Fast Forwarding and Rewinding

When Lily was born, when I held her precious tiny body in my arms... she was so silent... so still... my tears spilling out on cheeks that would never feel her own tears.

It's almost like in that moment of reveling in newborn goodness, baby girl sweetness and purity, I could picture Lily as an old woman.

I held her, this being so fresh from God, and in my mind's eye, the movie reel of her life played out... only, it didn't go forward, but backwards. Instead of holding my baby girl dreaming of what will be, I held my baby girl and dreamed of what never will. I ached over the life that wouldn't be lived out. I ached over the childhood lost, the babies and grand-babies of her own that she'd never hold. I saw all these events and memories of the full type of life that only someone elderly could understand. I saw them going backwards, fast forwarding and rewinding at the same time. Erasing what never will be in the first place.

But still my heart and my mind saw the movie of her life play out. My mother heart naturally somehow knew at least to some extent what could have been, what I dreamed would have been. The life she would have treasured even long after I was in the ground.

It reminds me of a poem by Tricia Richards on stillbirth in which one line she writes, "We cannot remove the shroud of death that holds you still."

The shroud of death held her body still in that moment. It holds her body still in this moment nearly 8 years since her birth. It holds what might have been still, frozen on could-have-would-have-should-haves. 💗

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When You Finally See and Hold Your Baby

According to my Facebook Memories, on this date in 2010, I shared that I was "getting more and more tired and uncomfortable with every week." I was 32 weeks gestation.

My friend Bex commented on that post and said, "when you finally hold Lily in your arms you will forget all the discomfort. :) <3"

I responded and told her I was sure I would and how excited I was. I told her I had an appointment that morning and that everything was going well.

Along the same lines, I remember my mom telling me while I was laboring through the night, hours before arriving at the hospital, that I should picture Lily's face through the contractions... the sweet face I'd imagined countless times before. She said that would help me get through the pain, focusing on the beauty to come after the pain of labor and birth.

And it did help. All the physical pain was suddenly erased when my daughter came into this world and I gasped with awe over her beauty and the perfection of every detail of her. 

In birthing her, I was able to do something tangible as her mommy, and that is a gift. The emotional pain of what I was facing for the rest of my life far outweighed the temporary physical pain.

When I finally saw and kissed her sweet face, it was all worth it... all the months of morning sickness, the aches and pains, and stretch marks, and the labor. 

When anticipating birth and holding her for the first time, I never could have imagined what that would entail or that her heart would have ceased. I never imagined those little eyes would never gaze back. 

When you're pregnant, you often hear things along the same lines of "it'll all be worth it when you go home with your precious new baby." But not all of us do. You don't envision as a mother with a healthy baby and pregnancy that the months of nurturing them in the womb and laboring for them to be birthed will result in a tiny coffin and leaving the hospital with less than you came.

Yet that was my reality and as painful as it was and is... Seeing her face was worth it. Holding her was worth it. Visiting a headstone all these years has been worth it. Choosing life is worth it. Loving her is worth it. 💗

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