This month, October, marks seven years of straight pregnancy and nursing for me. My body is tired! Despite our galloping finish – is it finished? … smile, Brandon – we had a rocky start to our childbearing career. We lost our first baby at 13 weeks and it broke our hearts. All I ever wanted was to be a mom, and that dream was only months from fulfillment, and then it was yanked away. That’s when I learned to read my Bible for me, because I needed it – needed Him – not because I had Bible study homework to finish before Monday night.

Then came Xavier, the most difficult infant ever born of woman. He cried constantly for six months and almost constantly for another three or so. That’s when I learned Christ’s love through people, through women at my church, specifically, but not exclusively.

I want to tell you about a few of these women who made our first two years of living the parenting life bearable. I know many people prayed for us after the first miscarriage – Hope Barrett, we named the baby – and also during my pregnancy and after Xavier’s birth. We received ridiculously generous baby gifts, and meals to feed armies. Our friends within and outside of our church were so wonderful to us. But the things that follow are a few that stand out as over and above, showing love, speaking love into my wounded and broken, and then frightened and bewildered heart.

I went to Cheryl’s house for years on Monday nights for BIble study before we had kids. It is wonderful to go to Cheryl’s. She is hospitality defined. I felt welcome and loved and warm at her house. Before kids, I worked at a church until three in the afternoon. After Hope died, I struggled through the days and went home and slouched into sweats and lay on the couch to wait for Brandon to come home. One afternoon Cheryl came over, sat on the couch next to me, and gave me a present. It was a word, made of opaque glass, kind of like an icicle, on a little stand, about 3 inches high and maybe 8 or 10 long. The word? Hope. She didn’t yet know our baby’s name.

One morning a few weeks after Hope died, I had to stop at the church, and I stood in the entryway talking to Brenda, the church secretary, and I just fell apart. I cried and cried and she just held me and stroked my hair, and whispered little lovey things to me. She didn’t say it’s just a miscarriage, you’re young, you’ll have more pregnancies. She didn’t say my favorite – there must have been something wrong with the baby. She didn’t say much of anything, really, just “I know, I know honey. It hurts.”

Deb almost felt personally responsible that Hope died. “I should have been praying,” she said. She took it upon herself to pray earnestly throughout my pregnancy with Xavier for his health and safe delivery. She prayed on the phone with me, out loud for me in a group of our friends, alone at home, and with her kids. Deb was the first person I ever met who would ask how I was doing, and then pray right then with me out loud about whatever was going on.

Despite the turmoil in their own lives, Nancy and Denise took time to drive up to the hospital to see us after Xavier was born. They sneaked in past the “immediate family only” sign in the maternity ward and stayed to encourage us and make us laugh.

Sally was genuinely happy to see Xavier and me the first time I stumbled into Friday morning Bible study. I think it was March, so he was about 3 months old, and he had cried and cried, so I’d bundled him up and been for a long walk. I clearly remember we were coming up the hill in the park, going north past the community center, and it was only 8:30. I was begging God, what do I do with this kid all day, all year? And He said, go to the church. The group was nearly finished with a Revelation study, but nobody suggested I wait and join later when they started something new, or when my baby was normal, or when I wasn’t always in tears. I still have the card Sally mailed to me to make sure I knew we were welcome. She always encouraged me, and does still to this day. Attending that Friday morning study may have been the best thing I did for my son, myself, and my marriage at that time. I was always welcome at Sally’s house too. We could sit outside in her lovely back yard, or in the kitchen and just relax and talk about nothing. I didn’t really know how to be real with Sally, know how to talk to her until after I moved away from her. That’s sad to me – I miss her a lot now.

Gwen sacrificed her own study and fellowship time in Friday morning Bible study to take Xavier and walk the halls or sit in the nursery rocking chair with him so I could be in the group. She also came over to my house once and held him, and just talked to me in a normal way, as if she really believed I could be a godly mother who raised a boy who loved the Lord. Gwen gave the devotion at my baby shower at Cheryl’s house after Zane was born (our second son). She is so animated and excited when she talks about the Lord but the part of her message to me that has stuck wasn’t that uplifting. I can still see her in my mind’s eye with her hand vertical in front of her face, palm almost to her nose, saying to me, “The hardest part about children is that they bring you face to face with your own sin.” And maybe that seems harsh to some of you for a baby shower, but the Lord knew I could receive that from Gwen. Gwen introduced me to the beauty of Isaiah (now my favorite book) when she memorized a large section of chapter 40 and recited it to us in Bible study.

Shortly after I joined the Bible study, Sally talked me into attending MOPS. It was on Monday morning. We had a bad start, of course, so Xavier and I were late, quite late, maybe almost a half-hour, and when I arrived, all the women were making baby blankets. Of all things for me to happen onto, sewing is not the thing to enamor me of a group and its activities. Everyone had a spot at a table – no open spaces. Everyone had chosen their cutesy patterned fabric – only a couple plain, dark choices left. Everyone had brought scissors, or had a friend with scissors, or was planted in the right place to see where to find scissors. I stood in the entry at the church, ready to bolt because I couldn’t even put my baby down, much less make one of those fleece tie blankets. But God sent a helper – Peggy came over and helped me find two pieces of fleece the same size that matched, got me a pair of scissors, and helped me get set up at a spot on the floor. THEN she took my baby, my crying angry baby and walked him around so I could make a blanket. I seriously would have left without Peggy. I still use that blanket in my stroller.

Jennifer got a babysitter for her own two girls and came over for an afternoon when Xavier was three weeks old to help me. Everything was so hard and breastfeeding still was going poorly and Xavier cried ALL THE TIME. She was not embarrassed to see me feed him and was so empathetic to me and loving to Xavier. She didn’t act like there was something wrong with him or with my mothering. She just calmly and slowly showed me how to make a little blanket nest in Xavier’s car seat for him to snuggle into and then showed me to tuck a blanket around his torso and under his arms so they didn’t flail around so he could rest.

I didn’t know Jane well but after Xavier was born, she gave me a present for him. It was an adorable pair of overalls in a size 18 months. I looked at them and thought, “Will my baby ever wear these?” But it gave me hope that the hard season would pass some day. And it showed me that Jane and Ron cared about us and were actually praying for us.

Carolyn was talking about someone else’s loss one time in Friday morning Bible study, but her analogy helps me to this day. She said grief is like a backpack. Everyone says the load gets lighter over time, but she maintained that’s not true. She said you build stronger muscles as time passes to carry the still-heavy backpack. Another thing Carolyn said that helped after Hope died was, “You had hoped to introduce your child to Jesus. Now your child is waiting in Heaven with Jesus, ready to introduce you to Him.”

Jenni, with whom I had a strange and fleeting friendship, made sure I had a flower from church on Mother’s Day, the year I was a mother, but not mothering. She also helped me paint a bookshelf for the nursery as I hoped and waited and prayed for another chance at a second pregnancy.

Not long after my friend Cortney’s first baby was born, her husband had to be gone for a long weekend, so Xavier and I went to spend a night with her, to keep her company. We walked from her house to the local movie rental store, and on the way, I complained to Cortney about how fat I was feeling. She looked right at me and said, “What are you going to do?” Huh? What am I going to do? That’s Cortney – encouraging by being real and not taking any of my BS.

We now live far from all these women. We keep in touch with phone calls, emails, and sometimes I even get on Facebook to see them all. We have found a church we like here in Colorado Springs, but they don’t know our history. They haven’t loved us through tragedy and through joy. I know we will grow into their family. I know they will love on us if we let them in. I know we will serve side by side with our new church members and get to know them and it will get better and easier to share with them and hurt with them and laugh with them. But I am so thankful to my Lord Jesus that He allowed me to be in the lives of these women I’ve told you about when I desperately needed them. When my sorrow choked my heart and when my joy ran over.

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 1st, 2009 at 4:52 am and is filed under Amy Hackett, Author. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.