Letter to a Child Unborn

Dearest Little One,

It has been a month and a day since that moment that my heart must have stopped beating for what then seemed like an eternity.  I had been happily recounting to the lady in the room about your siblings and how crazy-happy it is at home with all eight of them.  I really think I might have gone on and on telling her about the family if I hadn’t noticed the heavy silence that seemed to grow in weight by the second.  I closed my eyes then in a vain and half-hearted effort to close out what I could sense was happening.

You see, sweet one, this lady in the room could not seem to find a heartbeat.  For you.  It should have been there, quite obvious for her to see.  But it wasn’t.  Neither was it there two and a half weeks later.  In between these two times, I must have cried enough tears to tire me out completely.  But there were always tears just at the surface, ready to fall almost without missing a beat.  A heartbeat.  I missed your heartbeat.

Little tiddlywink, I want you to know that in the short time you were safely alive in my womb, I loved you.  I still do.  And your daddy loved you.  And so did your three sisters and five brothers.  They could not stop talking about how excited they were about you!  (Personally, I think they would have eventually taken bets on whether you would be a boy or a girl, to be honest with you….)  They’re a crazy bunch, your siblings.  I am so happy that you were a part of the family for that time you were here on earth with me.  And of course you still are a part of the family — just apart from us for now.

Sweetness, I want you to know that if you had continued to live and had been born, you would have been welcomed with open arms into a family that loved you from the first moment we knew you were there.  You are not the first that has gone before us.  There are two older siblings of yours that went the same way — early on in their lives in my womb.  They too were anticipated, mourned, prayed for and are still loved.  And your siblings all pray for them still.  They still pray for you.  We all do.

I do not know where you are, wee one, but wherever it is, I know you are in good hands.  I cannot pretend to be happy that you are not with me, but I am happy that God blessed us with you.  And because I trust in His mercy and in His love, I know you are in good hands.  I know that you are not alone, nor are you lonely.  Before I met you, before I loved you, God already did.  A friend told me recently that crying can be good because it empties the tear ducts and allows us to smile even better.  I believe that.  In this my sorrow, I have found a deeper joy because of you.

My dear baby, you have allowed me to share the good news of your anticipated coming to family and friends.  Your presence gave me a chance to be in awe of how wonderfully made the human body is.  The knowledge of your presence has helped to reinforce my commitment to be generous with our Father God.  I faced the temptation of feeling embarrassed that I was expecting again and fought it because I knew that you were a blessing and not a burden.  How could you have ever been a problem to a family whose faith has been tested over and over again in so very many ways?  You were a gift — a sure and real sign of hope! — and we were grateful.

Because of you, my little treasure, I cherish each of your siblings even more.  I look at each of them and am thankful for each little one that has come into our family.  You accomplished and inspired so much good in your short life — thank you!  I look forward to the moment that I can finally hold you in my arms for the first time.  For now, I hold you in each prayer I say.  My heart will skip a beat at the thought of you and you will remind me to be happy.  You remind me of why I am grateful to be a mother.

We won’t say good-bye, small fry.  Until we can be together, we will for now just say good night.

I love you always.

Mom

“For hope to be real, it has to go deeper than the wound and be more substantial than the pain that has caused you to be in that position you are in.  Hope has to be that much broader and that more powerful to be real, because otherwise it is just like a band-aid.”
– Jon Foreman (Switchfoot), interview regarding film “Bella”, DVD (2008).