Every October since 2009, I have taken part in activities for Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Month, including lighting a candle on October 15 for my babies in Heaven. That first year, I was still reeling from the unexpected death of my daughter Naomi in my fourth month of pregnancy earlier that year. I was also pregnant, and as a fellow babyloss mom and I lit our candles, I believed this sad chapter would be just that – a chapter in my life but not a continuing theme.
By the following October, two more babies were added to my count of children in Heaven. The baby I was carrying the previous October had died a few weeks later, and another wee one flew to Heaven in May of 2010. It would be a full year before I would again feel life stirring within me – my son, who was born alive and healthy in 2012. As a family, we attended the Walk to Remember here in Columbia that year. I wrote down the names of my three babies in Heaven, to be read aloud in the ceremony, and once again assumed that my sad chapter was done.
Two years later, in 2014, we were unexpectedly and joyously pregnant – only to lose that baby as well. Four names were read during the Walk to Remember ceremony. By the following year, we had added a fifth – our baby Christmas, who had flown to Heaven in December 2014.
It has been ten Octobers now since I learned that Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month was even a thing. I have two beautiful living children, and my last loss was nearly four years ago. My days are filled with homeschool lessons, ministry, chauffeuring my children around town, and taking care of my family. The casual observer might wonder why October still matters to me as much as it does, and might even think as I once did, that pregnancy loss is a sad chapter in my past, but not a continuing theme.
What I have learned since that first year, however, is that you never stop missing your babies in Heaven, but the way you miss them changes. I don’t miss the babies they were any more, but the children they would be now, and the mom I would have been with them in my life.
Naomi Faith would have turned nine in August. She would be in fourth grade this year. She would be in Foundations and Essentials (our
Classical Conversations homeschool classes) and Explorers (
American Heritage Girls) with her big sister, and in her second year of “Truth in Training” in
Awana. She probably would have had the same tight blond curls as her siblings and would have been an amazing big sister.
Kyria Hope would have turned eight this year. She would have been in third grade and in Foundations, but not yet in Essentials. She would be in her first year of Truth in Training in Awana, and maybe in her last year of Tenderhearts in American Heritage Girls.
Jordan Gabriel would be turning eight this coming February. He would have been in 2nd grade this year, and in Foundations. He would have been in his last year of Sparks in Awana, proudly helping his little brother, they would have been in the
Trail Life scouting program together, and they could have played on the same soccer team this fall.
Hope Promise and
Christmas Joy would both have turned three in 2018 – Hope on our wedding anniversary this year, and Christmas in August. They would have been in preschool, and I would still legitimately belong in the MOPS “mothers of preschoolers” category. Neither of them would be in Foundations yet in Classical Conversations and would be tearing up our home with little kid energy.
Of course, there is no way on Earth that I could have had all of my children at the same time. If Naomi had lived, Kyria would likely not have been conceived. If Jordan had been born in 2011, my living son might not be here today. If Hope had not died, Christmas would not have come along. But in my heart, and in Heaven, they are all mine.
And so while I remember them every day, I especially remember them all in October. I remember carrying them, I remember the moment I said good-bye to each of them, and I remember
all the ways their lives have changed mine and how God has used them to shape me into the woman I am today.
Who are you remembering this October? Feel free to share below!
