A Year Ago Today...

Exactly one year ago, I went in for my doctor's appointment and found out that I was going to have another little girl. I remember feeling the inital disappointment because I had wanted a boy so badly. A boy who would grow up to be a missionary. That is what I dreamed of. After the news began to sink in and I saw the look of excitement on Cory's face, I knew that a girl was exactly what I was supposed to have and just what I wanted. The excitment grew each day as I day dreamed about what my life would soon be like with three beautiful little girls. At this point, I knew that I had placenta previa, but I had no idea how severe or fatal it could be.

As I think back to this time, I feel a wave of emotion rush through my body as I reminise about what it felt like to have my little Clairisa at the center of my life. Pregnancy had always been something that I'd taken for granted. Sure, I'd seen my older sister have the most severe case of clampsia and toxemia, and I had witnessed both of her children being born months early and their total weight being less than half of Katelund's birthweight (8 lbs 2 oz), and I knew that I had witnessed a miracle, actually two miracles (who are not only adorable and healthy children, but are developmentally ahead of their peers...it helps that they have genius parents), but I still had no idea what it would be like to have something go wrong.

My two previous pregnancies had been the most uneventful pregnancies ever. The only thing that made them abnormal was the fact that my body would'nt go into labor (thank heavens for patosin). It wasn't until I saw the look of panic on the doctor's face that I realized how miraculous pregnancy truly is. It wasn't until I heard the doctor tell me that she did not make it that I felt the disapair, agony, and sorrow that accompany a mother who has lost her baby.

I look at pregnancy different now. I look at babies differently now. I stand in awe at the divine gift that we have been given as women to create life. And now, as I finish up the last month and a half of the longest year of my life, I do so with a greater understanding of life and death, a greater desire to become who I am supposed to become, and greater excitement and anticiaption for the future day when the doctor will again tell me if the miracle within me is a boy or a girl.

{This is not an announcement}