If I sat down to write a year in review blog it would probably be very short yet it would hold so much. Everything has changed so much and I often catch myself, staring at my husband saying things like "Can you believe that one year ago I was crying over the fact that I had *ruined* Zoe for sleeping on her own" as Zoe now sleeps blissfully happy in her crib.

Looking back through this year it's been such a haze of rapid change. We've only lived in this house 13 months and there are still boxes to unpack. So much has happened, is happening that I've felt a lot of life has been a blur.

This year I hope to be a bit more intentional about my time and to really focus on a deeper understanding and relationship with Jesus. I plan to seek after the joy and peace that come from a closer walk with Him with more fervor than this last year.

Today someone asked me about the benefits of cloth diapers, over disposables. They asked because they knew that I was using cloth now, after 3 babies in disposables.

I gave her all of the environmental/cost/coziness answers. Those answers are all good ones. Keeping dirty diapers out of landfills. Diapering for hundreds of dollars less. Cozy cotton on baby's bum. All good answers.

There was one answer I couldn't quite put into words though. One I have started a million blog posts on, and then left them half finished and unpublished. the answer that I'm going to try to give again.

When I hold Zoe, there is something even more precious in her big blue eyes, something even sweeter in her toothless grin, than with the babies before her. There is a knowledge of how fragile and miraculous her little life is. I want to drink in every second, every act of parenting her. I want to rock her to sleep in my arms and rest her warm cheek against mine, every minute.

The rush of "when will she...?" is replaced by a desperate desire to slow her down. She is my baby. My last baby. The baby born after a baby lost.

When I diaper her in cloth, it's a little more effort. It's a little slower. I wash them, i hang them on a line to dry. I smile with every clothespin because I am savoring a tiny part of her babyness in those moments.

I am taking the part of parenting her that is least precious, and I am making it special.

I never got to diaper Eden. I never had to meet that basic need for her...and that has made me choose to be fully present in that need with Zoe.

So there you go. In many ways I don't even want to post this, because even I think it sounds a little crazy. In other ways, maybe I'm not alone in finding such a simple way to connect with my baby, and someone else out there will read this and think, "Yes. That!"

Tomorrow is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Day, a day that I once knew nothing about and even if I had I wouldn’t have really paid attention.

One of the things I realized in the last few years is that, especially in western culture, we are so silent about death, about grief, and especially so about the grief of lost babies. It’s one of those things that people fear to talk about and so often just don’t acknowledge.


I have been blessed beyond measure that my sweet Eden has been celebrated and talked about and cried over openly. She is not a secret we just never mention. Her photograph hangs on my wall with her brothers and sister and doesn’t cause anyone to wince or become uncomfortable. I think it would actually make my friends and guests more uncomfortable if her picture wasn’t there.


So tomorrow I will light my candle in remembrance of some very special little people whom are greatly missed here on earth. Eden, Nathan, The Twins, Krista’s babies, The Triplets and so many more…

Today there is a sense that there is great expectation about something amazing and heartbreaking...

In reality I have shed several happy tears today. Been frustrated by some people. And had a lovely surprise on my doorstep early this morning...

Last week I received a card from The March Of Dimes because a good friend donated in my Beautiful Daughter's name. Standing at the mailbox I wept happy tears that, even a year later, Eden's life mattered to people who never got a chance to know her. That loving her didn't require actually meeting her. That a short little life could impact and change people.

Mostly I am just happy when she is remembered. Not as a sad footnote, but as a little girl who was celebrated.

Being Eden's mother has changed me in ways I never could have imagined and I am hardly the same person I was a year ago, and I scarcely recognize who I was two years ago.

This past year has been filled with a pain deeper than any I ever believed I could endure. I have watched my children and my husband weep from so deeply I thought they might never stop, I have wondered if I would ever cease to ache.

But in the midst of all of that God has revealed himself to me new, nearly everyday.

I don't know if I will ever understand why God denied the pleas of so many of His children. Why standing and silently saying no fit His plan better. And I believe I will always wonder about that... but still, I know that God is who He says He is. That His plan is perfect and that I have seen what true peace is. That I have lived it, felt it, breathed it.

The enemy has come many times to whisper in my ear about an impotent or uncaring God. He has poured salt in the deep wounds of my grief. He has attempted to shake me free of my faith many times.

And when he has, I have found renewed strength and renewed faith in the utter holiness of Eden's final breath. I can scarcely look back at that time without seeing all of heaven weeping as I handed my daughter into her Father's arms.

I have been through even more trials since I had to submit to the will of God and love Him while his actions hurt. I am in the midst of one even still. But when Satan tries to tempt me into depression and resignation I am empowered in my faith by remembering 36 holy hours that He gave me with my little one.

36 hours in which my baby girl cooed, cried, peed on so many nurses and guests, and proved her full humanness by getting cranky when she was unswaddled or cold. 36 hours in which I got to cuddle and love her. 36 hours that are so removed from everyday that they are almost like a dream, though they are forever etched in my memory.

So today is not a sad day. Today is a day I rejoice that God chose me. Trusted me with a difficult choice.

Today I remember her beautiful bowed lips and her feisty attitude, and celebrate the first birthday of my precious Eden.

I love you sweet girl. My arms ache for you everyday but my heart is happy to have gotten to love you!

Would I be crazy if I said I wanted to run a marathon...or more truthfully finish, even if I'm crawling, a marathon?

I don't enjoy running. I have often said you should really only run if someone is chasing you. I still believe that.

But I have this strange desire to do something really big, and really outside of myself. Something I would need to train for and endure.

I have felt this for a while, but tonight it was an object lesson during bible study...and again the spark.

A quick google just revealed a marathon in a nearby city, the day before Eden's birthday...

Hmmmm?

Blog a day has been very hard for me. I looked at it as a fun and light challenge and still think it can be... I got excited as I randomly had to fit in moments of profundity...but the reality of my emotional state over the last few weeks has made this a really difficult task.

Truth be told, I am hurting. I am sort of tired of being so darn needy, too. I struggle with the perception of being weak...and I know I am, infinitely, weak. I struggle with feeling like I talk about the loss of my daughter too much. Like I'm kind of a one trick pony...

Last night at church we were talking about what Paul meant when he said we should "work out our salvation with fear and trembling." I wanted to cry. I am working this out still. It still stings to read scripture that says "ask and it will e given" because I did ask...and God said no.

I have talked about this before, but everyday I have to look at the reality and admit, in a very un "Christian PC" way that I have suffered the greatest hurt I can ever imagine at the hand of God. He allowed this. He did not bend His will. This was fulfillment of His plan.

I don't believe He "did" this to Eden, to me, to my husband, my other children... but He still allowed it.

So I have to look at this. In all it's utter ugliness and see it for it's reality... and I look at God. I look at Jesus. And in awe and love and unexplainable trust... I stand and worship. I turn my heart to a deeper and more intimate love.

The grief, though, continues.

Oh how I wish my arms didn't ache so badly every. single. day. That I didn't catch my breath at the sight of a little green baby doll. That I didn't see smiling, exhausted, pregnant women and long to be where they were.

A year ago, I was preparing a home for an infant... Tuesday I was planting rosemary in her memory.

Edit: for part two of my breakdown threeforme.blogspot.com

This has been a strange week, a strange month really, so it's been a strange time to be recording so many of my thoughts.

I've been thinking a lot about my family. I have fallen in love and adore my family even more than I did even a year ago. I love them in a way I never knew was possible.

My oldest son amazes me a little more everyday as I see the great character that is developing in him. Just the other night he and I had a conversation that still brings pride filled tears to my eyes...

I casually mentioned my concerns over his growing fascination with the video games he gets to play at church. It's not that I think it's bad but it seems to occupy so many of his thoughts...when he, all on his own, recognized that it might be best to stop playing the games after his class so that he could spend more time focusing on what he had learned so it didn't slip away.

And then my sweet daughter, who unfairly carries the burden of being our only living daughter. She is sassy and difficult but so amazing. She has a will of iron and a love for her family, her God, and her friends that is unmatched. All she wants is to have relationship. She wants to give her whole heart to every friend. She wants to give gifts and give pieces of her self to everyone she loves. And with each piece what she has to give grows even more.

My youngest son is the one who makes everyone smile. He's the one that, even in mischief, brings a smile to everyone around him. Who stands at the door of his Sunday School class calling for Miss Wobin, knowing she'll show up and he can once again tell her about all the cars. The one who, when told he's loved, replys with "That makes me so happy." He sucks the marrow out of life and thinks just being alive is amazing.

And my daughter who has forever changed me but is now in the arms of Jesus. The privilege of being chosen as her mother can't even be put into words. I will forever be grateful...

Here I sit, a mother to four but my last pregnancy turbulent and my last baby at home in heaven rather than in her bassinet next to my bed.

I ask myself almost everyday if that bassinet is meant to stay empty? If this is the end of my birthing career? I honestly can't imagine what the answer might be. How do I even answer that? Do I use logic? Emotion? And who's logic or emotions do I use? If it's mine, which set of facts or feelings do I turn to?

I think this is contributing to some of my sadness. Just not knowing and not knowing how to know.

So I wait on God. I wait and force myself not to answer. I choose to trust, even when it hurts and it's uncomfortable, I am choosing to trust.

For today's blog check Trusting God's Heart...

I didn't say I'd blog here everyday anyway. :)