Seasons

Wow! It's been almost I year since I last wrote on here. Almost a year since I've even looked at this blog myself. Oh! How much has changed! I found myself going into 2010 thinking it was going to be a great year. I had an amazing man by my side, my beautiful daughter was safe and happy, and I found in January that I was pregnant. I was full of anticipation for the future and making plans for my family.

Fast forward 9 months to September 21, 2010. I arrived at the hospital for a scheduled c-section at 39 weeks pregnant and to my shock and horror, my worst fears had become reality. My son, Noah Daniel, had no heart beat. I was induced for natural labor and gave birth to my beautiful sleeping baby boy at 12:53am on September 22, 2010. His cord was wrapped tightly around his neck and shoulders multiple times and the umbilical hernia which had been detected on ultrasound earlier in the pregnancy was worse than we thought. Had Noah been born alive, he would have lived a very sick life that most likely would not have lasted more than a few weeks.

How did this happen? I had felt him moving the night before as I laid in bed giddy with anticipation of his coming arrival. This wasn't my life! This was not supposed to happen! It was all a bad dream! A dream I haven't woken from. It wasn't a dream, it was the crusher of all my dreams. This WAS my life.

6 weeks later, I still wake up some mornings and think that I'm still pregnant. I still feel sometimes like one day I'll have my precious Noah. I know that I won't ever have him back with me on this earth. Some days are easier than others to face that reality. The reality is though, that I would give anything to be able to hold him just one more time; to smell his skin, play with his blond hair, and kiss his soft lips. The reality is that some days, my heart literally hurts and my body physically aches to feel the weight of him in my arms.

I was sitting outside today looking at the trees. It is autumn. The season between summer and winter. The transition from hot to cold. The leaves are falling. Many already have. As autumn is in full swing and winter approaches, the earth is slowly preparing around us. It may look as though the earth is dying, but it's not. The trees do not die, nor do the bears or the birds. The trees and bears sleep, and the birds fly south to a warmer, sunnier place.

Autumn has come to pass in my life this year. I've already transitioned from the hot to the cold. From the joy of high hopes and dreams, to the lonely chill of grief. I am in the middle of my own emotional winter. Some days I feel like I've been snowed in. But I know that while Noah may no longer be with us on this earth, in Christ, he did not die. He is like the trees or the bears...sleeping. He is the birds who fly south for the winter. Noah is in Heaven in the warmth and sunlight of God and His presence while I continue to dredge through the winter here on earth. I hold on to my belief that one day, when God takes me away, I will go home to Noah and I will be able to hold him in my arms in that warmth and sunlight. I hold onto looking forward to summer.

Summer may be closer than I think or it could be many many years away. Only God knows when that day will come for me. In the mean time, I can only take it one day at a time and wait for spring. Spring is the season when the trees bloom, the bears come out of hibernation and the birds return. I've had days that have felt like spring. God has given me many moments and even days filled with peace and comfort.

My winter has made me jaded. I live now with a whole new way to look at things. Yet somehow through all of this, I have found a new reason to live and new purpose in life. I'm not sure what that purpose is yet. I will pray and trust God and let Him lead me to it when the time is right. But I know that I have a purpose. I know that Noah had a purpose and that God uses all things for good and I know that somehow, someday I will see that.

Nothing will make it hurt any less. Nothing will ever bring my Noah back. But I can start to create my own spring. Instead of focusing my attention and energy into crying, I can channel that into helping others. Somewhere in helping heal others, you yourself heal. I truly believe that.

What my next step is, I don't know. All I do know, is that one day...one day it will be summer and I will be with my Noah. Until that day I will ask God to keep me warm in my winter and let Him lead me to my spring.