And then there were 5

Is the "baby" thing hard for me?

New pregnancies being announced...babies being born....going to baby blessing, etc..

Yes.

If this really is a problem for me, I am living in the wrong ward and the wrong county.

I have tried to figure out why.  I'm not sure all the reasons besides the obvious ones.

When I found out I was pregnant, I knew that 2 of my my sister-in-laws and very good friend next door were also pregnant.  It was exciting!  A couple of weeks later I found out that my sister and my other very good friend who lives behind me were also pregnant.  I don't have a ton of very close friends, so finding out that 2 of my closest friends were pregnant was so fun.  We had never had babies right at the same time.  We have an open back yard and all the kids play together. I imagined our babies learning to do things at the same time and becoming friends.  Sharing bikes and stealing sippy cups... What a great thing!

So it worked out that my little circle of family and friends were expecting one baby in August, 2 in September, 2 in November, and 1 in December. Girl, boy, boy, boy, girl, girl. SO there would be 6 beautiful babies born in a short span of 4 months....but only 5 would stay here with their families. That is hard for me.  It makes me feel singled out.

It has been hard to see a baby born every 3 or 4 weeks since we found out that Eli would not stay with us.   Not just "someone's" baby, but a baby that I will grow up around and love and become very well acquainted with.  All the babies have been born and gone home with the expectation of leading a full and happy life.  But, that is not what happened to me.  Each new joy reminded me of my own pain and intensified it.  My wound is so raw still and the birth of each new baby rubbed it hard.  I tried to not let it.  I love these women and I love their babies, but oh.... how I love Eli. How I miss him.  How I long for him.

It's not even that I want their baby or their life. I want my Eli.  I want what I have...but there is pain with what I want and can't have right now.

Just when the "last" baby of the mix had been born I thought I might be okay for a bit.  But... there also comes a steady stream of baby blessings when you have a steady stream of babies.

Why are the baby blessings so hard?  I have tried to figure this out too. We were able to bless Eli, so I didn't think I would feel immense difficulty with each baby blessing that came.  But, they have profoundly affected me.  I think its because a baby blessing usually signifies the beginning of beautiful things.  A beautiful life with hope and possibilities and expectations.  Birth signifies a beginning, and beginnings fill our souls and minds with newness and hope.  It makes us reverent and grateful for the opportunity to shape and mold and watch this little bundle of joy grow into something beautiful.  They have yet to bloom.

But Eli's baby blessing signified that the beginning was overshadowed by the end. Each new baby blessing reminds me that everyone else's beginning, was our end.

How can you say hello and goodbye at the same time.  It is pretty difficult.  Our "hello" and "goodbye" were almost one fluid motion.  They weren't separated. We knew, just seconds after he was born, that goodbye would be soon.  We didn't get a separate occasions for these very important events.  We had just met him and knew that he would be gone.

Eli's baby blessing was very sacred and beautiful.  He wasn't blessed with the "standard" things... healthy body, ability to make good choices, eventually to serve a mission and get married in the temple.  That wasn't his mission in this life. His blessing was so rich and beautiful and simple.  It was more a privilege to give him a blessing than a need for him to have one.  I am not sad that his blessing was different.  I am grateful and in awe.  I think of his blessing often and especially during the other blessings I have attended in the recent past. I am so aware how different it was because I have heard so many lately.  It was different because HE was different.

The "normal" way to bless a baby is to wait until they are a couple of months old, invite you whole family to sacrament meeting, and have a big luncheon afterwards. I think the thing that is hard for me is that when I see the "normal" occurring, I realize that my dreams of the future were lost.  My dreams of raising him right now are lost.  I'm reminded that it isn't normal to try and bless him as quickly as we could before he died.  I am not sad that I have Eli and that his plan is different.  I am just sad because I am not with him.

When we first found out about Eli's diagnosis, I thought it interesting that all these babies were coming at the same time.  I don't think the world revolves around me, but I did find it significant.  Interesting is definitely the word I used for the first few months.  As time went on, and baby after baby was born and blessing after blessing was attended, the word changed from interesting to hard and finally bitter. It created a bitterness in my soul and I cried out in anger.  How can this be?  Why did it have to happen THIS way?  Why do I have to watch it OVER AND OVER AND OVER again?  Just when I think I have recovered from the last blow another comes along.  It seemed perfectly spaced to provide the most pain. It is incessant and became more weight than I can bear.

I don't want anyone else's life, because that would mean Eli isn't mine and I want him...not someone else. I don't care what the cost is to have him; he is the one I want.  But watching everyone's lives go on WITH their precious new beginning reminds me over and over that my end with Eli came too soon for me.  Saying goodbye to him anytime before I died would have been too soon for me.  There is never a "good" time to lose a child.  We all hope to beat our kids to the grave.  I lost this race.

When I watch their lives go on, I am profoundly aware that they have started a new life WITH their baby and I have started a new life WITHOUT mine.  Our lives that I thought would be the same and full of talks about breastfeeding and teething are now so different that I don't know what to talk about...or if I should even talk at all.

It is a reminder of the future I was planning is lost.  It is a reminder of his immediate future with me lost.  It is a reminder that a beautiful and much anticipated hello was very complicated by an impending and almost immediate goodbye.  It is a reminder that while most births usher in a

beginning, ours ushered in an ending.

You think that you would love your child less if you didn't have an official hello or a long time to say hello. But it just isn't the case. You love them the same, but you know less about them. You think you would love them less if you know them less, but you don't. It's very bizarre. So you want to know them because you love them. You yearn to know who this person is that you have such intense love for. It's very backwards from the way we usually experience things. We usually grow to love someone as we grow to know them. But with your children you love them before you know them. And when you don't get to know them it complicates things.  Your heart gets confused. How can I love someone so much that I barely know? But I wouldn't say that I barely know Eli. I feel like I know him quite well. But I know him in such a different way and than I know everyone else. I know everyone else because I can see them and look into their eyes and watch their rhythm. But I can't do anything physical with Eli. I can't see him or hear him or smell him or touch him. But I can feel him with my spirit. So I do know him. It is a very different kind of relationship and very sacred. I have to be quieter to find him. I have to approach life differently to find him

Even though we knew he was going to die, he was still very much alive to us...up until the time when he did actually die.