Trying to Smile

I remembered Jenna yesterday, but it's no different than today. Today when my heart has been pulled out of my chest and stomped on.

You ask, what happened?

Nothing new. Just life and the reality of babies dying.

It never gets old and it always hurts. I won't ever view pregnancy the same or newborns or the maternity ward or hospitals for that matter. They are building a fancy new hospital seven minutes from where we live right now and the first thought that popped in my head after she died was, I wonder how many babies will die there...

Who have I become???

If you think me cruel or heartless, you caught me on the wrong day. I hope I don't come off that way. But I just need to get this out. This grief is not just tears and cherished memories. For me there is a new way of thinking. And this new way of thinking is usually triggered by raw, agonizing emotions. It's sad. My heart is longing to hold her again. My mind cannot fathom what good could possibly justify her suffering and death. My soul is broken. And what is most alarming is that this is not going to change... this is who I'll forever be.

Permanent scars. Permanent reasons to cry my eyeballs out. Permanent loss. Permanent. I hate that word right now.

One day I want to wake up in a better place and be able to look up into the sky, wonder about her new home and not feel like fate is mocking me. I get to wondering about Heaven and feeling desperate at how little I know about it. I know that if God were to pull back the screen of Heaven and give me a glance that I'd never want to bring her back into this world, and it would calm my restless heart that misses her beyond words. I would see how happy she is. I would understand with my eyes how perfect everything is up there. But since it is faith that has to silence all these emotions, it is an ongoing battle.

This is me and my finite mind at work.

While I miss her terribly, I have to remind myself how much I did enjoy her while she was with us. She fought for her life for 13 days and I got to be by her side. Those 13 days were filled with the most nauseating roller coaster of ups and downs fueled by the ever-changing doctor reports, unstable saturation levels, and pleading for a miracle from Heaven. But they were also filled with a beautiful love that I'd never experienced before. She brought so many people so much closer together. Her life. Her short little life. It never ceases to amaze me how much changed through her life and death. I look back now and remember that I never let myself think she might not make it. I had to believe in her life for her sake. I don't remember being sad over her condition then. I remember being overjoyed at being a mother. Her mother.

This is my attempt to remember my daughter's life. I am trying to smile, on the inside. My joy has been left behind. I think I actually left it in the NICU when she died. I am trying to get it back.

And I get so wrapped up in my loss that I forget what I gained. I gained motherhood. I gained a beautiful baby girl that knows me, even now, as her mother. I gained a broken heart that will forever break for every mother who has ever faced the tragedy of saying goodbye to her child. I gained a firsthand look at what God sacrificed for me when He watched His Son die for me on the cross. I have gained... because of Jenna.

I can name all the whimsical, charming things that I would have rather gained in the little girl she could have been. But I have to stop and realize I have gained, in spite of her death, I have still gained so much.

Pierced & Comforted

Well, at church Sunday night, I was caught off guard. Completely.

Right before our pastor dismissed the service, he announced that there would be a couple dedicating their newborn to the Lord. He reminded us that this would not save the baby's soul but was a demonstration rather of the parents' willingness to give this baby to the Lord. The pastor went on to say, as he usually does, that we appreciate a healthy baby. Healthy baby. He said we don't take that for granted around here.

Boy, was he right.

Healthy baby. Just the idea seemed like an impossibility since our first and only baby wasn't. Then I remembered Jenna. Well actually from the moment he mentioned the dedication I was thinking about her. But when he said healthy baby for some reason I just could not take it.

I really thought I had reached the farthest level of pain, but I hadn't.

There are days that I feel numb, and that bothers me. But then I realize this is a randomized pattern of emotions I just go through. Normal? Not sure yet.

But that is just the way it is. Something like this beautiful dedication was in the past just another routine ceremony I got to witness once in a while. It was especially precious when it was my niece and nephew. But Sunday it hit real close to my heart. I think it actually pierced me that night. I wanted to dedicate my baby in front of the whole church. I wanted God and the whole world to know that we would raise her right. In the Word of God. In a good home. In the house of God. Guilt and a bit of confusion lingered over my mind for a few days that the dedication made me cry in a hurtful way. I woke up three days later breaking through all the emptiness that usually reminds me of my loss each morning. I laid in bed for a while and I was thinking about the dedication. Out of nowhere, I vividly remember something coming to my mind that must have been heavensent. I realized I don't have to dedicate her to the Lord, she is already with Him! Boy that did it for me. It hardly mattered that we did not get to dedicate her anymore.

Surely that was the goodness of God.

God Gave

I was thinking about my Jenna yesterday, crying. I was so upset that God took her from me. He took her, I kept thinking. But then He showed me He gave her eternal life. She would never have to battle whether to get saved or not. She would never have the chance to doubt Christ and what He did for her on the cross. That thrilled my heart. It's like He gave her the shortcut to Heaven.