Thank You

The love and support has been so helpful. We are grateful. So very, very grateful.

I have struggled with the depth of my pain. I have struggled with this grief that leaves me standing in the shower crying, or with tears filling my eyes each time someone says, "I'm so sorry."

It felt wrong to be this sad. Like I didn't have a right to.

But your words of love have showed me that this is real and I am allowed to feel this way. You have helped me grieve and allowed me to cry. I don't have to be strong. And that has been the greatest gift of all.

Each message, the new bag to brighten my day, homemade spaghetti sauce, a chicken dinner, flowers, cards, heirloom tomatoes, a plant to put in the ground in memory of our baby, a note from a stranger who reads this blog and wanted to reach out, your hugs and prayers have all been part of my healing. I have cried over each one. But with thankfulness in my heart for the permission to grieve. The validation that you granted me. And the love you have showed for our family.

Because this is affecting all of us. It is not a private grief. Yesterday James, my thinker, wanted to know where the baby is. He meant the body, not its soul, because we talked about that the first day. He wanted to know the details of what would happen to our baby. Can we bury it? He is so pragmatic. It's all very scientific.

But a little later he asked, "can we give our baby a name so we can write it down and remember it?"

And William. He's been asking me to hold him a lot. But I think he's really holding me. Today he was crying, distraught and I didn't know why.

"What's wrong with me is what's wrong with you," he sobbed.

We are all hurting.

Today has been the worst day. I thought it would get better each day, but it has gotten worse. Maybe at first I was still just so shocked. It came so unexpectedly. Or maybe it is just because I am emotionally exhausted. I have never felt so tired in my life.

It has taken all I've had not to break down constantly in front of the kids today. I felt unstable. It is a new place for me. I have never been like this before. It is hard.

But God reaches us in our most broken moments when we realize there is no way we can do this on our own. He is the God of all comfort. And so it is also the best day. Because I finally let God into this and into my aching heart.

I can't do this by myself and I have been trying to.

11 Corinthians 12:9 "But He said unto me, My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness."

I don't like being weak. In fact, I have a lot of pride in my strength. I can handle things. I like it that way. And so reaching out to people, saying "I need you" has been a very hard thing for me to do.

But I see how beautiful it is. How God has placed each of you in my life to help me find strength, not in myself, but in Him and the love of the people He's placed in my life.

I think about how with our first 3 pregnancies we have waited to tell. Waited for that first heartbeat, just to be sure. It was always at 2 months, never 3, but I switched doctors this time and the appointments got all mixed up. We were just so overjoyed with our surprise that we couldn't keep it to ourselves. If we had, we would have grieved alone.

And I don't how I would have made it through.

So thank you. Thank you again for the love you've shown us. And thank you for teaching me that I can be weak. I can need. I can cry.

And I will be well again.

Tonight my heart is full of something besides sadness.

Thank you.

Greta