Merry Christmas?

It’s Christmas, a time to be merry, happy and enjoy time with family. With 3 young children, it is all of those things but it is also empty, incomplete and tinged with sadness. We have 3 children, but we should have 4. All of our children have had a first Christmas, except Beatrice. Her first Christmas never came, our first Christmas without her.

(my own painting)

I was surprised to be expecting again. I honestly did not know how I would cope with 3 children in nappies, a newborn baby, an almost 2 year old and a 4.5 yr old with special needs plus a 6yr old when my baby should have been born. When I told my husband that I had done 3 pregnancy tests and they were all positive, we were both in shock but we knew that we would get through somehow. We chose to embrace this little life growing inside of me; the love that we have for each other had made her and God had chosen her life. We clung onto that.

We didn’t exactly expect that coping and ‘managing somehow’ would mean coping with loss and grief. I was due to have my anomoly scan at 23 weeks. In short, when we got there we discovered that our baby was tiny and that there was no heart beat. A few symptoms had made me wonder if I may have lost the baby but it wasn’t something that I’d dared admit, so even though I think I may have known, it was still a shock.

I gave birth to her a few days later and we spent several hours with her, taking many photos and trying to treasure the few moments holding her knowing that we wouldn’t hold her again until we reached heaven.

My husband was able to take a few weeks off work, thanks to his work’s generosity. However, looking back, I really don’t feel that it was long enough to fully grieve and look after the children. I felt like I needed to pull myself together and try to keep going for the sake of my children.

Fast forward to Christmas, six months on…how on earth do we celebrate her short life without upsetting my children all over again? I wouldn’t have really bought many presents for such a small baby, maybe I should have bought a 1st Christmas babygrow to put in her memory box but it feels like such a waste to buy something that’ll never be worn. A friend made me a tree decoration which was lovely but I’m still looking for a pretty bauble for the tree each year. It’s seems I’m a little fussy; I want something with a bee on it (Beatrice=Bea=a bee) but I’m not keen on the little babies with wings on. It’s fine for others, just not for me. I think maybe I need to go to a ceramic painting place and paint my own 😉

I truly am thankful for the life that she had with us. I feel quite honoured that her whole life was protected by me and that hopefully she only felt love (despite those first few days of shock). I’m thankful that God has held us in His faithfulness. There are some verses that I have treasured in my heart, which really have carried me through this time and have strengthened us.

Does that mean that the sadness isn’t there? Does that mean that I regularly feel I have to squash it down? Are there frustrations along the way that feel like salt on an open wound? Yes, yes and yes. Sometimes everywhere I look is a pregnant belly or a newborn baby. Strangely sometimes I cope with it and other times it totally unravels me. At times I can cope with looking at a baby, yet other times the anticipation of knowing a friend or family member is due to have a baby and I wonder how on earth I am going to cope with it. I sometimes worry that I won’t be able to control my tears and people will think that I’m being rude. I really hope that they see that a person can be full of joy for someone else but it is also painful due to the brokenness that a mother (and father)’s heart is nursing.

So yes, Christmas has been overall pleasant, happy, merry and I’ve enjoyed family time but would I rather be sleep deprived because I’ve been up all night nursing, changing nappies and cuddling a 12 week old baby? Heck yes!

ps, my aim for these posts is not to wallow in self pity but to allow a chance to reflect, grieve, release all of my feelings and in turn hopefully encourage another parent who may be going through the same. I sincerely hope that one day I will see why God allowed this to happen to us, even if I can’t see through the mist right now.