I need some prayers. My “sweet release” is in serious jeopardy. The baby struggles are back and in full force. I got AF today and it was completely expected, so it seemed nothing out of the ordinary. I’ve been busy with life and not focused on babies at all. Quite the opposite, in fact, since my mom has been staying with me for the last 3 weeks and I’ve managed to put on 2 really fun birthday parties for my little girl first, who turned 3, and next my second son, who just turned 6. Life has been a bit more chaotic than usual, but the baby desire has been the last thing on my mind. Then it hit me this afternoon after mom left…hit me hard. I’m soooooo sad.

After spending some time trying to nap but only getting consumed by my thoughts I have come to some realizations as to why I am experiencing this depression right now. Today is November 2. It came to me today that last year on this day my husband and I were reeling with excitement, joy and a bit of nervousness over a very much unexpected surprise…a positive pregnancy test! Oh, we were so shocked and thrilled. We had lost a baby several months earlier and had just lived through the due date of Baby Erin when 3 weeks later we found that we were getting our second chance. We just knew that this time it was going to be different. We even felt in our spirits that the LORD was telling us that this baby wasn’t going to be the last and we laughed with one another about how crazy it all was that we, of all people, were going to have a great big family and how even crazier it was that we were so happy with that! We even told the grandparents our feelings about baby #4 not being the last when we gave them the jaw-dropping news later on this week (a year ago). Thanksgiving was so fun, sitting around the table, knowing that next year we’d have to make a new spot. Christmas planning and shopping got even more interesting as we looked to this year and how many more presents we would be buying. Life had that incredible hope and possibility that comes so purely in those days of carrying a child within. It’s simply magical.

Now, here I sit a year later with my children another year older and without that cuddly little 3 month old on my lap. There will be no other spot around the Thanksgiving table and there will not be another stocking hanging from the mantle. On December 13, the dream was shattered and all went back to the way it was before. I was wrong to believe that my healing was complete. The brisk air and the beautiful fall leaves, the children’s birthdays and the coming of the holidays are all bringing back the pain. It’s almost too much to bear.

One thing we had right a year ago. Baby Liam was not going to be our last, after all. I have yet another due date looming before me in a couple of weeks. Instead of preparing for Baby Leah’s birth , though, I’m sitting here writing about how bad it all hurts and falling back into the questions that rob me of my release. I just want it all back.

I know that I need to go spend some time with my Heavenly Father, but I do ask for your prayers. I know that this will pass, but for now it is hard and it hurts and I’m not feeling very strong. I certainly don’t want to sit around wasting time on self-pity. I have so much to be grateful for…I really do…and I know that. Losing a baby, no matter how early on or even after having 10 other children is so devastating. Any of you that have gone through it knows that. I am so thankful to have the 3 children that I do but I still long for the 3 that I don’t…that I never even got to hold or whisper to them that I love them. My heart is broken and I wonder if it will ever truly heal. So please, if you would, say a prayer for me that I will once again regain the strength to persevere and stay in that place of assurance of God’s great love and plan for me and for my family and that I would not be consumed by the ache of my heart. I don’t like feeling this way and I’m ready to leave it behind.