My second child

Five years ago this week we "missed out on a baby". (Blue's term)

We had planned to expand our family. Mr Fixit had a steady job, I was ready to be a stay at home mom, we had a healthy 2 year old boy and we were looking for our first house so we could be closer to Mr Fixit's work. It was time.

The pregnancy although short was by far my hardest and when it came to an end at 9 weeks we were all devastated. I took a week off of work to recover and grieve. A life we planned, prayed for and dreamed of was gone. I went to be with my mom and closer to Mr Fixit. Even in loss and sadness God blessed us. While I was off work, a house went on the market that our realtor said we HAD to see. I went, later returning with my husband and father and it ended up being the home we would live in for the next few years The home where I would give birth to my next two children. A home that was a gathering place for my family of origin to celebrate birthdays, Christmases, Sabbaths and each other. A few months later we were expecting a baby that we now know as Pink.

Mr Fixit and I don't talk about the baby we "missed out on" very often but we both thought that baby was a girl. She has a name and she was my second child. To honor that life we now sponsor a little girl that was born September 2008, the month our baby was due. She is a sweet 4 year old who lives in Ghana. I treasure every letter and picture she sends me.

I'm so thankful for that life we never knew and even the loss. I'm grateful for the home we quickly outgrew. I'm thankful for Pink. I'm thankful for the empathy I can feel when other women have a miscarriage. We don't forget those babies we "miss out on", but we carry on silently thinking about what might have been, of due dates that came and went, miscarriage dates and blue eyes we never looked into. Statistics say that 1 in 4 pregnancies end in loss and this was true in my case.