The Thoughts That Keep Me Up At Night...

Every night, I pick up Anika's picture that's sitting beside my bed. I stroke her face, and kiss her, and say, "I love you, Sweet Girl," or something along those lines. I put the picture back down, look at it a moment longer and bid her good night.

Then I roll over and think about how my day would have been different if she were here. And sometimes it keeps me up into the wee hours of the night. Tonight, since I was thinking about her so much, I decided to make a new entry here.

My thoughts range from how to answer questions from new people about whether we have kids to about how we should tell our future children about Anika. I think about the future events where we had made preparations for her, and I wonder how I will feel at them since she's not going to be there. I also think of my friends who have lost children either to miscarriage, SIDS, or another way, and I compare what we've all gone through, and wonder how I would have handled their situations.

The more I think about that, the more I realize that God put us through exactly what we could handle. Down to the tiny details. It would have killed me to go in for my 20 week ultrasound, when I was so excited to find out my baby's gender, only to find out that they'd passed away. Would I have wanted to know the gender? Probably. ...I would have been a permanent wreck if Anika had lived for a few months - I'd have had her cry, her eyes, her smile, her coos all memorized - and then she was gone. I would have woken up to echoes of her cries at night, and I imagine that other babies crying would effect me much more than it does. ...But I can't figure out how I'd feel being told my baby wasn't going to survive, then being told she would, only to watch her life leave her before my very eyes, in my arms. There's a strange beauty in that scenario, an eerie peace, a devastating grace. I think it would make a most painful and beautiful painting. I see Jesus standing there, next to the parents, with His arms out, to bring the perfect baby home. There are no tears in this painting, but no joy either. It's just pure love because everyone in the painting loves this child.

Maybe this speaks to me because I don't know when Anika left my womb for Heaven. I have my reasons for believing it was mid-evening the day before we found out she had passed, but I will never know. And I have the feeling it won't matter enough when I get to Heaven for me to remember to ask.