A Change of Seasons

Fall is here, subtle and transient, dropping temperatures on a whim for one or two days before vanishing altogether for weeks on end, and the afternoon sun climbs high and makes everyone sweat and wish we lived somewhere cooler. But I see the beauty in our prolonged summer, the strange bursts of color from shrubs and bushes that are blooming again in the same season, since the weather has allowed it.

Last week I took my little boys to Town Lake to show them evidence of the changing seasons. The foliage along the water's edge seems to change with greater intensity and vibrancy than what we see further inland. William collected handfuls of yellow leaves and fallen acorns, proof of fall's arrival.

I have always loved fall, but as a child I met the season with a bit of disappointment and longing. Our Texas autumn didn't look right to me; it wasn't like the fall I saw in story books, where trees looked as though they'd been set ablaze with color and frosty mornings led to Christmases draped in snow and icicles. I would stand underneath our old oak trees, close my eyes, and pray for snow that never came.

Now, as a grown woman, a mother who understands why it can't snow in November in Austin, I meet the changing season with anticipation and, still, longing. October is National Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness month. It is also the month that we lost Jordan, and this November would have been Violet's first birthday. Last year marked a season of loss for my household, but as we settle into our new routine with our infant boy and our two year old, I sense the end of that season. The days are not marked with sadness or tears anymore, but with the bustle of a young family with two tiny ones. This season of our lives doesn't look like something I would have seen in a storybook, but it's beautiful in its own way.

Memorial to Unborn Children, image found here

In the quiet early hours before the sun rises, as I slip quietly from our bed to nourish my crying 10 week old Joshua, I feel the cool wood floors and breathe the smell of a fall morning coming in from the open windows. I sense the subtle shift; it is fall in Texas. I cradle Joshua, my own harbinger of a new season, in my arms, and I know that happiness is here once again. I rock him and nurse him, grateful for the few minutes of quiet, and I think of the best way to express this, but I can never settle on the perfect words. Instead, I will just say it the best way I know how: I feel true happiness and I feel true peace, and I believe with all of my heart that God does what is best for me. But my heart cries out, on peaceful quiet mornings, for Violet and Jordan. I think it's safe to say that I will always long, in some way, to hold them and to hear their baby coos and cries, to know what they would have looked like as toddlers and teenagers, to know if they would have had blue eyes like both of my other boys, like their father. I just wanted to share this to honor those other women (and men) who know this type of hurt and longing. There is beauty in every season.

What a Heart Can Hold

I sit in the booth at our favorite Chinese restaurant as Don orders his meal, and I feel the little body in my womb squirm and stretch. His head nuzzles my hip; his feet try to find their way between my ribs, and I gently press my hand to my belly to calm his frenzied activity. When he is born in less than a month, I will swaddle him, I will wrap him tight, hold him close and sing to him. For now, though, I mother him as best I can through the barrier that both connects and separates us, my body.

Our waitress smiles at me and asks, "Do you have other children or is this your first?"

There is no pause when I answer, "No, we have a two-year-old son at home with his grandparents."

Don and I smile casually but I look at his eyes and know he is thinking of them both, our other two little ones. The ones who came between William and Joshua. The ones who came and left.

In the late evening, when William is asleep in his room and Don is finishing up work notes in his office, I go into Joshua's nursery and sink down into the glider. I put my hands on my belly and I look at his crib, his books, the piles of sweet newborn clothes waiting for him, and I am so overwhelmed with peace and thanks that I would probably fall to my knees if I weren't already sitting down. I still don't understand the details of His plan, how God decides who will stay and who will go and who will hurt and who will have a baby and who will not. I am grateful for this. I know in the deepest recesses of my heart that knowledge of His plans for my future would be far too great a weight for me to carry.

Here in our home, in this tiny room that has been painted for a baby, there is peace. There is love. There is belief in an author of life, an original creator who remains even to this very moment.

I rock in the glider and close my tired eyes because, as it most always is with a two-year-old in tow and the full weight of the third trimester in my womb, today has been a long day. I sing, like I always have.

Lord, prepare me

to be a sanctuary

pure and holy, tried and true.

With thanksgiving, I'll be a living

sanctuary for you.

Here in my heart, God has carved out a space that I never dreamt could exist. A sanctuary is being built. I think of all the joy, followed by sorrow, the tears that would not stop coming, the bitterness that was so tempting to plant but that I weeded out with His grace alone. I feel where the sorrow bloomed to hope and the fears gave way to surrendering, and now, here in my heart, there is a sanctuary. And there is room for each child He gave us, William, Violet, Jordan, and Joshua.

What can a heart hold? There is no limit. There is no limit at all.

Celebrating from the Inside Out

This time last year, I had checked off every item on a thorough cleaning/decorating/baking/shopping/gift wrapping list. It was a little bit crazy, and included things like, "Finish Christmas shopping by December 1." We were hosting Christmas for both sides of our family, and I wanted it to be really special. My husband and I both love having people over and providing a place for people to relax and recharge, and I thought I could make things "perfect" for everyone.

It's amazing how much things can change in a single year, isn't it? This year, while I still like making things with my hands, my shoulders slump under the weight of so much grace. I am undeserving. Yet here I sit, happy heart in my home, with a new understanding and insight about what it means to celebrate this season.

What would I have said, I wonder, looking at pictures of myself at Christmas last year, if I could tell her that soon, in just a few months, she would learn what it is like to lose? What if some magical visitor from the future had touched my shoulder gently as I served my homemade cinnamon rolls and said, "Next summer you will bury your baby." I wouldn't have believed it if someone told me that I'd lose a second child in the fall. Two in one year.

But here I am, these things came true, and still my cup runs over. He gave me enough grace. Grace enough to get through it. Grace enough to see with newly washed eyes. As beautiful as handmade gifts can be, as inviting as the smell of freshly baked pastries, perfection on the surface is just that. It's on the surface. It can be scratched away.

This year, we are only half-finished painting our house. You should see our guest room: it's like a craft supply bomb exploded in there. I haven't made those cinnamon rolls yet. But I wish I could show you my heart.

It's a garden of Eden in most ways. Like all the love and grace and tender care I never knew I would need left seeds when they rolled through my life this year. Laid seeds and tilled the soil and harvested the crops and cultivated heirloom roses, too. Two deep cracks can be seen running through it, my heart, but they are cracks out of which lilies grow. The kind of cracks that break in the soil of the soul before bulbs can shoot forth into flowers, or vines into fruit. Wellsprings of longing and joy.

This year, in this season of advent, I let the shopping and the decorating and the baking fall gently to the bottom of my list. Like the cream rising to the top, what is most important to me now is clear. I teach my little one about the truth, the lamb, the word, the grace God himself has given me and Don. "Where does Jesus live?" I ask William. He points to the sky, "Yee-sus," he says. Then he takes his hand and pats his little chest. "That's right," I tell him. "He fills up our hearts, too."

Life Goes On

I know I talk about it a lot. More in these journalistic posts than in real life. Violet. I can't help it. I know about choosing joy when I am given the choice, and I know about seeing God in all that is around me. But I have to say: there are times when a beautiful sunset cannot touch your hurting. I don't think God intends it to. We aren't supposed to be fully satisfied on earth, because it cannot be all-satisfying.

Today would have been her birth day, had she not been miscarried. Last night, I felt sad that I didn't give birth to her alive, and Don reminded me, "You did give birth to her, MB, and she was born straight into the kingdom of God." 

And she was! That is something that has gotten me though this day. That and being with family and friends and my sweet boys. And grace. Lots of grace.

I Carry Your Heart

In the flow of my daily life (stumble to nursery, pick up crying child, return to bed for 15 minutes of trying to doze while laughing child pokes my eyes and sticks small fingers in my mouth and ears, etc.), a new five-second ritual is added. My iPhone alarm sounds at 8 am and I stop, swallow the tiny yellow pill above, chase it with water, and continue on my way. I will do this every day for the rest of my life.

This pill is the simplest solution to my biggest problem. I got a call last week following the round of blood tests I had after I miscarried for the second time in five months. My blood carries an antigen that causes, more often than not, miscarriages. If you have three miscarriages, you are diagnosed as having the syndrome. I have had two, so I am not technically diagnosed. I hope I never get the official diagnosis. 

What about William? I asked the nurse. How was I able to carry him full-term with no complications? A fluke, she answers. But I know better. 

The next time I am pregnant, I will give myself a shot three times a day, every day, until I give birth. The research that has been done says this will give me an 80% chance of having a successful pregnancy. I am trying not to dwell on the other 20%. My God is bigger than statistics. I beat the odds once before.

I look at these little pills, so tiny, the raised outline of a heart on one side of each pill. I swallow a little heart every day. These pills thin my blood, help it to pass easily, clot-less, through my arteries to my lungs and eventually my heart. 

I erased Violet's due date from my calendar months ago. I thought maybe I wouldn't remember it without a written reminder. How silly of me. Two weeks away, and I feel myself thinking about it throughout the day. These little yellow heart pills, they are a reminder.

Here is the deepest secret nobody knows

(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud

and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows

higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)

and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)

-EE Cummings, "I Carry Your Heart With Me"

Joy in the Making

Guys, thank you for praying for us. Our little baby died. I had a miscarriage. Don and I have felt such amazing peace and quiet in our hearts that we know it can only come from God. I'm doing BSF for the first time this year, and part of my homework last week was to list the biblical names of Christ. In Acts 3:15 He is called "the author of life." What an amazing comfort this has been to me: what I might see as the meaningless loss of our little life is actually the ordained life and death of a child created by the author of all life. This little life was intentional, had a purpose, has met his or her maker.

Our tears? We are letting them fall, but we are buoyed along by joy. I didn't know it was possible, but it is. We are comforted in our grief.

"While the child was still alive, I fasted and wept. I thought, 'Who knows? The Lord may be gracious to me and let the child live.' But now that he is dead, why should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I will go to him, but he may not return to me." 2 Samuel 13: 22-23

Joy is a Choice

"Believe me when I say it's not about your scars, it's all about your heart."

- Mindy Gledhill, "All About Your Heart"

Little one, tiny being, smallest bundle of cells and light,

If I were to listen to many around me, I would not call you by name. I would not let myself feel the connection, imagine the bustling of cells toward your embryonic shape, send love your way. For the first few days I knew you were here, I was tempted to guard my heart. After losing one baby, my heart is sometimes shy.

But now that I have had dozens of needles in my veins to prove your presence and halted growth, listened with your father at my side while one nurse tells us you certainly won't stay long and one doctor says that maybe you might, your father and I have learned (through our tears, deepest intakes of breath, and restless sleep) that we already love you. You are our child, undeniable and real. In my eyes, you are already a miracle. 

Little baby, tiny miracle, I hope against hope that you will stay, though it is not up to me to decide. As your mother, I promise to give you my very best until your time comes. I will rest, I will be healthy. I will not run, I will not exert, per our doctor's orders. I will hold you in my heart, I will give you a name. 

And above all, I will be joyful. I will praise God for making you fearfully and wonderfully. He sees you now, even when I cannot. He designed you with a purpose and a plan, a plan to help you and not to harm you. You have a sister in heaven and a brother on earth, and though I don't know which one you will meet first, I am confident that one day I will come to you. 

In our short weeks together, you have taught me something so important. You have taught me that joy is a choice. I choose joy because I know that struggles on earth remind me that joy does not and cannot come from circumstances. It comes from hope in Him. I thank God for you, little being, and in doing that, I let down the walls to my heart. I will not let my dried tears become a moat, I will not pretend you aren't real, and I won't let losing you define me. I will carry you in my heart, even if I can't carry you in my womb.  Like she says in the song, it's not about your scars. It's all about your heart. Tiniest baby, you have helped me make my heart a garden.

Love love love,

Your mama

Searching of Heart

There's an empty baby bassinet in Don's office. I planned on recovering it with new fabric and making it as adorable as possible, but I don't need to do that now. It takes up space, and I should probably move it into the attic, but I don't want to do that either.

I am waiting.

And thanking God, hard as it is sometimes. Thank you for taking my child before I really knew her, thank you for sparing her a life of heartache and soul-searching. Thank you for letting her be big enough that I know how it felt to hold her.

My hands have been so busy that I know it's time for my heart to be still. Does that make sense? Just like a baby cries the loudest when he is exhausted, my hands work the hardest when they are running from stillness. Because if you take away the innumerable play dates, the lunches, the bakery that is my kitchen, the restaurant that is my dining room, there should still be reliance on Him. And I am sad to say, but saying honestly, there isn't. Right now, there is fear of the unknown, discomfort in waiting, and impatience.

So it's time for me to do what I know I must. What I must because I choose Him, because I believe in Him, because I know so deeply what I am without Him. It's time to seek Him first. Yes, first. First, before my morning cup of coffee, before I check younghouselove, before I turn on the news at 6:30 am, before I plan dinner or go on a run.

I cannot offer Him a knit hat, or a carefully curated Pinterest page. What I can offer him right now is an empty bassinet, hands that keep kneading bread and typing away when really they should be empty and lifted high.

So here goes.

Here it is, God.

Take my empty bassinet and my searching heart and make them Yours.

The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, You will not despise.
-Psalm 51:17

Everything Has Changed

Each time I open this page to write, I falter. I hesitate between writing something like I might normally write and writing something that is more truthful and personal. Here is my compromise.

On the surface, everything looks the same. I am dressed, wearing make-up, caring for my boys, having girls night out, taking pictures, paying bills. Three mornings a week William and I can be found walking our loop at Town Lake, feeding the ducks. And dinner has miraculously appeared on the table most nights, and our clothes are clean, and on a nightly basis Don makes me laugh so hard I almost cry. Almost.

But beneath the surface, beneath my heart, there is a river whose depths cannot be guessed at, save by another mother who has already navigated them herself. See, in my sparkly Target flip flops and my new haircut, I am navigating the rapids. I am not alone, far from it, but my company watches for me from the shore. Here on the water, on my own private river, it is just me. Just me who birthed a baby who wasn't ready yet, just me who felt her go.

I am so blessed, most definitely by my own mother who came and spent ten days with us in case I felt like crying. I am so blessed to have Don, my rock of a husband. I have come to believe that husbands who are spiritual leaders are few and far between, and I feel rushing gratitude that he is my partner. And I am so blessed to have my sisters, Catherine and Melanie, and my best friends, the kind of friends who didn't call before they came, who just showed up unannounced with lasagna and champagne and chocolate.

So, please understand if, when you ask me how I'm doing, I brush right through with, "Fine. And you?" It's not that I don't want to talk about her, the loss, it's just that there's too much to say. And for the record, I'm doing great. There is real and true joy in my life. There is also longing. I have a child whose face is hidden from me, whose cheeks I cannot touch. I'm as fine and sorrowful as that.

This hurts, and God is still good.

Dear Violet, baby of mine, baby two, little green,

I have carried your name since I was a little girl. Violet, a flower, growth, love, beauty. A treasure of a name, I tucked it in my pocket and waited, knowing one day I would get to use it. What a sweet day it was for your daddy and me when we saw you for the first time. A squiggly little bean on a black and white screen.

Violet. Sometimes it's hard for me to say your name, but how can I not say it? For all those weeks, I carried you in my womb, and for a short, bittersweet moment after you died, I got to hold your little forming body in my hands. You were so small that I couldn't believe it, a miracle in the palm of my hand.  The most heart-breaking 4 inches of my life. I won't turn you into a silent "she," or worse, a nothing. Your little life has become a placemarker in mine. A dividing line in the short timeline of my days. There were those days before you, and the days that come after. I believe you are in heaven, but I will carry your name in my heart until I am an old woman standing at a kitchen sink, grandchildren scattered at my feet, love all around me, and I will pull your name from my pocket just the way my own grandmother used to pull a tissue from her blouse. It will be vibrant and new, just like you.

Some people grieve losses by mourning for things that never were. I understand that, but I am not one of those people. Today, my heart hurts for what I had that is lost to me, the thrill of a second baby on the way, the bliss of carrying another child for the husband I adore, the small joys of choosing baby clothes and thinking about decorating a nursery. 

Tiniest baby of mine, our time together was good. We went to yoga, we ate well, we spent many hours laughing with good friends under the oak tree across the street, and we rocked your big brother to sleep a hundred times. Our time together was full of hope and assurance in Him. Even when I saw the first tell-tale signs that I was losing you, the smear of bright blood where none should have been, the sharp pains in my side, I was filled with hope that He would take care of us.

And you know what? He is. Each time that I start to float away from the love that surrounds me, He pulls me back. 

Little daughter, dream baby, child I held only once, please know that I have so much love for you, and that I always will. No matter how many children I have or don't have, you were my second child, the child for whom I prayed. You will always be my answered prayer.

Lovelovelove,

Your mama

"For you created my inmost being, you knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well."

-Psalm 138: 13-14

Comfort Me with Cinnamon & God is Good

"I Will Always Love You" by Amy Swagman, Birth Artist

My hands hover above a tray of peach melba shortbread, sifting powdered sugar that falls like snow flurries over the browned almond top. And they gently lift the egg whites from the very bottom of the mixing bowl, willing the egg whites to rise and rise of their own accord. And my hands are cold as I pull the frozen strawberries from the sheet pan, after I quartered and cored them before freezing so that my family can eat in-season strawberries all year round. And I pat the biscuit dough into a neat fluffy pile before I smack it gently down with a rolling pin. A hundred memories of my hands in the kitchen, of cinnamon settling on my hair after I poured too much and a cloud of flour and sugar erupted from the mixing bowl. I don't want soup, and I don't want comfort food, but give me some butter and flour and I will comfort myself with baking.

These are things I thought about as I laid on the table this morning. This morning, the day after our baby died. No more little heartbeat, no more swimming bean. No more little green shoot, no more garden womb.

It wasn't me, it was her. A fluke. Something was just wrong with the baby, according to our doctor. She never would have lived. This is really personal to write about, but I will absolutely not have a secret baby. A baby whose name I never say, a baby who we don't talk about. I saw her heartbeat, she made me queasy for hours on end, and last week I went through two whole jars of Klaussen pickles (the cold kind), so I just can't roll over and pretend like I didn't grow a baby for the last 14 weeks, like I didn't dream about her and think about her and pray every night that God would put a hedge of protection around her. We named her. Her name was Violet. And there is an empty ivory-colored velvet baby snow-suit hanging in William's closet that I bought just for her. For my little winter baby who is not really ever coming. 

And even though I am so sad, and I just don't understand God's reasoning for giving me a baby that could only live a few short months, I know this much: God is good. And God is enough. Even when my baby's heart stops beating, He is still enough for me.

Two Lives

Dear baby of mine,

New baby. Baby two? I don't know what to call you yet. As much as I dream about baby girl clothes and velvet shoes and matching bows, I just have a feeling that you are a baby boy. That I am a mother of sons.

There aren't many pictures of me pregnant with your big brother. This is because I travelled for work, all the time, out of state. I didn't stop traveling until I was eight months pregnant.

This time, your father and I want to take pictures. Here is a picture of me today. A self-portrait.

Isn't it amazing that really there are two in this picture, not just one? I didn't take a picture of my belly because you can't be seen there yet, though soon that will change. Your brother and I were playing when I took this picture. Freckles, no lipstick, bangs that need to be trimmed. So filled with awe that life will flourish inside such a small, unseen place. I think today that my abdomen is a garden, and you are my little green shoot.

You are so quiet, so tiny, so different from the last time I was pregnant, when I was either sick or fatigued for those first few months. This time, there has been no physical symptom really, save for a thrilling sensation of just knowing I was pregnant, that a whole new person was being formed in the vessel of me. And that uplifting knowledge that comes for me: He heard my prayer. God is real, and He heard ME.


Just like your brother William, you are my answered prayer. You are my little number two. My tiny secret garden, a forming, glowing gift. Grow, grow, grow, little baby, and I will hold you when you are all done.

Lovelovelove,

Your mama