Comfort

I have read so many websites and forums and blogs about families who have lost like we have. Everyone has their own set of thoughts or beliefs that bring them comfort. I just wanted to share the things that help me. I know it's not the same for everyone, but these are the things that keep me going...

When I was pregnant with Haven, I remember thinking about how she was special, the product of one of the millions of eggs I was born carrying inside, and one of the approximately 525 billion sperm my husband has produced/will produce in his lifetime. That she was the best of the best; the "best" egg chosen by my body to be present that month, and the strongest of my husband's sperm over those few days. If we had gotten pregnant any other day or month, she would have been an entirely different person.

I also learned yesterday, while scouring blogs (I do little else lately), that there is a fetal cell migration from baby to mother during gestation. Those cells go on to live inside the mother, sometimes up to decades later, finding new homes in her eyes, heart, brain, etc.

These two thoughts together bring me comfort. They mean that I have always carried a part of my daughter with me, through my childhood, through my teen years, through every good and bad decision, every up and down. We were always together. And if her cells live on inside of me, I'm still carrying a part of her.

Though my faith feels complicated right now, I find comfort there too. I don't pretend to know God's thoughts or His plans, or how they all "work together for the good of those who love Him," but I believe that no person, however small, goes unnoticed or unloved by Him. I believe He grieves with me. The Bible says, "Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. The very hairs of your head are all numbered. So do not fear; you are more valuable than many sparrows." It also says, "You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body, and knit me together in my mother's womb." That means that God put together my little girl, cell by cell, and He loved her far more than I ever could (and believe me, there is not much that is fiercer than a mother's love). I don't have His eternal view, and I don't know how this (relatively) small event and Haven's small, sparrow life fit into the course of history, but I believe she was significant, nonetheless.

Yes, I am so, so angry and bitter some days that it eats me up. Sometimes I can't even catch my breath for the pain of missing her, and everything is just ashes in my mouth. But yet I find beauty and, yes, even joy in my life. Even in this disaster, this unfathomable tragedy, I have found joyful moments. The moment she was born was the most beautiful and terrible moment of my life. Even my long labour (38 hours from induction to her birth) had moments of awe, of stunning beauty. It was almost a holy experience.

So, yeah, I am totally wrecked. Losing my baby, my Haven, was like having my heart ripped out, then being told I still had to go on living somehow. I will never, ever, be "over" what happened, nor will I ever not miss my baby girl, not wish things were different, not ache to hold her. But I think that all of these things, the anger, the agony, the emptiness and loneliness, and then the joy...it's all a part of grief, and I intend to feel it all to the fullest. How else can one rebuild and move forward? I will take this anguish, these broken pieces, and allow God to form it all into something good. I think I owe that to my little girl. Surely she wouldn't want me to be sad, and angry, and bitter for the rest of my life?

I'll keep on living, even when life seems too empty to bother. One trudging step at a time. Breathe in, breathe out, and repeat...