Before & After

My life before Jacob feels like a distant world.I know I'm completely surrounded by this unavoidable cloud right now, so engulfed in grief and pain and sorrow and joy.But I think back to even the month before I was pregnant, and I'm a stranger to myself.The joy and the bliss of being pregnant and hearing his heartbeat and imagining life with a baby filled my sails. I was so excited. So proud. So ready to be a mom and have my baby in my baby wearing wrap and embrace the sleepless nights.And then the chaos, the spinning out of control part where everything became a massive blur between deep, deep sorrow and inexplicable continued joy happened.I remember August 26th like I remember a nightmare. Bits and pieces of scenes from the day play out in my mind. I picture the waiting room. I flash back to the voicemail I received the Friday night before. Running to find John-Mark when I saw it was my doctor whose phone call I missed. Sitting in my car sobbing and then calling my mom. Spending eight hours with her the next day unpacking the boxes in our dining room and organizing our kitchen.  Sitting in staff meeting. Reading Psalm 16. Crying.The waiting room. The nerves at the ultrasound. His spine looked perfect! They thought he might be a boy.  The quietness of the ultrasound tech.  The doctor. We're seeing some problems.  The care in her eyes. The way I nodded slowly and tears streamed down my face.How do you ever get past that moment? The moment when you hear the news? When you ask her to repeat what it's called because you've never heard of it and within weeks that word will be so familiar to you and within months it'll have a face that you now know and chubby arm rolls and perfect cheeks.The car ride home that could not. go. any. quicker. The tears from my husband and my own, staining his shirt. The phone calls to our moms and my dad and my sisters and more tears. So many tears.The sitting on the couch and the full laughter that turns into sobbing because there's a ceiling fan and it's August and your baby isn't healthy.The shock. Utter shock. Staring at the blank tv for hours in silence. Praying you'll feel him kick. They think he's a him, at least. You think of girl names just in case.The slow embrace of the joy and the anticipation that comes. The grief and the exhaustion that'll only increase in time.  The fears, the love, the belly rubs and the smiles after hiccups.And suddenly I'm in a hospital room surrounded by family and it's surreal again and my contractions are getting worse so I ask for quiet and dark and sleeping medicine because he wasn't supposed to be coming 'til tomorrow night.And somehow I get the courage up to let go and move straight towards the pain and consciously decide to continue to do what I dreaded the most.  And I see him on my stomach and I see that he's not breathing.And the peace

washes

over.

My baby is still.Let's put him on my chest. Let's get him on my skin. Let's feel his warmth in my arms and let his heart beat with mine and his lungs open.And he made a noise. Surely it's a reflex. And another. And another.My baby boy is alive. My baby is breathing.This is my son! It's Jacob's birthday!Seven hours of bliss and nearly six weeks of a stomach ache that just won't go away because it's the feeling of the pain of him gone.In an instant I was named a mother with that positive test. Over time I became a mother as my love and tummy grew. Then for seven hours I lived a mother. And now, for countless years - decades - I'll be a mother who has had to say goodbye to a child who was once in my arms but who's now in the arms of God.It's not a club I wanted to be a part of. But here I am.My life before Jacob is barely recognizable to me.I imagine all parenting does this to you and it changes you. You say things you don't ever picture yourself saying, you clean up messes you would have otherwise been grossed out by - and maybe you are even grossed out in the moment but at least it's your child - and you look in the mirror into a new reflection because somehow this other person has changed you so intrinsically and you have to relearn what you look like.I don't fit in anymore. At least with the mainstream.I'm thankful I don't have to go back to my life before Jacob, even if it feels like I do sometimes. I can carry Jacob with me in my heart, as much as I wish I was also carrying him in my arms, and I can begin to answer with confidence the imaginary questions I long to answer with a proud yes, we have one son to those who want to know.But that reflection in the mirror is different now; my life is altered. It's heavier and full of way more heartache than I had ever known, yes. But it's so much richer, more special, more full.Forty weeks and five days and seven hours and a lifetime to follow.The after is more beautiful than the before.