Walking With You Week 6

WWY~ Finding Hope and Healing With or Without a Rainbow

FEBRUARY 10, 2013 BY KELLY @ SUFFICIENT GRACE 6 COMMENTS

For the final WWY post in this segment, we will share our experiences with longing for another baby to fill our empty arms. Some experienced a subsequent pregnancy after loss. Some may be fearful of embarking on that journey again. Some may not be able to have another child, whether due to infertility or other reasons. Some may have found that having another baby, however precious a gift, was not the key to healing the grief. Can you experience hope and healing…even if there is no rainbow after the storm? 

I read this on Monday and have been mulling it over  ever since. After Caleb died I wanted to be pregnant again immediately. I wanted to risk everything again because I wanted a live baby! We were so ready for a baby and I really couldn't see how we could live without someone to fill that space. I remember specifically while holding Caleb that I prayed that God would fill my arms again quickly. 

And He did-something that surprises me still and I don't know why. God gave us another child just 10 weeks after Caleb was born. I think that is about the quickest it could have happened. Because of how close Caleb and Abigail were it still feels like it was just one really long pregnancy. When Abigail came home alive and well it was such a relief. All  of those wants and desires of my heart and longings for a child were now filled. 

Fast forward to a year later-Abigail is almost one and for most people this is probably when thinking about another child starts happening. At first we felt the same way- we said that when she is a year we might start trying again. But now that year is here and trying is not something I want to do. I have recognized within just the past month how much healing my heart still needs. Im terrified of pregnancy and really the way I was starting to deal with it was to ignore it= as in I will go anywhere but there....I realized that God wants me to go "there," which is what I wrote about a little earlier this week.

So we are working through all that right now. I guess with Abigail I was still willing to take chances, I mean what did we have to lose? But now that we have a healthy, live child-I'm selfish. I don't want to lose another baby-I don't want our family to go through that again- I don't want to put Abigail through that.It is harder to justify taking that risk again.

 I know that the other side of the coin is that the baby would live and add so much joy to our lives. But I still have a hard time believing that. I thought once I was able to bring a live baby home I would actually start believing that it can happen. But I was wrong-turns out that having a stillborn child trumps the live birth and my heart still struggles to believe that babies really do come home.

I am excited to see how God heals and shapes my heart as I try to turn this over to Him. I know we want more kids- I just think the timeline of that will look very different than we originally thought. In the meantime I feel so blessed to spend each day with Abigail and for once in my life I am not wanting anything. Im content, something that I know could only have happened with God leading me.