“Mommy, what store did you buy me from?”
“Mommy didn’t buy you from a store. God made you.”
“But you took the pieces to God and He built me.”
“That’s right baby. He built you.”
I sat in astonishment at the words my three year old had just uttered. How he came up with this idea, these words, I don’t know. But what I do know is that somehow God had taken the pieces of me…pieces of brokenness, grief, fear, guilt, isolation, and tiny crumbles of hope. He put in me a healing heart with an added glimmer of hope….another beating heart.
It was exactly one year and one month after Kelsey’s death that I discovered that once again, another life was growing inside mine.
On the day we found out he was a boy, I wept. I sat in the passenger seat driving home from the doctor’s office with my very best posture and allowed the tears to fall. Periodically, I rubbed my swollen belly and whispered my apologies for the tears and reassured him that I loved him more than anyone ever could. I didn’t cry because he was a boy. I cried because I missed my little girl. I cried because I was scared another girl would have been seen by some as a replacement. I cried because if she had lived, would he have been formed? And I cried because I loved him and couldn’t bear the thought of another goodbye.
At some point in this journey, I became sick of the tears. Yet, on November 16, 2010, I laid on the operating room table and whispered a prayer begging for more: “Please let him cry.“ A medical assistant heard me and leaned over and quietly assured me, “He’s going to cry.”
And moments later, my ten pound, five ounce rainbow baby entered the world. The tears flowed again, although this time in relief and joy, as I heard his cries. For several minutes, the only sentence my lips could form was, “Thank You, God.” I yelled it, I whispered it, I cried it, “Thank You, God.”
*This post is part of the series, "Kelsey's Story." The series begins with the post titled, "Marge." Thanks for reading.
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