Hope Found and Lost...Small Miracles Blog Hop

***Please be warned, this may not be an uplifting post.  If you are not having a good day, please don't continue reading.  I don't want to make a bad day worse.***

     From the very beginning, she was my small miracle.  I don't share this very often, but it took us a very long time to concieve her.  We had stopped using any kind of birth control about 3 years prior to getting pregnant.  I didn't want to face the fact that there might be a reason we hadn't gotten pregnant yet.  I didn't want to have to go through fertility testing and treatments.  I began to wonder if we were meant to be parents.  Hope came in the form of a positive pregnancy test on January 5, 2010.  I never realized just how much I wanted to be a mom until I found out I was pregnant with her.  I knew I wanted to have children, but I didn't know how much until that moment.  And so began our journey.  There were so many questions this pregnancy answered.  After my car accident, the doctors weren't sure if I would be able to carry to term or give birth.  The injuries I sustained were enough to make doctors question my ability, but they did not warn me against it.  Hope continued to build throughout my pregnancy.  I learned that I could handle exercise and the extra weight.  I learned that I could handle labor...I learned that I could handle a c-section.  But, I also learned how quickly hope could be lost. 

     In the blink of an eye, any hope she had given me was ripped away.  Now my mind is filled with so many questions.  Were we even meant to be parents?  Will I be able to get pregnant again?  Should we even try?  If we do, what if we lose another baby?  What if the baby has to be born early?  Are we prepared to deal with this?  Can I handle the stress of a pregnancy after loss?  There are so many questions weighing on my mind.  Where did my hope go? 

     Along this journey, I have found little glimmers.  Every time I see a butterfly, I think of her.  Every time I work on her garden, I feel as though she is there with me.  Every time I hug her blanket, I feel close to her.  But hope has been hard to find.  Recently, I feel as though I am going back to my life just after I lost her.  The sadness has been overwhelming some days.  I can't think of anything in particular that has caused this relapse.  Maybe its Mother's Day looming on the horizon.  I was looking forward to my first Mother's Day; the possibility of finding a gorgeous piece of Mom jewelry that shows all of our birthstones together; hugging my chubby (yes, I'm sure she would be chubby) daughter and being thankful that she was here with me; finally feeling like a "grown up" by being a mom.  I don't know.  I wish I knew what was causing this funk lately.

     But, the imortant thing is that these glimmers do exist.  Not only those, but also the glimmers that exist with in my husband and my family.  As gloomy as I may be, they try.... They may not be successful, but they try.  And I am so thankful for that.  I know these posts are supposed to be uplifting, but sometimes hope is so hard to find.  Yet, miracles do exist and she was...no, IS, mine small miracle.