It has been three weeks to the day since I delivered our angel Dove. Three weeks since I first gazed upon her perfectly formed body and beautiful face. Three weeks since my heart was broken far more deeply than I ever thought was humanly possible.
I knew she was gone, I felt it from the very moment I awoke Monday morning, but I spent the day in denial. I drank juice and laid on my side, I poked and pushed her around, I sat at the piano and played, but there was nothing. She was as silent as the fetal doppler which found no trace of her heart beat when I checked into the hospital. Her heart, which had so strongly beat for us at her twenty week ultrasound, and been hailed by the doctor as perfect and strong, was now found to be beating no more.
My heart sank and I sobbed. My greatest fear had now become a reality, a nightmare from which there was no escape. I had been nervous my entire pregnancy about losing her, afterall I had lost others. Although I did not dare to hope during those early days of morning sickness, as I cleared the first trimester I found myself--for the first time in a long time--filled with peace, renewed hope, joy, and excitement. It seemed that after almost three and half years of perpetual heartache and disappointments that life was about to turn around, that something was finally about to go right. Unfortunately, in that assumption I could not have been more wrong.
Once Nate arrived at the hospital and I shared with him the news we held each other and cried. He is the one earthly relation who has seen my most intimate struggles and known best my sorrows. He had seen the hope and happiness reenter my life in anticipation of this baby and now feared another relapse of postpartum depression with her death. Together we patiently awaited the arrival of my OB and after talking with him I was taken back to a delivery room.
It was all so surreal. I’ve been in those delivery rooms before. I‘ve worn those hospital gowns before. I’ve sat on those beds and watched the nurse write my information up on those whiteboard before. I’ve even been induced before. But I had never been here before. To labor for fourteen hours without an epidural for a child whose eyes I would never see, whose cry I would never hear. I would walk out of that hospital with empty arms and an empty heart. I would go home to wake each morning to an empty womb.
I have lost a child. One who is every bit as real, and near, and dear to me as the three whose hearts still beat. I cared for her, I carried her, I felt her move inside of me and I have felt her spirit in ways that are so very sacred to me know. I loved her, I still love her, I will always love her. She has changed my life and my heart.
As we will all discover at some point during our short time on earth, life has its challenges and that is something that unfortunately we cannot change, we cannot control, we cannot escape. While this is undeniably my greatest trial, my deepest heartache and most poignant sorrow, it is not my first and I am absolutely certain it will not be my last. Yet amidst these trying times I feel so very blessed. My blessings cannot be seen with the eye, they cannot be posted on my instagram account or shared through monetary means. No, my greatest blessings are held so very near to my heart and in a few words I will try to convey a feeling that no words can fully communicate.
I am blessed because I know there is a God and I know that he loves me. I cannot even begin to fathom how this is even possible, but I know it because I have felt it.
I am blessed because of the experiences I have had with my sweet angel Dove. Our spirits have communicated and connected in a way that I will hold sacred for all my days.
I am blessed because of what I have been able to experience with my family, the unity we have felt, the love and the strength we have shared with each other.
I am blessed because I have shared some of life’s most tender and intimate moments with one of the most beautiful souls I know, my husband. I am blessed because of what we have experienced together.
I am blessed to have felt the love and prayers and concern of those who care for us and our family, to have seen the goodness that still abides in the world today.
And above all I am blessed because of the peace that fills my soul at this time. Until now I would have said it was impossible to experience such despair, such grief and heartache and yet at the same time be overcome by such an immense feeling of peace. It is not a feeling I could have ever imagined up or fabricated in an attempt to make myself feel better. It is not the power of positive thinking. It is the power of the atonement. It is real. I have been enveloped by it, I have been carried by it, and I am now sustained by it. It is a feeling unlike anything I have ever experienced and yet it is so familiar to me. That is because I have experienced His peace before, but this time I feel it a hundredfold, perhaps even more.
