Merge

Lately it has crossed my mind that as this baby gets ever closer to arriving and as it gets close to that one year anniversary of losing Joshua that it might be time for me to "merge" Joshua's blog into our family blog.

I needed a separate place to put down all of thoughts and feelings for a while, I'm not sure if I can explain why, but it somehow seems more "right" to stop posting these parts of life in separate places. I'll see if I still feel that way in a couple of weeks. For now, I am remembering this time last year as the last few days that he was still a part of me. At the same time I am looking forward to this Saturday as the day we will welcome a baby girl into the world. The weird intertwining of it all is what makes it seem like I should somehow find a way to put all of these parts of me together in one place; spiritually, emotionally, and in the case of these blogs: physically. Again, we'll see if that feeling persists in the days and weeks to come.

No matter what I decide to do, this story is far from over! God is working in and through us and the blessings and tragedies that he allows to come our way.

Grace and peace.

Coping

Whenever I see articles in magazines or online about miscarriage and stillbirth I am, understandably, drawn to them. I want to see what other peoples' experiences have been and what are they trying to tell other people through their writing. As I read a magazine article in some rare quiet time yesterday, I knew I wanted to share it with others and I found it online today.

The article really took me off guard a bit by how close to home it hit. Today it's been 11 months to the day since we found out at that awful ultrasound appointment that Joshua had died. I can say that without crying uncontrollably now and I often go weeks at a time without getting overly emotional about our loss, so I guess the depths at which this article struck me caught me off guard because I have felt so "together" in so many ways in the past couple of months. Remembering is good though and I need to be brought back into the reality of loss without losing sight of our impending joy. The intermingling of the two is where I am caught right now and I think reading this article made me think more seriously about the coming days where that will be become more and more "real". In all likelihood, our baby girl will be born just days before the one year anniversary of the day Joshua was stillborn.

Here's the link to the article.
And here's a link to a related piece in the same magazine.