Family love, day three and three quarters

I had a statue of an Indian woman in my house for years and year. Indian as in Hindu/Buddha type woman. It was a leftover from my love affair with Buddhism. This love affiar is now a sweet remembrance and not a present part of my life. Don't get me wrong, I love a chubby Budda as much as the next one. Asian philosophy is a kind and wonderful way to think about life. But, it's not my religion.

I fall under the category of garden variety Christian. I co-lead a women's bible study group. Within that group are women that run more fundamental than I. Fundamental meaning they don't watch R rated movies, drink alcohol or read books like Lord of the Rings. They're kind of like nuns. Only they're married with kids, just like me.

These women I study with, they've been with me through my miscarriages. There has been some movement about this in terms of healing. Mr. Hall and I have started to talk about miscarriages like it really happened. We lost real babies. Complete with names.

SO, here we go.

The first baby we lost lived six weeks in my belly. I didn't really have a name picked out, but we've named him John.

The second baby we lost may or may not have been real. I only had a pregnancy test and my left over HCG (that's the hormone that makes the pregnancy test turn positive) may have been left over from John.

The third baby was already named. I called her Chloe. She made me super sick during the 16 weeks I had her in my belly. Even when her soul went to heaven (at 11 weeks) my body was still trying to take care of hers. My placenta was still pumping out hormones and nutrients. I feel enormously happy about this. Even after she was physically taken from my womb, my body started producing milk to feed her. I am happy about this too.

And we still love them. John and Chloe. They are as real to us as Pancake and Mac. And we have our faith. I lean on this and wow is that healing! Some days the pain of all this knocks me down and consumes me. Some days I feel such joy that I had them even if it was a few weeks. On those days I really feel I'll see them again. God didn't take them from me, I'll see them in heaven. I can feel this on days I let God in to heal me.

Which brings us to now. Mr. Hall and I are without barriers to pregnancy. No more birth control. We've surrendered our will to God and are letting Him work through this, through us. And naturally I turn to my Christian sisters. Even the fundamentalist ones because they love me and support me in awesome ways.

One thing they did say was to rid my house of false idols. Which sounds silly. But, we already love the baby that will come next. And it's best to care for her every way possible.

So, I gave away my Indian woman sculpture in the name of family love :)