We are 25 weeks pregnant with a healthy baby boy, due
January 6!
People cheer, laugh delightedly, praise God. They say that it’s wonderful
we’re having a boy, instead of a girl, after…well, you know. Thoughtful, routine questions ensue, about if we
feel nervous about having a boy (answer: it takes a lot to make me feel nervous
these days), about his name (it’s a secret that even we don’t know the answer
to yet), about how Natalie feels (more on that later).
Whenever I share with people this truly wonderful news, I
feel quite a bit of trepidation. Something, or rather someone, is usually left
out of the conversation, despite the fact that she never leaves my mind. Rightfully or not, I often feel like
people think this new baby is a solution to our grief. This is why I’ve shied away from sharing
a pregnancy announcement on social media: I’m not quite sure how to fully
capture how I feel.
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| A sticker that will always be on our refrigerator |
At church a few weeks ago, we listened to a young pastor’s
wife tell of her family’s journey with Huntingon’s disease. She had lost three family members to
the disease, including her mother, and she was about to lose her sister. She told her own fear of the disease, and the resulting trepidation she had about having children or even marrying. She then related that when she became
brave enough to face genetic testing, she learned that she was not a carrier for
the gene and will never have the disease.
The auditorium erupted into cheers and applause. It actually made me viscerally
angry. Did they not just hear the
rest of what she’d said? Did they
not see her tears? Her sister is still about to die. Her journey
has been long and hard. She does
not know who else she might lose or when.
I looked at Taylor mournfully, with tears running down my face, while he
nodded and said, “They just don’t understand.”
I do understand that there are definite limits to how people can
interact in a setting like an auditorium. I found myself wishing that we as the body of Christ had
other ways to express feelings. I
thought of the applause of people with hearing loss, where they rotate their
hands in the air: that seemed more respectful. I thought of the word “Shalom,” and wished that churchgoers
could instead express “Peace be with you,” instead of clapping.
People want a happy ending, so we clap when we hear what
sounds like resolution. But the
only true and real happy ending is eternity with Jesus. Some of us who have lived more privileged
lives (myself included) have trouble with this idea. It seems so fatalistic. We [white Christians in the United States] have come to see
God’s provision in our lives as normal.
But ask a Christian in Iraq, or a refugee in Africa, or a person who is African-American in Ferguson where their hope lies. Things don’t seem to be getting too
much better on earth. When some of
God’s blessings - of health or job or love or babies - are absent, we question Him.
In actuality, it was our expectations
that were skewed: we forgot that God has given us everything we have, and each provision
– of which we have so many – is a
gift.
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| One of my favorite pictures of Julia in her first days of life |
Julia, and Bryer and Mercy and Archer and Ethan and Hope and
Cam and Ellis, are all BETTER off than any of us are. But we miss them so very deeply, and that keeps our focus
where it should be: on heaven and on Jesus, and not on the cares of this
world. Does it keep me perfectly
heavenly-minded? No. But Julia is my constant reminder to
turn my eyes to Him, even as I continue to figure out how to be in this world
when all I really want is see her again.
So how does one respond to someone who is grieving? (Grief, as far as I can tell, has no definite end.) Natalie’s recent innocent responses to
our pregnancy have been instructive. It wasn’t until after baby boy’s anatomically perfect 18-week
ultrasound that we felt we could talk with her about her new brother. We knew that Natalie would have
questions, so we wanted to wait until we could offer at least some hope. Nevertheless, we live with the question
of if we might lose him unexpectedly; it has happened to us before.
Natalie, who is three years old, is now very aware that she
is having a baby brother. Though
she seems to have in many ways forgotten about Julia (a fact for which I am
grateful, as I did not want her to experience anxiety about loss at such a
young age), she knows intellectually about her, because she sees her picture
and hears us talk about Julia.
There have now been four instances where, when her “new baby brother” is
brought up, Natalie has said, “I love babies! I’m excited to have a baby brother! And then we are going to get Julia
back!”
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| A few weeks before Julia died |
The first time that she said this, I went into the bathroom
and cried. I’m not sure where she
came up with this idea, but it is illustrative of how much toddlers’ minds work, even when they can't put it into words. My guess is she deduced that, just as she can’t see
baby brother, she also can’t see her sister, whom she knows is in heaven; so
they must be in the same place and will both be part of our lives eventually. We have talked each time about how
Julia is in heaven and we won’t get to see her until we go to heaven (which
triggered many painfully wonderful questions about how we get to heaven and
where is heaven and when we will go there and will it be via airplane), and
about how baby brother won’t replace Julia but will be a gift to us
nonetheless.
Natalie is so joyful about the idea that baby brother’s
arrival accompanies getting Julia back.
She isn’t afraid to remember Julia in the same breath that she rejoices
in the news that she is getting a brother. She is innocently unaware that talking about Julia could be
painful; she does not realize that the pain is something Taylor and I rejoice
in because we know that Julia’s life is not forgotten. And when Natalie doesn’t understand us,
she isn’t afraid to ask (A LOT) of questions about where Julia is, and Jesus,
and heaven. Each of these
sentiments from Natalie would be and are equally encouraging from friends and
loved ones.
We are so grateful for the kindness and joy that people
display when we inform them of our pregnancy. However, though it rarely seems to come in the same
conversation, we also can’t help but remember how very recently we were
pregnant with our second precious child.
Be joyful with us, but know that as much as our pregnancy seems like a
resolution to the desolation of grief, to us this good gift of a baby boy is
simply part of our story, which God continues to write.
