We have a digital picture frame in our kitchen that has lots of pictures loaded up of Lincoln and they rotate every 5 seconds or so. I love to look at those pictures throughout my day and even though I've seen them a trillion times they never get old. Sometimes I just want to freeze a picture and stare at it. I so often wish I could reach inside the picture and kiss him. This picture is one of my very favorites. (but I think I feel that way about any pictures of Lincoln).
We always knew we wanted more kids so when Lincoln passed away it was a no-brainer that we'd try and have another child. We just had no idea it would take so long. I had an ectopic pregnancy a few months after Lincoln passed away and that was followed by 2 miscarriages and a failed IVF cycle. I often struggled to understand why we couldn't get pregnant or why my body wouldn't hold onto a viable embryo. It was always especially hard when our daughter asked when I was going to have a baby in my tummy and why she didn't have other brothers and sisters. She continues to miss Lincoln on a DAILY basis. He is never forgotten or far from her mind. Sometimes we laugh about what a funny little boy he was and sometimes we cry because we miss being able to watch him learn and grow. She remembers things that I have started to forget- just little things, like how he would sit on his daddy's shoulders and stick his little wet fingers into his ears. Thank goodness for our daughter, who helps us remember how to laugh and continue to live life. I wonder if she will ever know what an important roll she has played in our lives throughout these past 2 years.
I felt that if we weren't able to have more kids I would eventually (maybe) come to terms with it but I just couldn't accept why Jezelle would not be blessed to have other siblings. It seemed so unfair to her. I was fine suffering but I didn't want her to suffer. After the failed IVF last spring I kind of let go of it all and realized if it was meant to be then it would be! It was clearly not in my hands and not I nor the doctors had any control over it. We had genetic testing done on all the viable embryos prior to implantation so with that I was "guaranteed" a 70% success rate of getting pregnant. Pretty amazing odds considering I had less then a 10% chance of getting pregnant spontaneously every month. When that IVF failed I realized even more so how it's not up to me. I can't control it so I needed to let it go. And then in October I suddenly was pregnant . . . with TWINS! And that's been fun and we are SOOOO thrilled and excited- definitely something our entire family is looking forward to. We feel sooooo blessed and we feel our prayers have been answered. But I also now see more clearly why the timing (once again!) was arranged just perfectly by God. He knew when the time was right and I just needed to have faith in that. I don't know what is best for me and my family. I think I do, but I don't. God does though and I wish I could just have more faith and patience in His plan.
This pregnancy has been hard, for many reasons and I understand now that I wasn't really ready two years ago to have another child yet. I'm obviously much more emotional when pregnant so that's been tough and I've been very very sick! I've also needed time to heal from some pretty major fears that developed when Lincoln died. And with a pregnancy comes more questions of how many kids I have and how old they are and 'oh boy- you are going to have your hands full with twins!' ... Blah blah. And I can't emphasize how thrilled I am to be blessed with TWO more babies in our family. But that doesn't change or lessen the pain I feel from missing Lincoln and it never will. No one can replace him or help make the hurt go away. And it's been hard to think about changing his bedroom; putting away his clothes and replacing it with newborn sizes, making it a new bedroom where new memories will be created. Ones without Lincoln here to be included in. Ouch. Those things hurt. And how will we teach our new babies about their brother Lincoln? How will that look when Jezelle remembers him perfectly and the twins won't know him at all? I know that it will work out when we need to cross that bridge and it will be just fine. But these are the things I wasn't equipped to deal with even a year ago. And so again, timing is everything. And I need to have faith that things are meant to be.
