Daily Archives: 9:03 am

Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day

It wasn’t until this morning that I knew it was Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day.

A few years ago, this day wouldn’t have meant much to me.

But in the past few years, I have seen a few friends loose children unexpectedly.
I have seen children die expectedly.
(It hurts me to even write that, because no child should be expecting to die.)
And I have had countless friends who have had miscarriages.
(I’m sure that I knew people who’d miscarried before that, but I just wasn’t as aware.)

Once you have a miscarriage, you are part of a fellowship of women…
One that no one really wants to be a part of,
But from whom you can draw strength and inspiration.
And these people are the ones who understand this(which I recently wrote to a friend via email):

“After my miscarriage, with my next baby I was too scared to be excited.  Too scared to dream.  Too scared to think ahead.  Even after having a happy, healthy baby…this time was the same way.  Miscarriage steals a part of you. The part that lets you hope and dream with reckless abandon.

I was so sick this pregnancy, and although I hated being sick I welcomed it because I knew that meant something was still in there.  And a few weeks ago when I finally stopped throwing up every.single.day, instead of being happy and relieved…I panicked.”

Miscarriage is hard.
Miscarriage is different for everyone.
But here are a few things that I wrote about my miscarriage.
Reading about other people’s experiences helped me tremendously.
And I hope that these posts can help others, too.

So today I remember a host of children…some whose faces were seen, some who faces only live in our minds.
And I pray for those who are knee-deep in the fresh pain of pregnancy loss.
I am praying for you.

Painting and Pumpkins

For the past few weeks, I’ve been working on a big room re-do for the kids which has involved  A LOT of painting.

The kids wanted to help.  They really did.  And I let them paint one little section of the closet.

But then I couldn’t bear to see more paint drip drip drip onto the carpet,

So I decided to buy a white shower curtain and let them paint it.

And I sent them out in the yard with paints and brushes and a shower curtain…

And the weather was perfect

And the sun was shining in all the right places…

And I thought, “Ya know…they’re going to ruin their clothes.  Why don’t we just let them paint in their undies?”

And Marshall looked at me like I was nuts, but he obliged(because he knew the plan was brilliant).

And I took some really great pictures.  Really, really great pictures.

Pictures that I really, really love.  A lot.

And I want to share them with you, but…I just can’t.

It just doesn’t seem right to show them in their undies online.
(Well, baby in diapers isn’t quite the same…)

But they had so much fun and the pictures were so cute!

Here are a few…of, you know, happily painted hands and feet and such…