Due Dates and Dreams of What Might Have Been

Today is a summer day like any other. Warm, a little on the cloudy side. Too cold for the pool, but perfect for playing outside in between short rain showers. A completely ordinary day.

And yet, today, June 23rd, isn't totally ordinary to me. Today is the day I was due with Baby #3. Our surprise Disney baby. Our baby who was born in our hearts, instead of in our arms, in December.

I've been sort of dreading and looking forward to today. For some reason it feels like there is some finality in the date. There are no more milestones that "would have been." A strange mix of sadness and closure.

I planned a down day with the kids. I wasn't sure what emotions I'd be feeling today. We've just been home, playing in the basement, doing laundry, "normal" stuff. They don't know today has any significance to me.

I woke up at 5am today, feeling the strongest flutters I've felt during this current pregnancy. Up to this point I'd been feeling small bubbles, but nothing definitive. This morning Baby Boy was doing a dance so wild it woke me up. I think he knows what today is. He's reminding me of the hope ahead. And maybe his new little baby soul just came from the place where Baby #3 is right now, and he is reminding me that my baby in Heaven is close to me today.

I pushed away the thought of today's date for most of the day. Even when a friend sent me a message asking how I was, I didn't even mention what day it was. She knew, of course, but didn't make me talk about it.

Then, a few hours later, the doorbell rang. A man with a bouquet of roses stood at the door. "Jenny?" he asked. Yes, that's me. I wondered who in the world would be sending me flowers.

I opened the card. That same friend, the one who gently messaged me earlier, had sent me the flowers. Her note had a Bible verse and the words, "still praying for you and your angel baby."

I burst into tears. Abby and Josh looked at me like I had 3 heads.

I think sometimes that we assume that a woman who has had a miscarriage just "needs to get pregnant again" to be ok. That somehow all the pain of the loss will be erased if another baby is on the way.  I'm finding it doesn't quite work that way. Certainly being pregnant again has given me joy. But today is the day that I'm thinking about another baby I loved very much. 

All it took was someone to acknowledge what this day means. To validate me and my angel baby. I think I needed that permission to grieve today. I didn't quite grasp how close to the surface my grief was today until I read that card and the tears just wouldn't stop. And I realize now that a part of me will always grieve that loss.  And that's ok.  And these flowers in front of me were exactly what I needed. Permission to be sad today and to remember my angel.

My friend who sent the flowers had been due a week after me. Her baby was just born a couple weeks ago, earlier than expected. We became close when we both found out we were pregnant at the same time. And with each milestone, even after I lost my baby, she has been a rock for me. I went to hold her new baby last week. It was the strangest feeling, holding this little life, created at almost the exact same time as the baby that I lost. He is beautiful, absolutely perfect. And holding him, I thought about what might have been. I thought about how I expected to be holding my own baby right now, this summer.  And yet, as I held him I looked down at my growing belly,  and I had a sense of peace.  Peace that my baby is in Heaven, and we will meet again. And peace that this Baby Boy inside of me is part of my healing process. Peace that there is meaning behind my loss, value in the life gone too soon, and hope for joy ahead.

June 23rd. A day that will always be my "what might have been."

Thank you, my dear friend, for acknowledging me and Baby #3 today. And for reminding me that it is ok to grieve, even in the midst of the joy filled news of a new baby on the way.