It’s 18th November 2010. Today is my due date. This is the day I was supposed to give birth to my fourth child. Of course it was not to be and I have blogged about my miscarriage here, here and here.
I always prayed before I had children that I would not miscarry as I knew it would be something really hard for me to deal with. I do think the blow of losing my babe was softened by the fact that I have already been blessed three times. Of course each child is different and I was sure that this babe would be a boy and I would have named him Samuel Noah. So little Samuel you will always have a special place in my heart, you are the beautiful babe that I never got to have.
Straight after the miscarriage I could not believe how well I appeared to be dealing with things. People kept telling me to let myself mourn but I was not listening. I was OK, well in my mind. Then over the last four or five months I have had periods of sadness and loss and I think slowly I have been coming to terms with the fact that our family is complete. 5 is a perfect number for us.
It seems a bit trite to say that I believe I am mourning the loss of a fantasy as much as the loss of my actual babe. Once I found out I was pregnant I thought how great it was that I would be on maternity leave when my girls started nursery school and how that would make logistics much easier. I also had all these little dreams about being able to breastfed my single baby and having time alone together to get to know each other and to snuggle. Sadly much of that one on one was missing with the girls as there were always two on one as well as toddler in toe. I built this little fantasy world in my head, the one where I would have the natural (don’t lynch me for using that word, I know my c-section births were natural too. I just don’t want to use the V word!) birth I had always longed for. Perhaps in water with dh at my side and definitely serene and blissful.
So here I am today in the reality and let’s be honest the reality isn’t bad at all. I have one husband I love who is hard at work earning a living to keep our family. I am sat at toddlers surrounded by loads of friends from my Church. The girls are having fun playing and I have a job that I enjoy and fits in with my family. I am blessed every day by the Lord and all my needs are met and provided for. I really cannot ask for any more!
I will not feel sad today, I will celebrate my life and all that I have.
I was prompted to post this by Josie’s writing workshop and also I wanted to support Jen at the Madhouse in her crusade to get people talking more about miscarriage.