Dec. 4 – I’ve learned a couple of words that have brought me comfort in this new world I’m living in. A “shadow baby” is someone else’s healthy baby born near what would have been your Heaven-sent baby’s due date. That healthy baby casts a similar shadow of growth, life and development that yours would have cast had he or she stayed on earth. We have four of them: two boys, a girl and another precious girl who isn’t healthy but is here and is dearly loved.
I also learned that we are having a “rainbow baby” – a term for our own baby on the way following a miscarriage or infant loss. God gave Noah a rainbow after the flood. That’s why. God gave us a rainbow baby and we’re nearly 19 weeks along – almost halfway if I looked at it through normal people’s eyes. But I don’t. I look at it through tear-stained but Light-seeking eyes. One-day-at- a-time eyes. Grateful eyes. I can get way off the path but I’m blessed to have faithful friends who point me back time and time again.
I tried to put on makeup before going to the doctor’s office Thursday morning to get our 18.5 week ultrasound, the one that would tell us whether Baby No. 2 would travel the same road as Gabriel. But my leaky eyes kept cutting through the powder making it a futile attempt. (I gave up on mascara about a year ago. Duh.) Kevin prayed. I prayed. We prayed together. We got countless texts from friends who were praying as we drove to the doctor’s office.
Our rainbow baby. Is. Healthy. Today. Normally I find all caps and single word sentences annoying but after that ultrasound, I could only text most friends one word: “Healthy.” That’s all they needed to know; all they’d been praying to know. Relief, gratitude, praise to my Heavenly Daddy. Then shock, then relief again. Then stillness and quiet. That’s how it went down in my tired body. Kevin and I sat in the car together after the appointment was over. Kevin had to do the talking telling the good news over the phone to his parents, his sister and my parents. I texted my sister and some more friends. Still quiet. Still absorbing.
Every day I enter a “new phase” with baby No. 2 I think about Gabriel and this season last year and what was happening then. I haven’t even written in my daily journal since we found out we’re pregnant this second time. Day after day of looking back at what was happening last year would have been too painful to re-live. I hope now I’ll pick it up and get back into it.
Thursday we also found out it’s a girl. Kevin is – and I will be once the shock of “healthy” wears off – SO excited about having a girl. She’s growing right on track with our due date, which is still Cinco de Mayo. I’m exhausted right now but once I get some sleep, hopefully, I can think about a nursery. I wouldn’t let myself mentally go there prior to this appointment.
Not that clearing this hurdle is any kind of guarantee, but it is nice to see history not repeat itself – at least in that specific way. God is faithful. He gets it and I don’t have to. I rest in that. And I rest in Kevin’s kind arms, literally. When we pulled out of the doctor’s office, he was already to the giddy excited part. “I’m going to read ‘Strong Fathers, Strong Daughters,’ and I’m going to learn ballroom dancing so I can teach it to her,” he said matter-of-factly. I cried again.
I don’t know if Kevin is learning the difference between my happy tears and my sad ones but he comforts me through them all and that’s what counts. Our Rainbow Bright is so mightily, uniquely, wonderfully made. (Psalm 139). Gabriel was perfectly made too. For real, look it up. It’s in there! We praise God for him, for her, for this opportunity, for this day, this moment. Even for the ability to share it. Keep praising. Keep praying. Keep giving others grace and space to be. I guarantee they’re going through something that your gentle and generous grace can help soothe.
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And God said, “This is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations: I have set my (rain)bow in the cloud, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. When I bring clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds, I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh. – Genesis 9:12-15
