Guest Blog: Beth Anne from The Heir to Blair

Friends, meet Beth Anne aka BA

(Hiiiii Beth Anne..)

She lives inside my computer screen, somewhere north of Florida (totally wish we lived closer). We go back to the days of 1st Tri message boards and "siggy pics" over 2 years ago when I was pregnant with Nolan and she was housing wee Harrison. She was on her 2nd pregnancy and mine on my first. And here we are 2 years later missing our first's and thanking every blessings for our seconds and blogging through our emotional mountains. But there is that lingering thought... are we the only ones that remember our firsts?

Thank you BA for sharing your "emo and gloomy" feelings over here because well, we are allowed to have these days, thoughts and moments. It's just another example where I can say "me too".

There goes my "comical intro that I intended to write"... now lets all hug and sing "Kumbaya"

Visit BA over at Heir to the Blair where she her self admits she's a "Over-sharing extraordinaire", shares her journey with miscarriage, postpartum depression and raising Harrison.

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Lord, make me a rainbow
I’ll shine down on my mother
She’ll know I’m safe

with You when she stands under my colors
Oh, & life ain’t always what you think it ought to be
Ain’t even grey, but she buries her baby
~The Band Perry, “If I Die Young”

It has been almost three years since I lost my first baby & sometimes I worry that I am the only one who remembers how that joy of pregnancy & heartbreak of loss felt.

Three years later, I remember rolling over in bed that morning after joking to my husband that if I wasn’t pregnant this time, I did not know how anyone got pregnant. He shrugged & I gasped & held up the pregnancy test, saying “I think I am pregnant!” That little pink line flung open doors of my heart that I did not know existed & love flooded through my veins & heart until the little heart inside me also began beating with its own thump-thump rhythm.

Three years later, I remember lying back on the table, warm jelly & cold equipment pressed to my belly. My husband & I clasped hands through our smiles of joy, laughing over the tiny bean of life we created. Weeks of morning sickness & maternity jeans & a stroller chosen. A few scares, but always a reassuring heartbeat on the screen. We broke the happy news to family, friends, Facebook.

Three years later, I remember the terror gripping my heart as I stared at the blood, freely flowing. The tears in my voice as we rushed to the emergency room that dreary & cold Saturday morning, fitting for the events to take place. My tears flowed freely as the doctor confirmed that our baby, my baby that I had come to love so fiercely, was gone. The cramps & contractions ripped through my lower half as my heart split in two, but I laid back on the operating table & thanked both God & the doctor for the medicine to drag me under, away from the pain.

Three years later, I remember lying on the couch with a laptop perched on top of blankets & pillows. My fingers frozen as my mind wheeled, but my heart spilled onto the pages of the Internet & I labeled it “Empty.” I was empty. Alone. Terrified. Horrified. Angry. Hours spent in the shower, sobbing my grief & anguish despite a doctor’s assurance that the tiny life I carried had been very sick & this was “for the best.”

Time passed, snow fell heavy one weekend & three weeks later, we found ourselves expecting another baby. With steady joy but unsteady hearts, my husband & I relived pregnancy but this time, the same doctor that placed her hand upon my tear-filled cheek in the emergency room stood at the foot of the bed, holding my newly-born son. I cradled him, who we named Harrison, & felt that he was the greatest gift, bought at the highest price. Without losing our first baby, we would not have our beautiful, wild boy.

But it’s this same truth of the heart that turns my heart to my first baby, wondering if I am the only one that remembers that sweet life, cherishes the moments, rather than negating the loss for the gift of Harrison. Maybe it’s simply the heart of a mother to count all her little ones the same.