Reflecting

            Many people happily uttered a “Happy First Mother’s Day!” to me today.  It was sweet and made me beam with joy at my still, very new to me, son.  However, it was technically not my first Mother’s Day.  On Mother’s Day last year, Greg and I looked excitedly on our first positive pregnancy test.  If you do the math, you will realize that that was too long ago to be our sweet Samuel.  Five days later, on May 13^th, we lost our first baby.

Not many people know about this.  In part because we hadn’t even shared the news of our pregnancy yet and thus didn’t share with many the news of our loss.  It was really hard to know how to grieve.  The miscarriage started on a Friday and I recall Greg and I lounging around the house all day Saturday and trying to comfort each other.  We went to a friend’s birthday party that evening and shared our sadness with some of our closest friends.  We still struggle to know how to honor this life that we didn’t even get to know.

Approximately 1 in 4 births ends in a miscarriage.  I know so many women who have lost a child either in the womb or far too soon outside of the womb.  If you are reading this, know that I am thinking of you and saying a prayer for you on this bittersweet day.