to see me write more about.  Don't forget to leave a link to your blog so I can return the favor of following you if I don't already.

So come on out, join the fun!  I promise I don't bite.  I don't even nibble.  Unless you're a cute little bunny made out of chocolate.  Then it's game on!  =)
 

Aaaaaaand........GO!