On August 6th, 2016 my son, James Paul was born with a fatal birth defect. During the time I carried him & the 47 minutes he was here on this earth he changed my life. You can read his story above and follow our journey through infant loss on my blog.
Suddenly, I'm commiserating with Bathsheba. I didn't cheat on my husband & I don't think that God took my son away, but It's been a really hard couple of years. I would be lying if I didn't admit that in some of my darker moments I question if I'm somehow to blame for losing my son.
This Sunday will be James’s first birthday. There will be no smash cake, no adorable photo shoot, no big party to celebrate our baby getting another year older. Just reminders of all of the things we missed out on this year. No first laughs, no sleepless nights because he isn’t feeling well, no tummy time or learning to crawl.
My heart is so heavy. The past few weeks have been full of moments that slam the breath right out of me and drop me to my knees with overwhelming grief. Two weeks ago, in the middle of an ordinary day, something as simple as a promotional mailer set my world in a bit of a tailspin that I haven't pulled out of yet.
Yesterday marked a year since we saw those two pink lines that said we would be parents. This Christmas has been incredibly difficult for Jason and I but it was filled with love and family.
I gritted my teeth as I raised my arms above my head and threw the black trash bag to the ground. I heard the shattering of clay and watched the bag break to release a few larger pieces of the pot. The emotional release brought me to tears. I'd been waiting six weeks to break something.
My heart is simply bursting with gratitude today as I head out to mail these special necklaces to their new homes.
Ecclesiastes 3 has always been somewhat of a touchstone passage for me. When things seem to be crumbling I try to remind myself that it is just a season and things will get better. It can be hard to stay positive when it seems like the troubles keep coming one after another. In fact it becomes incredibly easy to start going backwards and list out every thing that has gone wrong in the past year, two years, even five years.