Three Weeks

Oh man. This week has been rough. I think part of the shock is wearing off. Emotions are rushing in, even when I don't want them to. Dreams are sneaking in and making it hard to sleep. The rest of life has settled and moved on.

And then I get snagged back to reality by the phone call from the hospital to pre-register for delivery. Or the call from the other hospital asking me to do a customer satisfaction survey from our stay (the hospital was amazing, btw, but having the survey people call me completely sucked). And the babies have started arriving. I knew of over 20 women having babies this fall. In the last three days, the first three have arrived. Thankfully all had uneventful arrivals, and moms and babies are all fine. But I've done some facebook filtering for now. Not that I am not happy for these families (honestly, I am - any new baby is a wonderful blessing). I just don't know what my emotions are going to do when I log in to FB and scroll through my news feed. And for every mom that delivers, a new pregnancy announcement is made. HOLY COW! Is it just the season of life that my cohorts are in, or is there some serious baby boom going on?

I hope that we can shortly rejoin the ranks of those celebrating new life. Seems kind of callous to talk about it so soon after Aubree left us. But I know this isn't the end of our story. In my heart I keep hearing the lyrics of this song over & over:

"Let me see redemption win, let me know the struggle ends, that You can mend a heart that's frail & torn. I want to know a song can rise from the ashes of a broken life, and all that's dead inside can be reborn. 'Cause I'm worn...."

I know there will be a rainbow at the end of this storm. Not that anyone will ever replace Aubree in our lives. But I know our family is not yet complete. So for now, we wait. Time to heal physically and emotionally. Time to rest from the craziness and business of normal life (with me working full-time and only seeing Aly 2-3 hours per day when she's awake). Time to regroup, organize, and plan for what's next. Time for DH and I alone - time that we have desperately needed.

For now, I'm working on cleaning out our closet. DH now has a shoe rack that holds all of his shoes! And we have enough hangers for all our clothes. I'm trying to find the small things in life to celebrate along this journey. Thankfully Alyvia has responded well to spending so much time with me over the past three and a half weeks. Her attitude has improved drastically, and she has been much more affectionate and cuddly with me (which for her is out of character - she's fiercely independent!!).