Blessed For Such a Short Time

When asked how many children I have, or when people say, “Is that your second or third child?” my brain becomes instantly confused.  Part of me wants to give the straightforward answer of “I have 3 lovely kids” or “Yes, 3rd time lucky with a girl!” or some such comment with a smile!  In truth, I always think of them in the order they arrived with the 2 beautiful babies I have in heaven, but that always becomes a little too hard to negotiate into a light hearted conversation.  If I don’t mention them however, it seems to almost negate their little lives, so I always remember them and smile, even if I don’t explain the story.

Ray and I decided to let nature take her course right after we were married.  How wonderfully exciting it was too. Each time you took part in the wonderful act of love, there was always a secret longing for that to be the one that would lead to the gift of life!

How could a more incredible miracle happen too! Love, from love itself. 

I had read all of the books saying the average time to fall was something silly like a year or 18 months. Not the news you want, when you feel your life would be made so complete with the addition of little legs in the house. 

After a year, I started to become agitated by yet another month of no show and we started along the bizarre route to fertility checking. Gosh, not an experience I want to go through again I must say, but just as things were getting serious about checking my fertility, low and behold, we fell pregnant. I say we, because it really was a WE.  Ray and I were delirious and only we could truly celebrate the elation of our news, because the clinic stuff is not exactly dinnertime talk with friends!

Ray looked after me wonderfully ~ the early morning sickness knew no timescales with me and I was just sick any old time! We were happy though in the knowledge that all was clearly well and then I got a tummy ache. The tummy ache led to cramp, which led to bleeding. The doctor sent me for an instant scan at the antenatal clinic, where I sat in a wheelchair surrounded by very bumpy ladies. I remember the heartache of being there even now.  The scan showed I had suffered a “complete abortion” and the description to this day chills me. The little life I carried was only little, I grant you that, but it had been part of me and I walked away from the hospital feeling so utterly empty. 

Ray was wonderful, although even he could not find the right words sometimes to ease my pain. I spent a week almost in a complete daze and felt I had no finality to this life-changing event that had so recently rocked our world.

The house was full of flowers from friends who had sent them to wish me better and I felt like I had suffered a death without a funeral.

We decided to say our own goodbyes to this little soul that had graced us with their presence and took a flower each from the ones Ray had bought for me.

We went to the park where we had walked many a mile in our courting days and took our flowers to the river that ran through it. There we stood under the weeping willow and thanked the baby for blessing us with it’s love, kissed the flower and sent it off into the flowing water.  We stood there and watched it as the delicate white leaves drifted off to be at one with the earth. That was our first baby and always will be to me.

Shortly after, I fell again and went on to have an amazingly healthy son, Alex.  Ryan, also another copy of their fantastic dad, followed him. After much deliberation, we decided for a third. 

I always believed in my heart that our first baby must have been a girl. I had a feminine presence and feeling whenever I spoke about the baby and after having 2 boys, just thought that was my fate.

The next pregnancy brought nothing but complete joy to our hearts as we set about the journey I had travelled before.  We were so happy. The boys were just a joy and we wanted to make this our final child, so it was extra special. 

Then as if from nowhere, it all happened again. I started to bleed and my fears were confirmed after an awfully intrusive examination.  But this time, I had retained the baby and needed an operation. 

I remember waiting in line in the ward to go and take my turn on the surgery list and I wrote a letter to the sweet one that was soon to leave me. Within no time at all, I was home and in that complete state of flux once more. Again, the house filled with flowers and we knew what we had to do.  We cut the flowers and took that walk to the river to join our babies in heaven and give us closure.

The strange thing is, the final pregnancy was a real tough decision.  Do we go ahead and risk another loss, or do we try once more to add to our family? We took the gamble and tried once more. 

An incredible baby girl was born on a hot August afternoon and what elation filled our hearts. She has just celebrated her third birthday and I have long closed the book on another pregnancy.

But in our hearts, Ray and I both know, we have 5 children. 3 here and 2 fluffing a little cloud in heaven, waiting to meet us again one day in the future.

Images and Content © Tracey Smith 2003 Writer and Photographerwww.magicoxygen.comBreathing Life Into Words