This week I had an appointment with my OB. it was just a normal, every day kind of check up. Touching base with her about how my body is healing, what the next steps are whenever we decide we’re ready to try again, and find a better solution to the anxiety that has been plaguing my days for the last 6 months. I was kind of looking forward to the appointment. It felt like a step towards healing to finally be able to talk with her about trying for another baby. She also has a wonderful way of calming me down and not looking at me as a loss mom first, woman next. She has been a continual blessing to my family during her tenure as my doctor.
As I sat down in that waiting room it hit me. All of those emotions from the last half of my pregnancy with George. All those disappointing appointments. Week after week, scan after scan, more bad news piling up. And it all came rushing up from the deep places I had tucked it away. I sat in that chair, one I had probably sat in 25 times prior, my eyes welled with tears and my heart sank for just a second. It caught me so off guard. Not that I shouldn’t have expected that waiting room to be hard, but I guess since I had been there before I just didn’t expect anything different.
I left that appointment feeling encouraged but it wasn’t without the expense of a higher than normal blood pressure and a few salty tears. I didn’t really have time that day to give it much thought. Life goes on. But as I get a little distance from that day, it’s a pretty good sampling of how the last year has gone. With every good there is a bit of bad. Each emotion is felt with immense weight and never alone. And then life goes on. The good stuff, the hard stuff, the mundane stuff, all is felt and experienced with so much complexity. We met our son which was such a wonderful thing. We introduced Audrey to her sibling. We share stories of his life. We bought a house and (for better or worse) are making memories there, both during the construction and hopefully many, many more once we are living there. We have watched Audrey’s gentle joy become larger than life. We have watched her process the life and death of her brother. We have grown closer as a family and closer to our Sustainer.
So many wonderful things amidst such deep sorrow. That is life after losing our son. It is our story. For God’s glory.