Keeping Up

I haven't kept up with this blog like I thought I would. Trying to write 2 blogs isn't as easy as I thought it would be. Now that school has started and I'm back to work, it will be even more difficult.

I do want to share a few things tonight though. I'm still in the process of going through a pregnancy loss Bible study with my friend, Kristie. It has been a slow go just because I've been busy and Kristie just gave birth to a baby girl! Congratulations Kristie and family!

I was doing Lesson 8 tonight. One of the things it asked me to do was to name my baby if I hadn't already. Since I was only 8 weeks into the pregnancy when I miscarried, I have no idea whether our baby was a girl or a boy. This is how I answered that question:

If our baby was a girl, her name would have been Claren Jacalyn Johnson. My husband’s favorite grandfather was named Clarence, so that’s where Claren comes from. My middle name was Jacalyn before I took my maiden name as my middle name.

The week before the miscarriage we told our sons that I was pregnant. We told them to come up with a boy’s name because we didn’t have one. In less than an hour, they came up with Nolan. I’m not sure what his middle name would have been.

In my gut, I feel it is Claren who is in Heaven. I haven’t asked Eric if he has a feeling either way as to whether our baby was a boy or a girl. I just always pictured us having 2 boys first and then a little girl further down the road.

I was also asked to write a letter to God about our baby. Here is what I wrote:

Dear God,

I know you are taking care of our child and I thank you for that. Please hold her and rock her and let her know how much we love her and miss her. Tell her that we’ll never forget her and that we can’t wait to meet her someday in Heaven.

I wish she was here for us to cuddle with. I would have loved to have seen her with her big brothers! She would have been spoiled by them! I wish we could see her smile and hear her giggle. I bet she is blue eyed and blond like her brothers.

I would finally have had someone to share my favorite childhood books with…Little Women and the Little House series! And all the pink in the house would have driven her brothers crazy! She would have kept her dad and me young seeing that we would have been 62 by the time she graduated from high school!

Please make sure that she knows my brother and her two little boy cousins. I pray that they are playing together and keeping each other company until the rest of their families are with them.

And please God, keep your hands of hope and grace resting upon the shoulders of Eric and I, especially when our grief washes over us as we go about our days. Someday we will understand Your ways and know the good that has come from our loss. Please give me the words and ways to comfort and minister to other grieving mothers.

Lord, we have given our child over to you. We trust that Your ways are best and that You will be a far better parent to our little one than we ever could have been. Please make her feel safe and secure and most of all, loved.

Thank you God for this third child that I always knew was meant to be, even though she wasn’t meant to be here with us physically. She will always be in our hearts and our spirits.

Amen.

I also want to take this opportunity to plug Kristie's book here. Her newborn baby is actually her fourth daughter, however, the middle two were born straight into Heaven. Kristie has written a book about her experience of suffering through two miscarriages. It is her hope that sharing their testimony of healing will help others going through the same thing. The book is entitled "Unforgotten Children". You can go here to order it through Tate Publishing. It will actually be released in book stores on December 1. Kristie is much younger than I am but has a lot of wisdom! Also, please visit her blog!

I pray that my words here and Kristie's words will help those of you struggling with the loss of a baby. Please feel free to contact me with questions or comments. I really want to minister to families who have faced this kind of loss.

Blessings and love to you all!