Footprints on my heart

Dates on a calendar are a powerful thing. They bring us to celebrate special moments in our lives like birthdays,anniversaries and past accomplishments. They also bring us to reflect on hard moments that have passed us by. Unfortunately some dates that pass by make us remember a difficult time in our lives and it can be hard to see that date come again. You can only hope that when that date arrives again you will find yourself in a different place than where you were when it happened to you. You can hope that you have grown and changed in the past year and hope that you were still able to enjoy life's happiness again even though you remember the terrible feeling. Like a Dark spot you can travel too in a second. The place where tears arrive instantly and you have to swallow sorrow in order to not stay there long and be consumed again.
The feeling of having someone ripped right from your heart leaving an imprint that will never be the same.
Everyone has their own imprints. Their own stories. Here is a glimpse at mine.

Mine is a unique case as it is for someone I did not get to meet. Someone I loved so dearly and gave me my first maternal instincts. Someone so small that others may even tell me it was in fact not a someone at all. But I know it was. I know what I felt and and what I lost.
I lost a baby.
My first baby.
My child left me way before I even got the chance to meet them. The story of their life that was just beginning , came to an end. The terrible feeling that gives a mother is indescribable.
My mind wanders and I think of this baby often still. Who would  they have been? What would they have looked like? I miss them. I miss a baby that I bonded with for a short time in my womb. But I know that the bond was real. So real. However short the time was every mother knows their thoughts are so consumed by the plans and dreams they have for their future children when you are an expecting mother. You think of them all the time. I was just that mother.
Ready to jump into the adventure of parent hood. But then a darkness came. I ended up in the hospital long before the books and the doctors told me I would.
I experienced severe anxiety, pain, and a fear like no other. In one short weekend I went from an excited expecting mom to a grieving confused young woman. A woman with an imprint on her heart that would change her forever. An imprint from a child she will never get to hold in her arms. I became one of the statistics. One of the many pregnancies that end in miscarriage.

I made a promise to the baby I lost. I fought for their life with everything I had in me. But when all was said and done I promised to fight for their memory. So that is why I am writing this to you. Here in this place. This weekend it will have been one year since that dark time in my life.
I think of that baby so often. I hope in my heart that they are in heaven looking down on me and getting to know their mommy from a distance. And I pray that they see the love I feel for them even though we did not get to meet.
I am in a different place than I was a year ago. I am a different person. I can close my eyes and feel the deep pain again in a moment but I can also look at that time from a distance. From a place of hope because God was faithful to me in His own timing. I will never understand why that had to happen to me but I know now that I am held is God's hands no matter my circumstance. I know that I am a small part of a bigger story and I will live my days with that hope. I am so very blessed.

I gave birth to a baby this past fall. My beautiful daughter. My heart has stretched and grown in ways I didn't think possible. The same heart with that imprint on it from the baby I lost. This heart has felt happiness like no other after a season of feeling like it wouldn't come. But if we all hold on it will come. Joy will come in the morning!
I am sending a prayer out to the mama's out there who have felt this darkness or are still in it. Just remember we have the memory of our lost babies sketched onto our hearts forever. And we can choose to make those memories  beautiful ones. We also carry the hope of what is to come. Someday I will meet my baby in heaven. But today I will put another foot forward in my story of life and embrace the person I am becoming with each new day.

Blessings to you where ever you are in your story,

Elycia

"How softly you tiptoed into our world.
Almost silently, only a moment you stayed.
Oh, but what an imprint your footprints
 have left on our hearts" -author unknown