Welcome, Little One

This was the title of a card I read while standing in line at our Safeway grocery store today. I couldn't help but see those light pastel blues and greens as the woman purchased the card, carefree and without concern. I cringed at the site of it since it pains me that the world continues to live on, that women are still having babies everyday in our neighborhood that are healthy and happy. They get to bring their little bundles of joy home to live with them. Of course I want that for Andrew. I wanted that for Andrew. Never will I take for granted that most amazing gift if we are blessed to have a living child.

I then started thinking-- was that baby even born yet? The baby was (or will be) probably born at Edward, where I had Andrew 6.5 weeks ago. Is she purchasing this card to congratulate someone she knows who just gave birth recently? Or, was she buying this card prematurely as I would often do in order to be prepared for what IS coming. Ha. IS. Such an easy word to mutter, but it does not always bring truth to light. It's true for most people, but for myself and many of the women I've been connected through recently via the web (who have sadly experienced similar losses), it's not our reality.

The day we saw those two pink lines and realized we were pregnant, the ultrasounds, the feeling of the baby moving within our bodies, we also thought we were bringing home baby. I stand now reporting that pregnancy doesn't necessarily mean you'll get to be a practicing mother. It doesn't necessarily mean that you will welcome home that beautiful gift.

Because for some of us, that is something we will never get to experience with our firstborn children.

Never did we mutter those words, "Welcome, little one" in our house aside from bringing our son home in a small box from the funeral home. Even something so small as a card in a grocery store can send my mind wandering into a dark place. While I want so much for whoever the recipient of that card is (who will likely read and throw it away so nonchalantly) to take that precious gift home, their child, I want them also so badly to recognize how grateful they should be in the simple act of walking through that front door.

I should also take solace in knowing (though my selfishness chooses not to most of the time) that Andrew did walk through the glorious front doors of heaven. He just got there a lot sooner than his Mom and Dad. That should never happen.

May that family understand the real gift they have in welcoming their child home.