Feb 10, 2010
Why I Didn’t Blog My Pregnancy: Time was slipping away.
Last week I wrote about the fear that kept me from blogging about being pregnant. This is another post written during my post-Felicity pregnancy, the one that brought the blessed arrival of Morrow. Morrow is now 17-months-old. So this post is old.
The first reason was fear; the second reason I didn’t post about my pregancy was time.
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Aside from the fear of telling people about our upcoming arrival, I also had a deep longing during this unique season to focus on my daughter.
From the time this pregnancy started, I’ve felt this desire to protect her place in my life and heart, not ever wanting to feel like I was trying to replace her.
I’ve also known that these months where I could focus my energies more on her and her memory were limited. Especially as we got closer to having our second son, I kind of wished that I could be pregnant longer, just so I could keep focusing on Felicity.
I knew that the instant he arrived, my affections and heart would be different, because I would have so much love for him. But what would happen to the feelings I still want to have for Felicity? Will there be room enough for all of them? I almost felt like her territory was being encroached upon. Not that this would be the fault of our next child AT ALL; I just felt like her little spot in my life would get even smaller. And as her mother, I dreaded that.
I never, ever want to leave her behind. And in some ways, I know I won’t. But in other ways it’s inevitable that our life will move on. And I’ve wanted to hope so badly that it will be good when it did.
I just finished an excellent book by Jerry Sittser called A Grace Disguised. A dear sister gave it to me. Her full-term daughter Addie died due to complications during birth just over a year ago. Anyway, if you have ever experienced any kind of loss, this is an excellent book. One of the closing statements really shed light on what I just described.
The accident remains now, as it always has been, a horrible experience that did great damage to us and to so many others. It was and will remain a very bad chapter. But the whole of my life is becoming what appears to be a very good book.
Since I’m writing this before the arrival of this child, I don’t know how all that is going to shake out. I suppose you’ll hear more about it in the coming months. I’m thankful for the book that God is writing. I never thought it would include a chapter like Felicity’s, but it has. By no means is the chapter finished, but now there is another chapter called “Morrow.”
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Reading this post again after so much time has passed is very interesting. I thought that having another child would be so healing for me. And ultimately, it was. But I was expecting it to be healing in the short run, too, and it wasn’t. In reality, having another child sent me into a new wave of grief after his birth.
It was after his birth that I finally came to terms with my depression and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). It was after his birth that I got the most counseling (professional and non-professional). His birth didn’t remove me from the pain of losing Felicity, it blew the lid off of it.
I thought I was focusing on Felicity in the year after her death when I was pregnant with Morrow. Looking back on it, what I can remember at least, I was still in shock. I was pregnant (And happy to be!) 3 months after her death, but it caused me to focus on the pregnancy and what was ahead more than focusing on healing from the wounds of the past. So much so that when we got through the pregnancy with the hoped-for result (a living baby), all the pain of the pregnancy with the unhoped-for result forced its way to the top.
And that had to happen. I had to come to terms with the deep pain and loss. And I did that with a new baby at my breast.
In some ways, he saved my life. He ushered me into the darkest, most painful places I’ve ever been, where I wrestled and struggled and thought for sure I would die. He was my constant companion through those dark, dark days—grunting, smiling, filling his diaper. It was like his presence and the regularity of his need for me kept me alive, kept me waking up every morning, forced me to go to my counseling appointments (since I only had a small window until he’d need me again), and gave me a reason to want to get to the other side.
He was God’s little catalyst for my healing, ultimately.

So there I was, my whole pregnancy with Morrow, worrying about having enough time to grieve. Turns out, God had hardly begun the mega-process I was in. He gave me just the right time, with just the right people, and one very special baby who remained a mystery to all of you while God knit him together.

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