A Brand New Bundle of Someone Else's Joy

I have been waiting for this day.  Trying to prepare myself for my reaction.  I could not even begin to speculate what my response was going to be.  I have been bombarded with a variety of emotions regarding this pregnancy and this impending due date.  Given the circumstances and situations, some of which I can talk about and some of which I cannot, my emotions have swung like a pendulum from one extreme to the other regarding my brother and his wife’s pregnancy.  We found out we were pregnant within six weeks of each other and I don’t know about him, but I was pretty darn excited that we would be having children so close together.  I was ecstatic that we were going to be able to share a journey together and that our kids would be able to grow up so close in age to each other.  When I sent out “the email” telling our extended family that we were expecting, I remember including a sentiment regarding my excitement over this shared time frame, this creating of cousins that were bound to be the best of friends.  My brother and I haven’t always been close.  We fought like cats and dogs growing up, I mean really, multiple broken hockey sticks through multiple bedroom doors of mine doesn’t say much for sibling affection.  But as we grew older, survived the divorce of our parents together, lived in the same town in our adult years, and began playing on the same soccer team (we’re convinced this last one brought us together the most) we really began to form a friendship, a sibling bond and a connection that we had never had before.  And I will never forget that my brother was here instantly when we lost our son, cried almost as much as I did at times it seemed, asked for pictures of his nephew when everything was said and done, and seemed to really get and understand how significant this loss was for me.  I will never forget how much he cared during a time when I needed him the most. 

So when we found out that we would no longer be sharing a journey, that my journey was abruptly stopped at 12 weeks while his continued, needless to say, things were challenging for us both.  Here they were with all of their joy and excitement of the pregnancy of their first child being overshadowed by the loss of mine.  Here we were with the loss of the pregnancy of our third baby being overshadowed by the joy and excitement of theirs.  It was complicated, confusing and frustrating to say the least.  At the end of the day, we both did our best to navigate through this situation and ultimately had to do what was best for each of us individually, on our own, within our respective worlds, taking care of the ones that were by our sides the most and trying as hard as we could to reach out and be understanding of each other. But the reality was I had never been in his shoes before.  I had never been pregnant at the same time that someone so close to me had experienced a loss, a loss with excessive baggage to boot.  And the reality was he had never been in my shoes before.  He had never experienced a pregnancy loss, let alone a loss at the same time that someone close to him was moving on with their pregnancy within the same timeframe.  I didn’t understand his world and he didn’t understand mine.  And I truly believe that both of us would have responded completely different to each other’s events if they wouldn’t have occurred so simultaneously.  But this wasn’t our reality, our reality was, if I must reiterate:  complicated, confusing and frustrating, to say the least.

And I wrote about this early on, how challenging this was, in the post Little Bundles of Someone Else’s Joy.  I didn’t want to feel resentment, jealousy, anger or pain in this situation.  This is my baby brother, we are close, I was so excited when they told us they were expecting, I could barely contain myself.  I didn’t want to experience any other emotion besides happy, but unfortunately these alternative emotions came no matter how much I tried to push them away.  The bottom line was it hurt.  Although I was still happy and excited for my brother, I was still crushed and broken hearted for myself.  And these emotions always seemed to catch up to me the quickest, happy and excited were always a distant second.  But I knew I had to make choices, I had to fight against these darker emotions, because I was not going to be left behind grieving a loss when everyone else was going to be celebrating a life.  I knew I didn’t want to be angry or bitter or broken any longer.  So I dove in from a distance and attempted to be as engaged as I could given the situation.  Most days I succeeded, although I was most certainly far from perfect.  I sent notes, made phone calls, sent a package.  I participated in the planning for the baby shower and sat front and center to write down all the baby gifts that they received.  I decided that being fully engaged would be less painful than sitting on the sidelines.  I knew that when I looked back, I would always regret not giving it my all but would never regret holding onto my grief at the expense of my brother’s joy.  And I’m not going to tell you it was easy, because it wasn’t.  There were times when my excitement was feigned, times when I had to bite my tongue and even times when I had to lie to hide my pain so my brother could experience some joy.  I was honest with myself on how challenging this newly defined shared journey was to me, I just didn’t have to be so honest with him.  His happiness was important to me, this was going to be one of the biggest moments of his life and he deserved every minute of it.  He deserved his fairy tale, his happy ending, if there was anyone in the world who I would want to have it all, I would want it to be him, I would want it to be him more than anyone. 

So when his fairy tale arrived and I received that phone call, I hesitated.  Rob answered the phone and I knew instantly who it was and what it was.  I took a deep breath, I still wasn’t sure how I was going to respond on the inside, although I had rehearsed many times how I would respond on the outside.  I wanted more than anything in the world to be okay with this, to have happy be the front runner of my emotions, to experience true excitement without the interference of pain, I was just pretty sure this was not possible.  I knew this phone call would be a reminder that I would have, should have been having a baby just six short weeks later.  That my belly should be a lot bigger than it is right now.  That I should be much more uncomfortable, sleeping more restlessly, counting down the weeks now until the cousins could finally meet each other.  I braced myself, grabbed the phone and was immediately told that I had a brand new niece.  Her name was Mackensie Marie and she was 6 pounds, 15 ounces and 20 and some odd inches long.  And I couldn’t speak.  I was silent.  I tried to get some words out but I struggled over the tears.  Oh, the tears flowed big and they flowed hard.  These tears caught me way off guard.  I knew I would have a reaction, but I had no idea it would be so intense and so strong.  I really wasn’t prepared to be completely and utterly overwhelmed with so much uninhibited joy.  I was choked up with these tears that only possessed joy and elation, tears that didn’t contain a drop of pain or hurt, tears that soothed my soul in ways that no other tear that has left me in the past five months could have.  And I cannot even begin to tell you how grateful I am for this joy.  I am so very grateful and so very thankful to have experienced this joy and to experience nothing but this joy in this moment.  It makes me feel less broken after all.  It makes me feel like all has not been lost.  It makes me feel that not everything has been in vain.  And all I wanted to do from that moment was hold her in my arms and when I did, the joy exceeded my expectations once again.  And although this wasn’t my fairy tale, and although my experiences have been far from fairy tales, in that moment, I very much felt like maybe I could believe in fairy tales once more after all.  I needed this moment, I needed this joy, I needed to find hope again in someone else’s experience, and I’m so grateful that out of all of the experiences that are out there, this is the one that chose to fill my heart back up again.  I love you Deron, Shannon and Mackensie and I’m so grateful your joy has entered my world and entered my heart.