One Hundred Days

 O    N    E       H    U    N    D    R    E    D       D    A    Y    S 
Three  months   a  week  and  a  day
Fourteen  weeks  and  two  days
Two  thousand  four-hundred  hours
One  hundred  and  forty-four  thousand  minutes
Eight  million  six-hundred  and  forty  thousand  seconds

 I don’t have a plan for what to say in this post. But it’s been one hundred days since we lost our baby and it’s hard for me to wrap my mind around that fact. Last Monday it was the three month “anniversary” which made the whole week sad. But one hundred days just seems like an eternity. Time has inched by, feeling as slow as ever, and it’s also gone way faster than I’d have liked. How is that even possible? It sounds like such an oxymoron.

I’ve never experienced time before like I have in the last one hundred days. Leading up to November 15th, 2015, after I had found out I was pregnant and before we lost the baby, days passed by miserably slow, but that was due to the extreme excitement and joy I had; everyday felt like the anticipation of Christmas Day on Christmas Eve. But Christmas Day never really came.

I loosely keep track of how many weeks pregnant I would be had we not lost the baby. But that’s something I can’t dwell on very often. However I do pay close attention each day to how many days it’s been since we lost our baby. For some reason it feels like I’m honoring her in that way; remembering her sweet little life and exactly how many days it’s been since we lost her, since the last time she was safely inside of her mommy. I have a countdown app on my phone just for that and it’s the only app that I never close. Watching the days creep closer to one hundred has just been hard to believe.

Sundays are still hard for me since the day we lost our baby was on a Sunday. Every Sunday morning as I’m getting ready for church I think back to November 15th and what I was doing at that point. I wasn’t feeling well so I got ready quickly, spent no time on my hair, nibbled on an English muffin and some dry honey nut cheerios, and tried not to worry. As I was driving to church this past Sunday I couldn’t remember if it had been 14 or 15 weeks, so I asked Siri and she told me right away — so much easier than looking in my calendar app and counting back. Such a sad little screenshot:
The past one hundred days have made me realize how impossible it is for people to not talk about pregnancy, babies, and birth. IT IS EVERYWHERE. I’ve found myself in several anxiety-ridden situations where I was terrified someone was about to ask me, “Now do you have any children?” or “When are you and Michael gonna start having kids?!”

I mean, what do I even say to that? I could say I had one and then make the person feel bad for asking. Or I could lie. Thankfully, those questions haven’t been asked yet, but I think if I told someone I didn’t have any children I would feel guilty afterwards.

Seeing all of my pregnant friends is really hard. And right now it seems like  e v e r y o n e  and their best friend is pregnant. An overwhelming thought that occurs to me at least once a day is thinking about all of the babies that are about to be born. When that thought comes, as it always does, all I can do is say “Jesus” repeatedly until his mercy and grace washes over me and takes off the edge.

I consider deleting Facebook more than once a day just to shield myself from the everpresent bump pics, ultrasounds, and announcements. And I hatehatehate that I feel this way. I don’t want to feel envious and I’m constantly praying that I don’t become bitter (so far so good I think). I pray for the Lord to pour in overflowing amounts of love for my friends who are pregnant and for their babies. OF COURSE I love them and their babies, but I want to love them so much that my love for them is not accompanied with any negative feelings.

But it still hurts. So if you could say a prayer for God to give me some extra strength and maybe some extra grace and mercy, too, that would be so beyond appreciated.
A few people shared this post on Facebook over the weekend and I loved it. Pregnancy changes you. Even though my empty arms are aching, I feel so different. I would choose to do it all over again and again even with knowledge of the outcome. Knowing a life is growing inside of you, that another heart is beating within you, is such an amazing feeling and I got to experience that for a short amount of time.

In many ways I feel it has made me a little more serious and “no-nonsense.” I think a large part of it is due to the grief I’m still experiencing, but even though it sounds small, a big change I’ve noticed in my day to day is in how I correspond with people. Not only am I terrible at responding to people because I often lack emotional energy/strength, but when I do (finally) respond I don’t use tons of exclamation points or emojis like I always have. I used to feel like I had to sound super cheerful in text messages to make sure the recipient wouldn’t think I was mad. But people-pleasing zaps my energy.

I feel like that whole example in the paragraph above seems kind of silly, but for some reason, it’s something I’ve noticed and thought about frequently in the last one hundred days.

I feel like I’m rambling now so I’ll wrap this up. I LOVED being pregnant. I had 29 days of joyful pregnant bliss and I long for it again. We can’t wait to be blessed with another child, no matter how long the Lord chooses to bless us with that child on earth, I can’t wait for another. If I had to choose one word to describe how this pregnancy and the loss of our baby has made me feel, it would be thankful. I still feel heartbroken, but I’m so thankful that the amount of love I had (and still have) for a tiny, tiny little baby was so strong that it caused me to feel this much heartbreak.

I carried you every second of your life
and I will love you for every second of mine.
♥