Conflict...

I've had these thoughts rummaging around in my head for a bit now...just not sure how to voice them, and still not so sure--they are very jumbled thoughts.

We are 18 days and some hours from Luke's birthday. I can't even describe the joy and excitement I am feeling in anticipation.

Or the fear.

Or the anxiety.

Or the conflict.

So many people have told me that they guessed this pregnancy has draaaaaaaaaaaagggged for me, but for them, it's flown by.

In reality, it's not dragged for me at all. Well, in the last week and a half it has, but mostly, it's flown.

It's flown because I just cannot fathom how over a year has come between me and Matthew. I told Dr. Polko the other day that it might have dragged if it was a regular pregnancy where I wasn't worried about too much other than the 'normal' stuff...but trying to survive each day and then realizing how quickly those survived days have accumulated into more than a year just overwhelms me and sort of reminds me of the first days when I was just reminding myself to breathe.

I still have to do that sometimes.

Days like today remind me of then...cold and snowy...wondering how I'd make it through the next half hour without breaking down in tears and trying to haphazardly get things 'ready' for Christmas. Like then, I don't feel up to Christmas cards or letters this year. Pretty sure everyone on my list has a decent idea of how our year has been, and we just have so much going on right now that I'm pulling the pregnancy card and combining it with the grieving card and just not doing much more than the bare minimum of things needing to be done.

It's so hard to come to the realization that you've already had the best day you will ever have. By the time you were 36. I am sure some will find that a dramatic statement, and maybe feel that once again, I'm not giving enough credit to Luke and the joy he will bring because I am too saddened by the aching in my heart for my sweet Matthew.

Let them. I don't care. Walk in my shoes and then judge me.

Regardless of how dramatic the statement, it's true. I will have, God willing, many, many more wonderful and amazing days. I have had wonderful and amazing and miraculous days since Matthew died.

But the best one...the one where I don't know what it's like to own the 'rights' to a piece of property that contains my baby son's remains...that's already happened.

So, while I have just been extremely thankful for so much lately...I'm still struggling with the reconciliation of what's been lost and will never be again.

And I've started to get really, really aggravated with people who think another baby 'fixes' things. Is it just me, or does anyone ever pay attention to hearing about a woman who has lost a baby and then someone asking "Well, are they going to try again?"

Like that will fix it? Or, "She lost a baby a few months ago, but they plan to try again."

To me, 'trying again' implies failing at something and planning to be successful at it by attempting the same thing.

Like I got pregnant, but he died. Try again.

Like Matthew was born, but he died. Try again.

Like Matthew dying can be fixed with Luke living.

I just feel like whenever anyone is talking about a woman who has lost a baby, the subject of having another child ALWAYS comes up. I'm not sure why, because if a different family member or even friend were to pass, it would SO NOT BE APPROPRIATE to say, "Well, is he going to go get another wife?" "Are they going to try and find a new grandma?" "Well, when's she going to start looking for a new best friend?"

PEOPLE ARE NOT REPLACEABLE.

Of course LOTS of women who lose babies decide to get pregnant again and have another child. NOT TO REPLACE THE ONE THEY LOST.

Because pregnancy is amazing. Because one MISSES feeling the joy of little kicks and little jabs. Because it's just a miraculous process.

Or, because one wants to be a parent to a LIVING child. Don't doubt she isn't a parent. She just wants to parent a living child or children too.

The automaticity of questioning, "Are they going to try again?" after losing a child just bothers me. When the baby LIVES, no one immediately asks, "Are they going to have another?"

So why is it ok when the baby dies? I just don't think it is.

While there is NO doubt that Luke has brought such a tremendous amount of joy into our lives, it has in no way lessened the heartache or the loss I feel with Matthew being gone.

Those feelings, while diametrically opposed, absolutely can coexist. I'm proof, and I know a lot of other people are too.

As I said, very conflicting.

I read something a few days ago that was just so real to me. Mostly because I have really been dealing with the hard facts that come with Luke's sweet little life...while I will ALWAYS be able to say without a doubt that his life is PURPOSED and would not be in existence without the hand of God, that's something also that is difficult for me to reconcile.

We would NOT have done IVF if Matthew had lived.

We'd have transferred our little Yellow Fish and that would have been that, whichever way it turned out. And that little Yellow was not Luke and never would have been.

Those are just the facts.

So reading what I did was comforting. It was a viewpoint on Paul when he wrote that he was, "confident of this, that He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus." Phillipians 1:6

The viewpoint was that the good work continued until the day of Christ.

Not until death.

In fact, this viewpoint argued, sometimes the purposes of God don't even get started until our deaths.

Which made me wonder about what more purpose Matthew's little life has...not IF there is more, but WHAT.

There's more. I feel it. I know it. I'm thankful for it.