I thought that I would feel sad today. But I don't. Granted, I have only been awake for about 20 minutes. It feels weird to not be sad right away. But that is how I know God is with me. I have been praying to have strength today. Today, August 15, 2015 is the due date of our baby girl. I can remember back in December, today felt like an eternity away. And here it is. Another due date will come and go and our arms are still empty. But our hearts are not. That is God's work. We have each other and we have a niece and 2 nephews (well, it feels more like 4 nephews because my 2 older cousins both have boys and I think of them as my nephews rather than my 2nd cousins) and we have confidence that one day, we too will have a baby/babies of our own

After we lost our 3rd pregnancy, I would lie awake in bed for hours beyond hours, searching the internet for some sort of story or quote or ANYTHING that may bring me some comfort. Some peace. Some feeling to know that we are not alone in this horrible journey of miscarriages/infertility/infant loss. Social media can be so horrible, but it can be so helpful too. I found 3 girls on instagram who were either suffering from loss or going through IVF that I began following. These girls have NO IDEA how much their posts have helped me to not feel alone.  Have helped me to feel connected to them in a way that only someone who is going through the same thing can relate to, but still, they have no idea I feel connected with them. I feel their joy and their pain through their posts. That is one reason I wanted to start a blog. If just 1 person reads this and they can feel comfort and not alone, then my mission is accomplished

One night, not too long after we lost our last pregnancy, I reallllly could not sleep. My heart literally hurt. My eyes would not stop producing tears. My brain would not turn off. I searched all over the internet and finally I found this poem. I can't even tell you the amount of comfort I found in this poem. It made me feel like our baby girl really was okay and really was with me. Ever since my grandfather (our beloved Coy) died 5 years ago, I have taken on this very child-like image of Heaven in my head. When Kip's grandfather, Pop-B died, I saw them sitting together, in Heaven, fishing. They both loved to fish. Funny insert- our Coy loved to fish with a beer in his hand, Pop-B would fish with a tie on. Anyways, after we lost our first pregnancy, I envisioned Coy rocking our baby in Heaven [he loved to rock a baby, he talked the nurses in the nursery into letting him rock me at the hospital when I was born] This gave me peace. Then, when we lost our second pregnancy, I envisioned Coy and Kip's grandparents (Pop-B, Nannie and Pop-Pop) all fighting over our angel baby and so they then had another one to share. After our third loss, I told them no more! They were going to have to learn how to share because we were not giving them anymore of our babies to each be able to have one to hold. This may make me sound crazy, I talked to my grief counselor about this. Maybe she was being nice, but she told me it was okay. Whatever made me feel at peace. When I think about our angel babies, for some reason, I can only see an image of our first one. And the weird thing is, I see the image of about a 5 year old. A 5 year old little girl, a white dress to her ankles and long blond curly hair. We only know for sure that our last angel baby was a girl. I felt like the first 2 were as well, but I also thought our last one was a boy until we were told she was a girl. So, maybe my intuition isn't spot on. But, I think my brain just allows me these images to feel at peace. I did have a dying patient one day who told me that he saw something and he had to tell me. He held my hand and said he saw 2 sisters, they looked just like me and he said he had to hold them (this was before our third pregnancy) All I could do was hold his hand. I couldn't speak because the lump in my throat was too large to allow me any words

So on this day, we will try and look forward and not backwards. We will try and find joy and not be sad. We praise God at what is to come and not what we have lost. We plan on being outside today. And when that gentle breeze blows, we will know that our baby girl will be planting a kiss on our nose

Okay. Now I'm crying.