Shortly after our eldest child’s first birthday (Zander), we discovered that another little gift would join our family in 1996.  I thought it would be a girl, so during early days, only female names were really discussed.  I was delighted to have no morning sickness, after spending six months in the bathroom while carrying Zander.

It seems I have to be really sick to carry healthy children to term. By the beginning of the second trimester, Bethany Kathleen was no longer with us — we discovered this during the first week of February. To bypass the grieving first months, then the few years when the actual anniversary was really hard — after all these years, sometimes I don’t even remember on “the day.”  But February comes and a general feeling of sadness appears, sometimes just barely there for a few days, sometimes for weeks, and then it goes away. Sometimes I cry, sometimes I try to ignore it because I’m too busy to be maudlin — this year, I was dealing with insomnia during that time, so I chose to look back and count blessings during the quiet night hours.

*I had a loving, tender-hearted husband as a companion on that journey. He may have never felt he did enough, but he could not have tried harder to understand my feelings and comfort me.

*I was tearful with relief when morning sickness first appeared during my next two pregnancies, while I was carrying Brendon and Aislynn.

*I feel most fortunate — I have several friends who lost multiple children through miscarriages. I feel slightly guilty — my grieving was easy, compared to that suffered by those who lose a child to stillbirth.

*Whatever might have been the flaw with Bethany, I’m glad that she didn’t have to live with pain.

*We have our wonderful, sweet Brendon — the way life was timed, if Bethany had survived, Brendon wouldn’t exist.

*The thought that brought me the most comfort when my grandmother died was that she and my baby had just met each other somewhere in Heaven.

Copyright 2010 by Tammi Mossman.