Oh how the heart can break....

We recently went through another miscarriage... My heart aches at the knowledge that we lost another baby. It's not bad enough that we have to go through the loss, but enduring the comments sometimes cause as much pain as the loss itself.

On a baby board I have been on for many years, as many, many people I consider friends were wishing us well and sending prayers and positive thoughts as we waited for the results of the blood work. But then a comment was made by a woman who claims she had been on the board before saying that it isn't prudent for people to have so many children. Even going so far as to suggest that there are others that struggle with infertility and that perhaps some of us are selfishly taking up all of the unborn children so that others have to do without. She went on to tell me that Heavenly Father would never willingly burden a woman by expecting her to have 15, 16 or more children. Or perhaps this is Heavenly Father's way of saying no more.

Interestingly enough, I spoke to a doctor about that very thing.... how maybe I should say it's the Lord's way of saying no more. He said very simply, "The Lord doesn't work that way." And I knew it was true. I thought about the idea of having children being a burden and I felt sad for that woman. A burden? How could having these children be a burden? Even when my heart aches at the normal everyday parenting of 15 children, it is never a burden! I consider it the opposite in fact. A burden is something to be dreaded, to fear even. With every positive pregnancy test, I felt absolute joy. I felt like shouting it from the rooftops! That is not a burden. And on top of that... my being a mother is nothing short of a miracle. Or many miracles. I was blessed to carry 15 children... 10 of which were born by c-section. That in itself is a miracle. And not only that, but I had 10 c-sections and was carried through them with ease. I have witnessed more miracles because of my children. I have watched life returned to more than one child... I have watched children healed, I have been given the strength to carry on when I didn't know where it would come from. I had the ability to stay up night after night making sure that Nathaniel was still breathing. When he stopped breathing I was there to breathe for him until his heart was going again. I was awake at those critical times when he would have stopped breathing had I not been awake to shake him and remind him to breathe. I had the ability to keep him alive when I didn't think I even knew what I was doing until the medical people in this town could figure out that I wasn't crazy when I kept telling them there was something wrong with my baby. Heavenly Father is bound by natural laws... He is the one that gave these laws to us. He sent us here to be tested and tried. I don't understand why I went through this, but I know that He walked beside me as I went through it. I talked to a friend about it one day and she said that Heavenly Father didn't want His spirit children to be born to drug addicted prostitutes, but He lets them... just like there are great people that truly desire children and aren't able to have them. It's not fair maybe, but it happens because that's what life is all about. Life isn't supposed to be fair. It's meant to stretch us, and make us grow. It's meant to teach us to rely on the Lord even in our very darkest hours... or maybe especially during those times. In the last year I have come so close to losing 2 of my children that I could see death lurking. I spent hours and days and weeks and months caring for and praying for and crying with those children and wondering which way it would go. When they took Nate the first AND the second time in life flight... we left with the opinion of the medical professionals that he would not live. Yet live he did. But I wore myself out. I was carried through... but it is no wonder that my body may be worn out right now. Losing a baby has nothing to do with the fact that I have X amount of children, or that I have reached a certain age, or anything else. I have friends that are just starting their families at my age! It means that there was some reason that we were meant to go through this. That there is a time to mourn... and we have mourned. But that there is also a promise of great things in our future. I do not have to understand this now, I just have to have the faith that at some time in the future I WILL understand, and it all will be made right. Nothing else matters but that. And I know as I pray that the Lord still has a baby in store for us... it's just that we have to trust Him and allow Him to work His miracles in His time. That is the peace I receive as I pray and ponder and wonder why. I don't ask the Lord, "Why me?" I never have. I do, however, wonder what it is I am supposed to learn, and that what I am given to pass through in this life is what will make me worthy to live with my Father in Heaven again some day.

But tonight I ache when I think of the baby we had to say good bye to before we ever got to say hello. I know that this baby knows of our desire, and our love, and that for now that is enough... and one day all things will be restored and we will get to know and love those that we lost again. I count my blessings in knowing that I have a house FULL of children that mourn the same as I do, that pray for the same things as I do. To be able to have Garrett and Tiffany take me to lunch, and give me a dozen red roses, and cry with me over the loss of this little one. Not many people can say that they have their big kids praying for a new little brother or sister, even as they contemplate and look forward to the birth of their own child! I am blessed. Sometimes I have to stop and look deep and count my blessings... but I know that they are there... I can count them one by one... Garrett, Jace, Kimi, Tanner, Tallin, Kailee, Kassi, Kinzee, Willie, Wyatt, Hayden, Kalli, Hyrum, Kami, Nathaniel....