My Juxtaposition: Grieved, yet Rejoicing.

Our Baby at my 8 Week Ultrasound, 11/28/11.

I have reached 15 weeks in my pregnancy! Every week is a milestone for me, though I'm not quite sure if I will ever be able to enjoy pregnancy any more in a relaxed, naive sort of way. Don't get me wrong (and just ask my husband), I love being pregnant again and I ask him nightly if I still "look" pregnant, as I examine my growing belly excitedly in the mirror. Of course I still look pregnant, and that's what is so exciting! I still am pregnant! Yet, I know nothing is certain and safe in this life, and I'm still holding my breath for some, unknown milestone where I will be able to let out a deep sigh of relief. Perhaps when I feel the baby move for the first time, or when we find out if the baby is a boy or girl, or when I reach the point of viability in my pregnancy. I'm not sure if it will come at any of these moments, and I may just have to wait until I hear the baby's first cries.  Or, as I've prepared myself, maybe that sigh of relief won't come. Life is just too fragile.

I hold onto one essential truth that I have learned intimately over the past year: I can trust in the Lord, even when everything else I love falls away. I can still rejoice, because above all else, I have my salvation and I understand the secret to Life. I'm blessed beyond measure, more than most people, because I have my Savior and He has chosen me.

And with this new baby, I have become able to hope again, to look at other pregnant women and not feel immediate despair, to be less sensitive to others remarks, to talk about pregnancy and babies with more ease. Yes, going through pregnancy again has helped me mend in many ways. Yet, I find myself in a unique juxtaposition. I am blessed and excited about my 4th baby growing inside my belly, so far healthy and strong, but I still find myself in moments of grief over my 2nd and 3rd. I won't have a proper name for them or see their little faces until heaven, but I still long for them as any mother would long for her missing babies. I still think about how old each of them would be right now and what my life would be like with them. My children are irreplaceable, whether I have them for seven weeks in my womb, or 60 years on earth. One child cannot substitute for the other. I'm so immensely grateful to the Lord for my current pregnancy, but I find myself rejoicing, even still, with two little holes in my heart.