Dates are really just numbers in a calendar throughout the year. Then how come some of them carry so much more weight than others? For a miscarriage couple, that answer is obvious. Because those numbers signify the end of a life. They carry the sadness of a broken heart and the burden no parent should ever have to carry. Those numbers mark the date our baby passed.
Today is one of those days for me. May 30th. The day, four years ago, that we birthed Baby Hope to Heaven. I’d been carrying his lifeless little body inside of me for two weeks, knowing his little heart had stopped beating, but waiting for my body to recognize that and for nature to take it’s course. During that time, we prayed desperately for a miracle, and yet resorted ourselves to the fact that God’s will, no matter what that be, is better than ours.
Then it happened. I started spotting late on May 29th and knew exactly what was coming. At 3am, the hour of Divine Mercy, I woke up to a gush and hurried to the bathroom. But I paused before sitting down, knowing, as any birthing mother knows, that with that next push, my baby was going to come out. Sure enough, in a perfect, little, water-balloon like yolk-sac came out completely in tact, and there inside was a perfectly formed little baby… just bigger than the size of a gummy bear. He fit perfectly inside my hand as we held him, baptized him, and cried over him.
How could anyone ever forget a day like that. You can’t. Those moments in that bathroom with my husband, in the middle of the night, are permanently etched in my head and heart. The peace and quiet… the depth of sadness… yet the gratitude for providence that our 3.5yr old son Jacob was alive and well and sleeping in his bed.
No matter how many years pass, though, those dates still loom over head. The dread as the day approaches, the deep breaths as the day ensues, and the sigh of relief as the day passes… we’ve survived that date one more year.
Hope and Healing 