A very different life...

I think this blog was started as a weight loss journal...I'm not even sure because I haven't gone all the way back to see what I wrote. In any case, whatever it was before, it is now just a journal....a place for me to write. How deep and profound! My life has changed over the past year. It has morphed into something I don't recognize still. In some ways my " new life" is beautiful. In some ways it is painful and tragic. And I just need to "talk" about it..so this is where I shall talk. I found out in December. 2011 that we were gonna have a baby!! Total surprise. Deep down inside, I had wanted this. I wanted another baby...even if we were too old. I don't have the energy to go into all the many events that happened over the next several months...I will do that later because I want to tell my story - even if I'm just telling it to myself. The end of the story is that we had a beautiful little boy on June 9th, 2012. He was born about 9 weeks too early, but he was a big, strong looking little man...weighing in at 5lbs 5oz! He was so handsome. He looked just like his daddy, and had a head full of dark hair...just like Braedan and McKenna did. His hands were so tiny, yet so big for his size. Strong, manly little hands. He was perfect. Except that he was sick. What doctors had thought was a bowel obstruction, turned out to be a hepatic hemangiothelioma...a sort of non cancerous liver tumor. I never got to see his eyes. When I finally got to hold him, he had already stopped breathing...I never got to feel his breath on my cheek. I never heard him cry. He came to meet us on June 9th, and went home to be with Jesus on June 12th. Sometimes it still seems so unreal to me...until I feel the now familiar ache in my chest. Then my whole body seems to cry out for him. It hurts. It happened. We had a son and he died. This is the stuff that happens to other people. It's one of those things that would make me say, "I can't imagine how awful that would be. I don't think I could handle that. How horrible!". But now it's my story. My family' story. Right now I'm just missing him. I miss carrying him inside me...even if his presence made me miserable in many ways...I would take home back in a heartbeat. I miss his little kicks. He wasn't very active, and that was a constant source of worry for me. So I was always waiting eagerly for those little flutters, pokes, and thumps that did not happen nearly enough. The poor little guy was tortured by my constant pushing and prodding at him...trying to coax him for some reassurance that he was okay. I miss him holding my finger. I miss just being near him. I miss everything he would have become through the weeks, months, and years. I still see the images in my mind of what our new family was going to look like. Braedan and MJ were going to be terrific big brother and sissy to him. I had it all played out in my mind within days of finding out he existed. I just miss him. I ache for him. I want him tonight. I want to snuggle him and love on him. But I'm tired and need sleep. So in my mind, I will go to the place where he is. You see, he is being loved on more than I can even imagine. Where he is, he doesn't have to suffer from sickness...he's completely healthy and happy. What mother would not feel some joy and peace in knowing the child she loves so much is experiencing REAL living and will never have to know pain, fear, the effects of sin? I don't have to worry about him. And although he cannot be with me right now, some day I will go to where he is. Everything will be okay. It's already better than okay for him...and that makes me happy. Now I can sleep.