Two Months Later

my sweet Lucy

Two months ago, we were sitting in our hospital room, showering our baby girl with kisses and prayers. We were singing lullabies, and we read her first and last bedtime story. We were trying to take in every moment we had with her, trying to take mental pictures and memories of her tiny features, her scent, her sounds, we didnt want to miss a thing.

Now, two months later, as we are trying to still piece our lives back together, it is more and more evident that things will never be as they were. There is a part of our family that will be forever missing, a part of our family that lives now in heaven.

I find myself daydreaming about Lucy all the time. I wonder what she would be like now, maybe sleeping through the night by this time like her brother and sister did. I wonder if she would have milk allergies like Dominic, or be a big eater like her sister. Or if she would be responding to our voices and music like she did in the womb. I wonder if she would have filled in Sophie's hand me down onesies and if she'd allow me to put the hugest bows in her hair like her sister did. I imagine us taking her on our runs in the evening, or cuddling up and falling asleep on the couch. Or I picture her bassinet in my bedroom, where I would wait up to feed her again. I dream about rocking her to sleep in the nursery, and having to sit a certain way so it doesnt creak and wake her like I used to with Sophie. I can sit all day and dream and dream about all that never came to be.

I can easily see how these thoughts could consume me, and sometimes they do. I miss her so much. I miss everything about her. And we are trying, collectively, our family is trying to get through the days... with medication, and prayer, and counseling and support groups, and family, and friends, and more prayer, and we try so hard! I try so very hard but the pain is, well its indescribable. The emptiness, the feeling of just being out of place, like the whole world is carrying on in this dance, but I am just always a couple beats off.

But then there are the other times, that I am just at peace in my memories of Lucy. For the teeny tiny bit that I got to be Lucy's mommy here on earth, that gives me so much to look forward to in heaven. I am so amazed how this little tiny baby impacted our lives and showed us so much about our faith and our Father. I have learned so much about myself and my Father through my suffering and loss. I am inspired, and so thirsty to learn more. I read early on in my pregnancy, when we first learned of Lucy's complications, a bible verse that has stuck with me for months and months.

"I have refined you, but not in the way silver is refined. But rather, I have refined you in the furnace of suffering." Isaiah 48:10

Please God, continue to work in me, refining me through this journey, and building me up again. It has only been two months into our journey, God, and I pray to honor You in my grief and that I can handle these days with grace and continue to grow closer to You.  I pray for healing, God, for myself and my family, now and the days to come. Amen.