Dinner with friends

3.12.14

    Wednesday rolled around and I was able to do a little bit of house work before I headed out the door to work. It happened when I was unloading the dishes, and I have no idea what triggered it. I just started crying uncontrollably.
     I missed Kaitlyn.
     It had been a while since I had let myself come apart, but being alone in the house and doing a mindless task seemed to be just the catalyst I needed. I just cried. I mourned for her. I missed her. The thought came across my mind of, "I don't even want this baby, I just want Kaitlyn." and then I immediately felt guilty and ashamed. I didn't know what to do, so I just cried. I begged God to forgive me for those thoughts, because on some level I felt like it was a slap in the face to Him. Here, I had prayed and begged for months for us to get pregnant quickly, and as soon as we did I was being the brat and saying that it wasn't good enough to be pregnant, I had wanted my first born. There are people that struggle for years to get pregnant, and we are fortunate to not be one of those. Yet here I was, being completely ungrateful.
     After I felt like I had cried enough, I sat down to write Kate an email to see if she had an appointment that I could book with her the next week. I felt like I needed to talk to another Mom who had lost and yet carried her second child to understand what I was feeling. She had an appointment the following Tuesday, and I was extremely grateful for that.


     On Wednesday night, the Erin had let us know that she was going to be in town for a few things and she wanted to get together with the Dallas area Hope Moms. This meant a reunion of our group that went to the retreat in early February, and I was so excited! It also marked the first time I had seen Elyse since retreat time. We had texted back and forth and kept up with each other on facebook, but hadn't met face-to-face since Austin.
    I was the first one to arrive at the restaurant in Lewisville, and not 2 minutes after I got there Elyse walked in.
    "Hang on, I've gotta go to the bathroom. This is a long way from Dallas!" she said as she trotted off to the back. We ended up getting assigned a booth in the corner of the restaurant that would hold all 7 of us that had RSVP'ed that we were coming. I had also invited one Hope Mom that hadn't attended the retreat, named Michelle, that Mallie had taken pictures for in November. Michelle had lost her sweet boy Jaxon during birth in downtown Dallas, and I had sent her a hope box as soon as Mallie had gotten me her information. It was the first time I would meet her face-to-face, but we had also emailed back and forth quite a few times as we walked the road of grief together.
     Soon, Elyse came back and found me in the booth checking my phone to make sure no one had texted me for directions. She wiggled into the seat next to me, and we started catching up.
     "I have something to tell you... but I don't know how to and I don't want it to hurt your feelings," I started. She waited patiently as I stared at my hands. "I'm pregnant."
     "Me too!!!" she squealed, giving me a big hug. "Oh my gosh I'm so excited! When are you due?"
      "November 13!" I said, hugely relieved that I had not only not upset her, but that we would get to walk the road of pregnancy after loss together.
      "I'm November 6th! That is too cool!"
       We spent the rest of the time talking about how weird pregnancy after loss is, and how many emotions we had gone through in such a short period of time. Elyse had told me that she didn't have any anxiety over being pregnant, but just that she was blissfully happy that they were pregnant again. I felt that stab of shame over my outburst of crying and thoughts from earlier in the day, but I didn't dare to share them with her.

        Once Erin got there, the 7 of us who had experienced such pain talked about where we were. There was one Mom who had just lost at the beginning of February, but told her story with such grace and strength that I was blown away. Michelle shared her story with Erin, and told Erin how much Hope Mommies had helped her and encouraged her in her grief.
         We also talked about outreach. We talked about getting together with our churches and getting more Hope Boxes for the DFW area. We talked about targeting certain "high volume" accounts to be sure we reached as many moms as possible. We talked about how God was leading each of us into our own little areas of ministry. And at the end of the night, we prayed over Dallas. We prayed for the moms that would need the ministry, and that the hearts of the administrators in the area would be open for our ministry to be in their hospitals. We prayed for the families that would lose their children, and that they would take comfort in the stories and hope of others.