Why give, to take away?

He wasn't gone even a year.

I remember early on wanting nothing more than to be pregnant again. To somehow be able to get that feeling back- that old me. I remember being so happy, so in control, so 'normal'. The two of them moving and growing inside me... How good I felt then! I wanted that back.

But it was selfish.

It was for me. And the moment it happened I changed my mind. I learned a baby would come the morning of her funeral. My sweet Auntie Irene. Now in heaven no doubt holding her great-great nephew- then only 6 months old... I learned the baby would come and while there was nothing I wanted more, I was scared.

It wasn't like I hadn't thought it before- wanted to hit the pause button. Rewind. Go back.

What if I had gone in just a day earlier... Just hours earlier... would he be here?

I wanted to rewind- but being pregnant again didn't do that- it didn't change that- I didn't get the 'old me' back.

I remember not wanting to bond. Being afraid of loving this baby. As if loving meant hurting- meant making myself vulnerable to a heartache I didn't know I could endure again. I couldn't imagine losing someone I wanted so much to be in my life. I couldn't do it again.

And so I talked to God. I screamed at God. I wanted my baby back! He was mine! He was mine! Why did you give him just to take him away from me!

I was sitting in his garden. There wasn't a cloud in the sky and I was writing to him in a journal I kept (and still do). Letters to a son who would never actually read them- but I felt heard every word that crossed the page.

I was sitting in his garden. Crying. Writing. Pleading with God. Denying the life growing inside of me. Denying the truth that I loved this baby and wanted this baby. Denying.

At that moment, I looked to the cloudless sky, tears rolling down my face and suddenly I felt such a peace. I knew in that moment that it was o.k. It was o.k. I knew that I could love this baby as I had loved my others. I knew in a moment that peace- and the words I wrote- words of anger and fear changed. They changed to joy and thanksgiving. It was an amazing moment- one that I will never forget.

For in that moment I paused. I listened. And I learned something.

My babies weren't mine.

I had always used the cliche' that they were gifts from God- but until that moment I didn't really view them as His, but as mine. In that moment my thoughts, my beliefs changed.

God gave me these children to take care of, for as long as He wanted me to. He gave them to me and knew that I would love them and do everything I could to be the best mother to them. He gave them to me, but they were not mine. He gives them to us. But sometimes He takes them back. Someday He'll take me back. And it will be o.k.

Why did he give Andrew to me? To change me. To change you. To make me pause. To make you pause. I hope you did.