The Lost Boys

Last September I took Juliana to her homeschool co-op, and since Holt didn't have a class until 11:00, he came with me and Carolina to my appointment with the midwife. I had promised him that morning that he would get to hear the baby's heartbeat. When she couldn't find it after a few attempts, she reassured me that it must have been the position he was in. She sent us out into the inner waiting room until the sonographer could squeeze us in just to "make sure" everything was fine.

We all know how this story ends. But I was thinking about this tonight and I don't want to forget, and I wonder if it's just by remembering all the pain that I keep them alive.

I was shocked. I do remember that. I really thought I would never relive that moment from so many years ago. Didn't think lightning struck the same place twice. It does. Even three times.

I remember her giving me instructions on checking into the hospital for my induction while I was still laying there on that table. I remember looking over at Holt and trying to hold it together. I did. Right up until I got in the car and I called Birch and monsters of grief erupted from inside me. And somehow I remember seeing him in the rearview mirror and realizing that nothing seemed out of the ordinary to him. He didn't seem at all fazed by what was happening in the front seat. I'm really not a crazy woman on a regular basis. Somehow he was protected from all that.

As I pulled out of the parking space, his sweet little voice whined, "But, Mama, you said I would get to hear the heartbeat today."

Flashforward to March. Leading up to this exact time I had lost Crawford, I remembered how I felt carrying Juliana after I lost our first baby. I remember the relief that flooded after I passed that mark where I had lost her. I felt that this baby would be like Juliana, the one that made it to remember and honor the one that didn't.

But on a Sunday morning, I woke up and knew he was gone. I can't explain it, but I did. That Sunday had the distinction of the only time we've seen snow in Georgia since we've moved back. We went to a Sovereign Grace church that Birch had been wanting to visit. I lifted my hands to Jesus during that worship service and could not stop the stream of tears that were continually coursing down my face. I was more like Birch than Birch himself. Juliana kept holding my hand and squeezing.

I just knew.

I had an appointment for Tuesday. It was the exact gestation of the appointment I learned Crawford was gone. And Anna, for that matter.

I spent Monday cleaning my house. I knew my mom and dad would be getting a call to come care for our kids while we went to the hospital for my induction. I had baby coupons for a friend that I took by her house because I knew I wouldn't do it after.

That morning I talked to God in the shower while inspecting my belly, searching for signs of life and added roundness. I pleaded that if I learned that day that he was still alive, that I would always know what a miracle He had performed for me, that all of his days I would know that God had bestowed upon him life.

Birch went with me this time. This semester Holt had an earlier class so it was just the three of us. When my doctor (cue the music) couldn't find his heartbeat, he said he'd get the sonographer just to "make sure everything was fine." And I'll never forget (this is the part worth remembering), Carolina got off her daddy's lap, walked over to me, and without saying a word, handed me her teddy bear. Birch said that was the moment he knew.

Since we hadn't told Holt or Carolina that we were expecting again, we weren't sure how much she had picked up on that day. For for a while after, she would talk about the baby that had died, this second lost one.

It's so easy for me to confuse these memories. With Teddy, I didn't want anyone to know. We were unlisted at the hospital. When I checked into the maternity floor, the head nurse, who was apparently expecting someone else, said, "You can't be so-and-so, you don't look ready to deliver a baby." Ooof.

This blog is my therapist and my bandaid. All of this I've written is really just self-indulgent wound-licking. But it's also part of my family history, the ugly side. And, weird as it sounds, I don't want to lose it or to forget. Half my children live with Jesus. To them, this: I remember.