Memories

I did it again tonight.
Found myself in Peyton's room - cuddling her while she slept in my arms.
Such a big girl now - she stretches from my shoulders to just above my knees when she's all flopped out. :)

I've heard the second pregnancy after a loss is a challenge. I've found that my third is causing some struggles.
Even the way this baby moves reminds me of Autumn.
Maybe because my second pregnancy was so close to my first - in a lot of ways they seemed to blend into one, two-year (almost!) experience... and the end result was Peyton.

But - there have been some mornings and I've woken with a sense of panic. I haven't felt the baby move. I remember the morning of the day we found out Autumn died. How absurdly normal it was. How I must have walked around for hours without the awareness that she had slipped away...
This baby squirms around at night while I'm reading - I remember how very similar Autumn's last movements were. Her last movements.
I remember stretching out our firstborn daughter on that hospital bed and taking her all in: her tiny perfection - and I remember weeping with the futility of it all.

Oh God.
My prayers are so feeble.
There have been more tears in the last week then in the last 6 months.
In church on Sunday I looked at my picture of her and cried. Exactly what emotion was behind it, I'd be hard pressed to give an accurate answer.
At the baby shower, watching another of my friends expect her first with eager anticipation, I ached. Not with jealousy. Not with anger. Just with memories - remembering planning and hoping and being so close to meeting our firstborn...
On the way home, I cried as I told Kurt about the shower. I cried for me: for hope deferred. For my baby girl who never took a breath. For Kurt, who spent a lifetime with Autumn - holding her for two hours in a leather rocking chair in the room she was born in.
But that's been the case lately.

This morning, while drinking coffee I flashed back to locking myself in the bathroom at my parent's house after the funeral. It was easily 2 or 3 in the morning - and I couldn't breathe. I sat down on the edge of the tub and wept. Deep, wracking, lack-of-breath sobs that knocked me out of a sitting position and left me curled in the fetal position on the floor. My baby girl was gone and she was never coming back. The terrible finality of it was so overwhelming. Months of hope replaced by... what? There were no clear answers.

My mom was the one who heard me - still tuned to the noises her children make when all is not well. She knocked softly and came in. I heard her whisper, "Oh Kendall." and then she sat on the floor beside me and rocked me like a baby. I remember her saying she wished she could take it for me as she wept.
Me too.
27 years old... happy marriage, career in place - but wishing with all my might that my mommy could just make it better again. That part of the memory has become really clear as Peyton is daily healed by my kisses. I know now - in a very small way as I have only dealt with a toddler's woes - how hard that must have been for my mom to watch her only daughter crumpled on the floor in grief and not be able to do anything.

I remember so clearly how the tears never really helped for a very long time - they just left me empty. Remembering that despair is hard. That is the pit that God took me out off. The fear of falling back in does funny things to my heart.

Flash forward.
Do I believe lightning can strike twice? Do I trust odds, or the God who loves me?
I hold Peyton and am thankful for the reminder that He can make healthy babies. But I don't take anything as proof I shall have another healthy child. This reality has never changed. The difference is in how I react to it. Do I cower? Or do I stand?

As of now, God is giving me strength to stand. And all the while, this little child squirms and wiggles... her 'sweet spot' mere finger-breadths from where Autumn's was. So bittersweet.

The memories are part of my history. But more than that, they've molded the woman I am. So I'm not fighting them right now. I'm walking in with a deep breath. Talking through stuff with Kurt... and taking lots of time to hug and cuddle my almost 2-year-old child of grace.

I'm also letting myself cry again. But the difference is that the tears don't leave me empty anymore. They're actually making me feel better. The despair is gone. I'm overwhelmingly grateful to God.

We're getting there...
Thanks for your prayers.