Disclaimers are annoying, but I feel the need to say once again that if you’re not a fan of some “dirty” details, feel free to pass on todays post. No love lost <3 But this is going to be an update on where my body is and where my heart is and all of those things.

Its been four weeks. I’d be a solid 20 weeks pregnant today if all had gone according to my plan. But it didn’t. I delivered Jamin exactly four weeks ago this morning, and like I said last week, I’m stuck between feeling like everything is so recent, and also like so much time has passed.

My body is finally starting to settle down. I think. I know its too much information, but I have finally stopped bleeding. Literally, yesterday was the first day that I didn’t bleed. It has been exhausting on my body to bleed for so long, and very exhausting on my spirit, to suffer from these physical symptoms for so dang long. When we lost Theo in January, I bled for two weeks, and it felt like an eternity. I always bleed long after I have a baby, but at least I usually have a baby to show for myself. Its so much worse this way. But anyway, hopefully that’s finally done. My boobs are still leaking, and my skin is still rough, though I’m hopeful thats on its way to calming down too. We’ll know soon enough when my blood tests come back and tell me if my hcg level is completely down or not. I should say here that I actually haven’t lost much of my baby weight at all, and I have mixed emotions about that. I started my pregnancy with Jamin a tad lighter than I cared to be, so I was happy to gain some weight back. Now, I’m slightly above where I’d ideally like to be, but not by any important amount at all. All this is to say that, while I would happily drop five pounds along the way, I’m happy I didn’t just quit eating when we lost our baby. I’m an emotional non-eater, which can get unhealthy pretty fast. I’ve been there. This part of my recovery is ALL thanks to my amazing friends and family and church who came around us and made us meals for so long! I don’t think we prepared food for literally two weeks! It was an amazing gift, and because of it, we stayed healthy and as well as we could be. How do you even thank that many people??

As for the rest of me. Its been an interesting four weeks, with lots of twists and turns. I know, that sounds SO cliche, but I’m not sure how else to word it. The ups and downs are all over the map, with those couple of days where I couldn’t see which way was up, and days like yesterday where I felt normal and like we didn’t lose a child last month. I have never sorrowed so deeply. Never. Its been completely unreal, but SO real at the same time. Its hard to sort all of these things out. I almost wish my desire for a larger family died when my babies did. It would make this whole thing so much easier, to just know that we were done now. Except that we don’t. We do want more kids. The desire hasn’t changed. What we feel called to do, and how we feel called to grow our family has not changed. It is still there. But its just so much scarier now. And I don’t want to live in fear. So there is a lot of soul searching still to do, but I’m glad to feel somewhat clear headed on the subject. I learned earlier this year that it was in fact POSSIBLE to miss someone so desperately while eagerly anticipating someone else. I learned that it wasn’t cruel or unloving to keep moving forward. And while I know there are some jerks out there, I learned that the important people in my life KNOW that wanting another child doesn’t mean we’re trying to replace the ones we lost. If you know us at all, you know where our desires are rooted, and you know how much we love our little baby boys. That will never ever change. I feel like it is a sign of recovery that we can look forward with hope. And we’re there. We are recovering.

We are definitely still grieving and struggling, but we LOVE to talk family with people! Don’t be afraid to talk babies and pregnancy and future plans with me 🙂 I’m serious. Don’t be too too careful. I hate when I can tell that people are tip toeing. I have this constant ache to talk family with women who want to talk to me about it! And even though we are in this difficult place, that ache hasn’t left either.

Healing is coming. Its already started. I see these wounds as always being sensitive, and I anticipate they’ll tear back open a handful of times over the years, but they will be healthy wounds that I will always attend to and take care of. They’re part of my life now, and rather than waiting for them to be gone, I’m just making room for them to be here.

Rather to have loved and lost, right?

I can’t remember the last time I blogged this late into the evening! It likely wasn’t too terribly long ago, but it feels like forever! I love day blogging, but today was such a good, full, refreshing day that I’m more than fine with playing a little catch up.

I took Dekker to school this morning and made it home just in time to take Laela to preschool. Today was my parent volunteer day, and it was fun to see Laela in action with the other kids. I should say rather, it was entertaining to see Laela not in action, haha! She participated in everything, but just the minimum that was required, haha! She would sit at the front of the group of kids, and stand for the songs, but would not sing along or do actions. I’m positive it will come 😉 She’s SUCH an energetic happy girl, and I know those wiggles are in there, but they’re taking their time coming out. It was cute to see her line up with the other kids her age, and learn which kids she’ll go to school with next year. I liked it.

Laela and I drove home after preschool and I had about ten minutes maximum before I ran back out to make a hair appointment. I was SO looking forward to getting my hair refreshed after 3.5 months! Thank goodness my purple had continued to fade really pretty, and it never really felt like it looked bad, but the ends were looking pretty fried and I had a new idea. The two hours I usually spend in the salon grew to an incredibly 3.5 hours, and I will admit that I loved every minute of that break! I sipped my coffee, texted my friends and husband, read magazines, chatted with my hair girl, and in general was pampered and relaxed. My head burned a few times, but thats to be expected 😉 It was really fun, and I feel way fresher. I wish I had a chance to put myself together before I went to my appointment, but hey, you can’t have everything.

I dropped by my moms house on my way home, to show off my hair and quickly catch up on her day. It wasn’t a long visit, but I’ll take what I can get! I love her. But it was soon time to head back to my own house and family. They were all settled, kids eating supper, and Brady and I were ready to hang out a bit. Bedtime was on the rougher side of our usual, but Jerilee showed up at just the right time, and we wasted the rest of the evening away catching up on Bachelor in Paradise. Ok, I admit, we’re still putridly behind, but we’re working on it. It was a lovely evening of good food, good company, and trashy tv. During our evening, we had someone drop off something we had mailed to their house (long story) as well as our lovely neighbour brought us an armful of fresh veggies from her garden!

Seriously, guys, I say it so often but I’m not sure if I say it here that often. We have the best people. The absolute best!! This day felt like a day that was needed, or at the very least, it was much appreciated. I don’t anticipate that I’ll now fire at 100 every single day form here on out, or anything crazy like that, but today was fun and light and enjoyable.

Definitely worth the late blog.

I never feel like fall hits so quickly after school starts. To be fair, this is only my second year with a kid in school, but even when I was younger and in school, I always felt like the first chunk of the school year was still somewhat summery. I’m sure this was partly why going back to school was always tough. That and not being able to sleep in anymore. I am not a fan of setting my alarm and now I’m doing it every single day. Its an interesting challenge. But I’m actually ok with it.

Technically, there are still a few days of summer left, but I am so ready for fall. More ready for fall than ever! I vastly prefer warm weather to cold, but let me tell you it is time for a change of season over here. I loved our summer for our few trips to the lake, for getting our beautiful deck built, and for celebrating our pregnancy. It was a very heavy summer, though, as we worked up to the due date of the baby we lost in January, only to find out so soon afterwards that our second little 2017 baby was gone too. I’ll say again, I love summer. But this one was hard. And its time to move forward.

Sometimes I think I’d rather live somewhere where the season changes weren’t so obvious, but I actually think its good for me to see the shift and have a change of scenery, even when its not all favourable, in my opinion.

With feeling this way, I am just ready for the cooler weather. I have a cute new fall jacket that I bought off of a discount site, I’m aching to wear boots, and sweaters, and bit scarves. I’ve been saving crochet projects on Pinterest, and planning for Christmas. Yes, I know, I’m one of “those people.” I was wanting to write today’s post all about Christmas but I know a handful of you would have a bone to pick with me 😉 So I’ll save that for a bit, I guess. But seriously, I’m in the zone.

Today is grey and rainy and cool, and I’m so happy with it. I love the rain. I’ll admit I’ve found myself teary on and off throughout the day, for no real reason, with no real trigger. Its like my body knows its less vulnerable to cry in the rain. Who knows. I’m ok with it, though. My heart feels so heavy, and I need to let it do its thing. If that thing is crying, bring it on.

Rain feels so symbolic to me these days. In a really good way, honestly. So many verses, so many encouraging metaphors, so many pictures in my head. I need to get this tattoo happening, guys!

Or, as Laela would say, she started “pee-cool!”

She was SO excited as she got ready this morning. It was pretty adorable. She put on her cute outfit, brushed her teeth, let me fix her hair up a bit, etc. She kept telling me she was so excited to meet all of her new friends.

When we got there, we went inside and took of her shoes, put on her indoor shoes, and put her sweater into her backpack. She saw all the toys and games set up and announced “This is so exciting! Looks cool!” She was amped.

She had a moment of hesitance when she actually had to go into the little classroom, meet the teacher, and actually interact. She wasn’t crying or upset, but she wouldn’t speak. She would only respond with nods or shakes of her head. But thankfully, her teacher is exceptional and very familiar with kids her age, so no one was rushed. Laela and I wandered through the room a little bit and looked at the toys. She wasn’t sold, but she wasn’t trying to leave, either. Her main concern was that she wanted me to stay. I told her I’d stay for a minute, but that didn’t seem to be quite what she wanted.

Finally, her teacher came and asked her if they go find some Barbie clothes and they could dress Barbies together. Laela nodded and off they went. Win! No tears, no big fears. Just nerves, like all of us have in new situations.

I’ll admit that I watched the clock a bit in the morning. I actually set an alarm so I wouldn’t accidentally forget to pick her up! When I did arrive, only a couple of minutes early, everyone was playing outside, having a riot. Lots of parents were coming to collect their kids, but Laela didn’t notice me. She was into it! When it was announced that it was time to tidy up the toys that were all over the lawn, Laela did her part and tidied up until it was all done, and then kind of looked around to see what was next. I finally called her name and she looked my way. She was full of smiles and ran over to me. I was quickly informed that she didn’t want to leave. I told her grandma was at our house, which helped a little. And I told her we’d come back to preschool, which she also liked. But she only willingly came with me when she saw other kids leaving. So we left, with her reassuring me that the teacher liked her and would miss her.

It was a great success. My little threenager (I can only call her that for 18 more days!) loved her time at preschool, making friends, playing new games, and I think she liked being independent in a new way.

I’m so proud of you, Laela! You were brave and friendly and did a great job on your first day of school!! I love you!

I started the day by attempting to shave my armpits with my toothbrush. It wasn’t the smoothest morning, clearly, (or the smoothest shave…) but the day moved forward. I got the kids up and brought everyone to school to drop Dekker off, which went fairly smoothly. The kids played pretty well, and were nice and hungry and ready for lunch when that time rolled around. They ate, and I ate, but I spilled lunch all down my shirt, which sucked. I hit a few small road blocks throughout the morning, but it was pretty ok. Thank goodness for a friend of mine, who picked me up a cold brew and stopped by for a short visit. Our chat passed the time so smoothly while I waited for Brady to get home. I really really appreciated the company.

My mom offered to come with me to my appointment, which was just perfect. While I didn’t exactly know what to expect from my appointment, I was going to see my OB for the first time since we found out about Jamin. It was a pretty heavy, complicated time those three-ish weeks ago, and I didn’t know what today would look like with her. After anticipating this appointment that entire time, I had grown nervous and antsy and ready to just get to it and see what would come of it, and learn what my next steps would be. I felt SO ready, but also vastly unprepared. It was such a gift to have my mom along, as she’d been to that same office in the past, and was familiar with where to go, where to park, etc. Once again, the company was exceptional. So we made our way there together and didn’t have to wait too terribly long before we got into an exam room. I expected to wait for a good hour, but it was less than ten minutes, easily.

Before my OB came in, I was handed one of those multiple choice tests to rate my mental health. Those kind of drive me bananas, because while I think its SO important to keep a close eye on mental health, especially after going through such a difficult time, I don’t like how that particular test works. Unless you’re fully happy 110% of time, you show up as either mildly depressed or anxious. I’m sure my take on it is a bit extreme, but they’ve not always been administered particularly well, so I may just have a skewed perspective. That all being said, when she did arrive in my exam room, she added it up quickly and said I was in the normal range, and set it aside. Perfect. Because I feel “normal.”

It wasn’t a very long appointment. She asked her few questions, gave me room to ask mine, and then we talked about the next steps. Some of the impressions I was under were wrong, and the timeline looks quite different than what I thought.

*** I’d like to throw in my usual disclaimer here and say that pleeeaaase, if you think you’d do something differently than we are, don’t argue with me over it. Please. Trust us, and respect our decision, even if they’re not for you. <3

My initial impression was that I would get a bunch of blood work done when I was 6 weeks postpartum, and that would reveal if I have a blood clotting disorder or not. That is a fairly easy condition to manage, so I’ve been rooting for that to actually show up in my blood work so we can remedy it and keep moving forward. Keep thinking about future babies. Give us something to fix, basically. Today, I learned that I could get my blood tested today already! I was SO excited and relieved to try and bump the process just that much further ahead. However, new information has come to pass. IF this blood clotting disorder does show up in my blood tests, we have to wait another three months and re-test to see if its still there. And if it is, then we go forward with the easy fix and we can try to conceive after that. For whatever reason, unlike standard blood work, these results take longer to get back. MUCH longer. If this clotting disorder that I’ve been rooting for shows up, and I have to go through the re-testing process, that will leave us waiting at least six months before we can even consider trying again.

Trust me. We’re not rushing. We’re not forgetting or ignoring our beautiful Jamin, or Theo. We’re not trying to erase what happened or replace the little boys we lost. But guys, we ache so badly for a baby. I know some of you can relate. We have anticipated TWO babies now, with no actual baby to show for it. I feel like I have been pregnant for a year, and I have nothing to show for it except two little teddies and a scary little box of ashes. To think that we can’t even consider trying to conceive for SIX MONTHS feels like an absolute eternity. My heart breaks just thinking this is even a possibility.

That possibility is easily the worst news from today, and its all hypothetical. I know this. Beyond that, we received a lot of positive news and plans for the future. But I’ll admit that I’m scared of what will come of my blood test. And the results are weeks away.

I want answers, but I don’t want that answer. I want a clear test. Please pray with me.

I was SO off yesterday. I couldn’t get it together in just about any way. Not with my family, not with myself, and definitely not on the blog. It was an incredibly overwhelming day that I positively could not work out in my head, and that just made me feel crazier. I would go upstairs and take a nice long break, but when I would finally resurface and try to join my family, I would break down so quickly and have to quickly retreat back upstairs. It was not a good scene.

The good news is I think I figured out what happened! Sort of. As much as is possible, anyway.

Since we lost our Jamin, people have been reminding me to grieve in any way that I need, however that looks. Not to stifle my feelings, not to push too hard, etc. To feel mad, sad, ripped off, exhausted, confused, numb, you name it. I have been given all the space to basically lose it without judgement. That has felt wonderful, and that freedom has aided in my continued healing. That all being said, for the past three weeks, I’ve been able to take lots of time to sort out my feelings, and feel them all good and proper, if that makes sense. When I’m really really sorrowful, I’ve been able to melt into my tear puddle and take all the time I need there. When I’m completely exhausted from the day, I can go to bed early. When I need to just spout and vent, I’ve had that freedom and plenty of willing listeners. When I’ve found joy or hope, I’ve been able to express it to close friends and family freely. I’ve not felt judged or minimized once, which is really saying something for the beautiful people I have in my life.

While everyone gave me aaaaall the leeway to lose my cool and just straight up panic, I haven’t. I haven’t really tried not to lose it, but I haven’t been at that point of total confusion and derailment.

Until yesterday.

I think that is why I was SO off base yesterday. I wasn’t angry at anything, really. No one was particularly bothering or upsetting me. I wasn’t too tired from a bad night. I wasn’t sorrowing harder than I had been the days leading up to yesterday. The kids weren’t harder to handle that day. But for one reason or another, my nerves were SHOT and I couldn’t be with anyone. I was completely overwhelmed and overstimulated and unable to process myself and my thoughts and my heart.

This may not sound like a grand discovery to you, but to me, it was a relief. I think this is what people have been saying is normal. This is the behaviour that all of the loving people in my life have given me room to exhibit, without judgement. For whatever reason, I haven’t found myself in complete panic mode just yet, and thats great! But yesterday, I was completely out of sorts, with no good excuse other than the fact that we lost our son three weeks ago.

Three weeks sounds both so recent and so long ago. Its kind of right in that middle ground where I don’t know how to feel. Where I need to keep on living, but I almost feel guilty when I feel happy or hopeful for a moment. Don’t worry, I KNOW that feeling isn’t of God, and I’m working on it. But still. Its a weird time. A strange interim between the greatest sorrow I’ve ever known, and the rest of our life that I pray only gets better and better. And for whatever reason (I doubt I’ll ever know why) yesterday it just all came at me at once, and I could not for the life of me sort through my aching emotions.

Today has felt better, though I can tell I’m still a bit on edge. I keep telling people my tolerance is really low, and I’m not sure how else to describe that, but its still very true. I don’t want to feel like this forever, though. Always striving to be the best we can be, right? Yet its already been three weeks.

And at the same time, its only been three weeks…..

Jerilee came over last night to watch some Bachelor in Paradise. We are SO far behind! We love our weekly dates to watch our trashy tv and catch up in person on life and such. Its not as thought she and I don’t text ridiculous amounts through the week, but in person is just so much better. Thankfully, Pizza Hut has a great sale on right now, so we treated ourselves to a Pizza Hut supper. It had been a while since we last justified something like that. Brady called and placed the order, but they called him back shortly thereafter and said they were out of the pan crusts, and asked if we wanted homestyle instead. Brady told them that would be fine, as long as they were the same price. Good thing he threw that in there, because they were not going to cost the same at all. After a short debate, they agreed to give us our pizzas for the asme price with a stuffed crust!! We never get stuffed crust, so this was an extra treat for us. Win!!!

Brady drove for the pizza, and our wonderful neighbour from across the street walked over with a chocolate zucchini cake for our dessert! Score! We were officially set for a really delicious Bachelor night!

We got a bit of a later start to it, but it was a great evening of tv, food, and wonderful company. So many things have changed in the last ten years, but in another way, so little has changed 🙂 I love it.

We only watched one episode, because Jerilee had an early morning and some things to do still that night, so she went home and we went to bed a tad early.

This morning has been BUSY. We’ve just been home, but it was a morning of work. Solly has sized up significantly recently, meaning all of his shirts are short and his pants are really low. We dragged out some bins and grabbed a ton of stuff for Solly while packing up most of his current wardrobe. I’m actually kind of stoked because he’s just come upon a HUGE stack of fleecy sleepers, and its pretty much the right time/season for it! So everything for him is in the wash. Brady also lugged out tub after tub of outerwear and established what we have/still need for the kids for winter. Everyone is well set up except Rowan, but thanks to the season of stores giving out free money, we are well set up to order him new stuff in the next few days. Laela may grow out of her ski pants before the end of winter, but she’s fine for now. They all have well-fitting stuff for fall as well.

While its great to know that everyone is taken care of jacket/shoe wise, I found the morning to be particularly exhausting. The constant reminders for the kids to speak nicely to each other. The constant background noise of talking/singing toys. Solly wailing at the top of his lungs every time he’d see his daddy but was not being held by said daddy. Rowan screaming when his duplo didn’t click together on the first try. It was just a loud morning, and I’m embarrassed to say that I crumbled in the middle of it.

I love and appreciate those of you who think the best of me. I regularly get comments, messages, and texts telling me how strong I am. But guys, I feel so so weak. Like today. Really, no one was misbehaving, or being louder or scrappier than usual. Our life is just loud, and thats ok! We’re very used to it, and we love our active noise-making children! But today, I just couldn’t handle it. I was SO weak today. I was NOT strong. And thats hard to say, because I so badly want to be.

Its not been an easy day, and while I would love to write something fluffy and just blow past my difficult morning, these are the “joys” with posting every day. Every single day, regardless of what my life looks like. Don’t say I didn’t warn you! These are long, difficult days. Even the good ones are a struggle to get through. Because I post publicly, by choosing to read, you are being dragged through the mud with me and my family. I haven’t always been able to post something positive or exciting each day, and especially now, its so much harder to find those positives that you really have to look for, even on a good day.

Please continue to bear with me. I am a mess of sorrow, grief, and guilt all confused together with hope, passion, and love. And joy, I think. That used to be more prevalent, and its sort of petered out recently. I believe its still in there, but I maybe need to nurture that part a little bit more diligently. I can’t afford to lose such an important piece of myself.

Though I feel like I’ve lost a couple of things already this year that are far more important to me.

As many of you guys know, I’ve been really nervous going into this school year. Not because of anything school-related, but with feeling foggy and easily overwhelmed and somewhat unstable. I keep saying that I know I’m going to forget something important, and while it hasn’t happened yet, there is still time. Its been a full first week of school, and next week is even fuller! I’m still nervous. But I’m working on it.

I’ve been surprised to see that the routine is helping me get through my days. Maybe you guys knew it would be good, but I didn’t. I thought school starting at such a fragile time would hit my mental health down hard, but its been good for me, I think!

Call them small things, but with taking Dekker to school every day, I have to get out of bed. I have to put on real clothes, deodorant, and brush my teeth and hair. I have to venture outside and interact with people. And then, when I return home, I’m already somewhat “together” and ready to take on the day. I’ve incorporated making my bed and opening ALL of the blinds in the morning, too, to force some sunshine into this sometimes dismal house. I’ve got everyone taking vitamins, myself included. I’m trying to keep our house and family functioning to the best of my ability, but none of it is over the top, or extra, at all. Its all just basic life stuff, but frankly, even basic life stuff feels big these days, so I’m calling all of these things successes.

I hope that one day these basic things can become habits and don’t take the same amount of effort that they take now. There are other things that need to be incorporated into our daily life, like kegels for me and physio exercises for Brady. I need to eat a bit more consistently. I need to implement bigger changes as well, like meal planning, more careful budgeting, etc. but those will have to wait for another time.I need to read my bible and take intentional time to pray.

Right now, I want to slowly move my way out of survival mode and into successful daily living. I’m not rushing, but I don’t want to become stagnant either. I want to find our new normal, whatever its going to look like. But really, I’m not looking too terribly hard for that normal. As with so many things, as soon as I figure out what I think our normal looks like, it will inevitably change soon after. So for now, I’m sticking with the “day by day” thing. Its not easy for me, as a person who likes to plan.

Please don’t forget us. We still need prayer. Each day is still so different, and hard to navigate. It isn’t over. It won’t ever be.

I stepped outside my front door a couple of days ago to take a picture for a photo group I’m part of. I was standing on my step, trying to get a good angle when I got so startled, I just about lost my balance. One of those huge flying grasshoppers was coming at me. It literally went around me, bounced off the side of the house, and flew away.

It gave me the willies. Like the full on shivers.

Once it was gone, I tried again to take the picture I came for. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw that sucker flying around again. Rather than jumping out of my skin and racing back into my house, I took a step back and just leaned against the house to watch it go. I didn’t know grasshoppers could stay in the air for so long!

It wasn’t a grasshopper.

It was a hummingbird.

A tiny little grey bird flying madly around my entrance.

And for whatever reason, I just started to cry. I was struck SO HARD with emotion seeing that little hummingbird, who seemed to just drop in for a little visit. I have never seen a hummingbird at our house before. Never ever. But that wasn’t enough of a reason to cry.

I don’t want to make something up that isn’t there, and I don’t want to suggest that this was necessarily a “sign” if it wasn’t. But who am I to limit God? For whatever reason, this teeny little hummingbird brought me to tears of all kinds. In that moment, I felt sorrow, and excitement, and comfort, and release. I can’t tell you why.

All this being said, you’d better believe we’re going to be getting a hummingbird feeder next season! Any information or tips would be appreciated, because we are NOT bird people. But it turns out at least I am a hummingbird person, for some unknown reason. I’m going to embrace that, and at the very least, I’m going to try to bring some beautiful little birds to our house, just because.

It finally happened. Last night, Brady and I went to retrieve our sons cremains from a funeral home in Saskatoon.

Can we quickly just discuss the term “cremains?” I feel like thats a word I’d make up as a joke. A play on words, basically. I’m awful for making those kinds of jokes, combining two words and thinking I”m hilarious. I have a pretty dry sense of humor, if you hadn’t yet learned this about me. So anyway, cremains. Not as funny as my usual plays on words.

Brady and I drove to the funeral home fairly silently. We shared a brief conversation about how we imagined things might go down, but really, neither of us had any idea what to expect. We were as “prepared” as we could possibly be, which was not at all. I had done my hair and put on makeup, but in no way was I “ready.” But I remembered that we were literally going to a funeral home. They didn’t expect us to be fabulous and upbeat and experienced. No one wants to be experienced with this. So we found the place, circled the block, and finally parked.

It was so quiet when we walked in. We rang a little bell on the wall and waited for someone to come talk to us. Its a really lovely set up there, actually. They have someone in house literally 24/7. This ensures that people can feel like their loved ones are never left alone or vulnerable, and also that people can come and grieve however they need to at any hour of the day or night. Its quite a wonderful gift to have someone there outside of regular business hours.

A man came and greeted us after a minute or two, and Brady offered up the reason for our visit. The man didn’t offer much up but he said he would be back shortly. Just that short conversation was on the exhausting side, but I was SO thankful that Brady did the talking so I didn’t have to. We sat and waited for our son to arrive. In the meantime, we watched some fish swim around on the small tv screen on the wall and debated the likelihood of it being a live feed or just a prerecorded video. (It was a video.) I really liked the fish that looked like Toothless from “How to Train your Dragon.”

Yes, I admit, I looked for humour as we sat and waited for our son. It was either that or cry. I chose dragon spotting.

It took longer than I expected for the man to return, and I was starting to wonder if Jamin had been misplaced, or there was an issue. But I didn’t say anything out loud, in case Brady wasn’t going there, I didn’t want to bring him into my crazy. Thank goodness, we did eventually hear footsteps, and the man helping us had reappeared carrying something very important to us in his hands. He passed Brady a box wrapped in a dark velvet bag, who then passed it right to me. It was so light. We also received a letter confirming Jamin’s cremation and that the box holds his ashes. The official record of him and how his body was handled after he died. We showed some ID to prove that we are, in fact, his parents, signed a couple of forms, and we were on our way.

I admit, I was so nervous he’d try to sell us on things at that point. Internment, burial, urns, etc. But he didn’t, which I am so thankful for.

I don’t think Brady and I have ever held hands so tightly. It was like, when you’re holding hands for a short time, and you squeeze hands for a minute, just to acknowledge something secretly. We were just holding on for dear life.

We took a longer walk to our van rather than just ducking across the empty street. We tried to jut breathe. It felt like an effort. When we finally made it back to our van, we had our big cry together. I’ve always been comfortable being emotional around Brady, but I wish it wasn’t so dang familiar these days. We have done more than our share of crying together. I hope we can do more laughing together soon.

Before we drove off, we braved up and opened the letter up. It was a quick, official read, nothing too fancy in there. Jamin’s name is spelled wrong everywhere, which makes me sad. We could’ve corrected it in the hospital, but I couldn’t imagine nitpicking over something so small at that time. Its ok. We know how his name is spelled. The letter itself was unremarkable, anyway. We pulled the box out of the velvet bag, and saw it was just your basic white thin cardboard box. It was taped up tight. Which makes sense, I suppose. What was I expecting? To open it and find a ziploc bag of ashes? I don’t even know what to make of that. I don’t want to find out. So Brady and I decided we had done enough brave things for one day, put our precious little box back into the soft bag, and headed home.

This post has already turned out so much longer than I anticipated it would, so I think I’m going to call it. The point of the story is Jamin is home. He’s not home how I ever pictured bringing a baby home, but as I keep learning, my plans don’t really mean too much. None of our plans do. Anything can change at any moment, and we can’t hold on to things of the world. We can try, but flesh fails and disappoints. We can only count on God.

Welcome home, Jamin. You are dearly loved here.