two weeks

Today a friend of mine at work told me that her sister and brother in law are pregnant again. They just had a miscarriage last month, but immediately got pregnant afterwards, had a sonogram, and saw the heartbeat at six weeks. They feel like it's okay to tell everyone now that they saw the heartbeat. Normally it would make my heart twinge to hear that they got pregnant again so quickly. Today was different. It made me sad. It broke me.

Kyle and I saw our baby's heartbeat, too, at eight weeks. We thought it was safe to tell people at ten weeks. We found out the baby had died at twelve weeks. Our baby would be due in less than two weeks now. We'll never know if it was a boy or a girl. We'll never know the joy of holding that baby in our arms this side of heaven. It's been difficult lately to see the swollen bellies of other pregnant women. I envy that. I ache for that. It's hard not to feel like it should be me. Today is the first time in a few months that I have felt hopeless.

I know that I should expect the next couple of weeks to feel that way. I know that I should even expect the couple of weeks after that to feel the same, knowing that we should now have a baby at home waking us up at night, depriving us of wanted sleep, but adding a new joy to our lives.

I'm still not sure where this road leads. I know that the past four and a half years of marriage with Kyle have been incredible. I wouldn't trade that time at all. I do know that I always thought our road would lead to children. We'll see. God knows. Normally I'm okay with the not knowing part. Today, I will admit, it's much harder. Today the not knowing is hurting deeply.