Beauty Day 13

I miss my son, Ian, terribly. The ache and the pain is still so real after over seven years. Today is the anniversary of his due date. Seven years!! My baby boy should be a first grader. I should be planning a birthday party at the bowling alley or the skating rink. I should be wrapping the latest video game he so desperately wanted, or a bike without training wheels, or a new basketball. He should be learning to read and excited about losing a tooth. He should be playing with legos and looking forward to trying out for spring baseball or soccer. He should be here. He should be 14 months younger than Riley. He should...he should...he should.

But he's not. And he never will be. He's gone and that's all there is to that. No amount of begging or pleading to God will bring him back to me. I know that. Trust me, I've tried. I've spent hours upon hours pleading for God to return him to me. To have one more chance to kiss his tiny head. I've begged for the chance to watch him take a breath. To hear him giggle. To wipe a tear from his eye. To sing and rock him to sleep. I want to be able to take him into my arms and never let him go. But I can't. And I have to learn to live with that, no matter how hard it is or how much it hurts. I need to keep on keepin' on.

So what is the beauty that I find in a day that is so sad and hurts me so much? Oh there is so much beauty. So much to be thankful for. And I need to remind myself of that. Of how blessed I am. Of how thankful I am. Where do I even start? What is the gift that Ian and God has given me? How can I be so thankful when I have lost so much?

Losing Ian was the worst thing that has ever happened in my life. The worst. And yet, in so many ways, it was the best thing that has ever happened to me. Seems very contradictary doesn't it? You're probably thinking I must be crazy. What is so great about losing your baby?

So let me just tell you. First off, losing Ian brought me to God. How incredible is that?! What a gift! Prior to losing Ian, I didn't know God. When Ian died, I was angry. Oh I was so angry. How could such a so-called loving God take a baby from a family that wanted him so much? I hated Him for doing that to me. Hated him. As the weeks and months passed, I was sitting in my darkest of dark days, feeling alone and helpless, feeling as though my world was falling apart, separated from my husband and heading towards divorce. My pain was too heavy for me to carry alone. The thought of my son laying in a cold grave, never for me to see him again, made me seek out this God of Comfort that so many people told me about. I began to read my Bible. I began to pray. I began to see that this God had made so many promises to me. That He was holding a place for Ian. That one day I would be reunited with him. He showed me that I was blessed to be the mother of a son that knew only pure love for his entire life. That he was taken from my womb and carried into the arms of God, never knowing pain. My son was chosen for this! He had learned everything that he needed to learn about life in such a short amount of time, never having ever seen the sunlight or felt the wind on his cheeks. I was the lucky one because it was my son who was special enough for this.

Climbing out of my grief and despair, with the help of God, allowed me to renew and strengthen my relationship with my husband as well. We are stronger than we ever were. We are happier than we ever were, and I can't say that would hold true had we not gone through what we did by losing Ian. His death also threw me into membership into the Club. The club that no one wants to be a part of, but that every member is so thankful for knowing that there are others out there that understand the gamut of feelings we go through. I never knew anyone who had a loss prior to my loss. Losing Ian changed the woman I am, the compassion I feel. I have made some wonderful friends through this grief journey. I know that I have also helped a few others just by sharing my story about Ian. What a wonderful legacy Ian has left.

Finally, it is because of Ian that I am the mother of Matthew. Ah, Matthew John, the newest light in our lives. My little Punky, Chunkamunka, and Punkster McMunkster. After Ian's death, I prayed and prayed for another baby. I needed that other baby. And God made me wait. Five long, heartache-filled years. But I know now that I needed that time to grow and learn and to heal. And when the time was right, as God always knows the right time, I became pregnant with my miracle boy. The boy who put us through so much just to safely get him here safely. The boy who had two major surgeries before he turned 6 months old. The boy who had medical issue after medical issue and who is now, by the grace of God, the healthiest little man. Matthew makes our lives so much more full, so much happier, so much more tired (that boy is busy busy busy and never stops!). Matthew is exactly who we needed as a family to recover from our loss and to complete the Halters. He's perfect for us. Perfect.

But he wouldn't be here if Ian was here. How do you live with that? I yearn for Ian. I miss him so much and I want him back. I'd give anything to have him here. But if he was here with us, Matthew wouldn't. I'd give anything, but would I give up Matthew for Ian? How do you choose? The baby that you have grieved for for 7 years or the new child in your life who is only 18 months? The good thing is I don't get to choose! God has made the choice. I get Matthew. I get to pour all the love I have for Ian onto Matthew. I get to watch him sleep. I get to kiss his head. I get to hear him giggle. I get to wipe his tears. I get to rock him and sing him to sleep. I get to!

And one day, God willing, I'll plan Matthew's 7th birthday party. I'll wrap that video game up for him. I'll hear him read his first book and I'll get to see his big toothless smile. I'll take him to baseball tryouts. I'll do all the things that I wanted to do with Ian, and Ian will be right there with us, tucked safely in my heart. Matthew is a lucky boy. And I'm an even luckier mommy.

Beauty Day 2

Ask just about anyone and they'll tell you that there is nothing more beautiful than new life. And every mother will tell you that their child is the most beautiful. And of course they are right. However, I have to tell you that these pictures of me with Matthew just minutes after his birth truly reflect beauty. I felt love and pure joy after the birth of Austin and Riley, however, the feelings of relief and gratitude in addition to that love and joy that I felt after Matthew safely arrived is unparalleled. These pictures warm my heart and bring me back to the first time I held my beautiful, healthy, living son, Matthew.

Matthew and I had a rough start from almost the moment we found out we were expecting him. We had had two losses prior to his pregnancy, one being the stillbirth of baby Ian back in 2001. After losing Ian, we had 5 years of infertility. I had prayed daily for five years for another baby. A few weeks after we knew of Matthew's pregnancy, I began to bleed. I had episodes throughout his pregnancy of bleeding, abruptions, pre-term contractions. I spent 5 weeks on hospital bedrest. I was given Magnesium Sulfate and Procardia to keep Matthew from coming too early. We had a few scares. And yet, Matthew thrived.

In the middle of July 2007, I began to have more and more placental abruptions. My doctors were torn between keeping Matthew on the inside to bake a little more or bring him into this world with the chance of having medical issues due to his prematurity. But the more and more that I bled, the more and more the doctors came to realize that we had to take our chances and that Matthew would most likely do better to be born early than to risk the chance of another stillbirth due to abruption.

It was so scary. Yes, I was tired of the bedrest. I missed Austin and Riley and Jason. I missed my own bed. Me being in the hospital put a lot of stress on our family and our friends who were helping to take care of the kids. I wanted to be selfish and say "Just get the baby out" but truth be told, I'd rather lay upside down on my head for 5 months if it meant that I would have a healthy baby in the end.

On July 18, 2007, at 36 weeks along, my doctors decided to start the induction of my labor. The first day went slow. They gave me cervadil to soften my cervix and then let me sleep overnight. The "real" induction began on the 19th with pitocin. At a little past 11 pm I began to push. At 11:26, Matthew John entered this world. He was silent and I held my breath. Flashbacks of Ian's birth came to me. The silence after delivery. The pain of knowing my baby wasn't alive. Knowing all the memories we wouldn't be able to share together. No birthday parties, no first Christmases, no first steps, first days of kindergarten, no smiles or hugs or kisses. I began to tear up a bit, reliving all of that pain. I couldn't survive burying another child. I knew I wasn't strong enough.

And then I heard him. Oh the sound of that first cry. It was the most beautiful sound I had ever heard because it meant that we didn't have a repeat of Ian's birth. I began to sob, uncontrollably. The pain of losing Ian combined with the pure joy of having another chance with another son. It was like I literally opened the floodgates and all that emotion just poured out of me. I couldn't control the emotions. I thanked God over and over again for my little miracle. For giving me another baby. For allowing me to once again shower pure, unconditional love on another human being.