Hope...

... edited to add... while channel surfing in the car this morning, I landed on this song coming from a University radio station that we only receive when it's overcast. After posting this entry I still had the song in my head, and being that I was too lazy to go down to our basement and dig out the "old" Shaggy CD, I decided to Google it... the name of the song is: Hope!

It wasn't my intention to start each entry with a single word... it's just kind of worked out that way. I woke up this morning with the word "hope" on my heart. I had hope that I was going to be able to drive for the first time in 2 weeks without incident, I've been very weak since Eli's birth due to blood loss. I had hope that I was going to be able to make it through the kids' dentist appointments without a meltdown. I had hope that today would be a bit more productive than yesterday. Each and every day there is room for hope.

Main Entry: 1hope
Pronunciation: \ˈhōp\
Function: verb
Inflected Form(s): hoped; hop·ing
Etymology: Middle English, from Old English hopian; akin to Middle High German hoffen to hope
Date: before 12th century
intransitive verb1: to cherish a desire with anticipation
2archaic : trust

"to cherish a desire with anticipation"... humm. To me, that means to have hope, there's anticipation and excitement along with the longing for something. I guess that's kind of the way I'm feeling today. I'm excited to see where my life goes next because, frankly, I didn't really like where I was 2 weeks ago. I mean, I can't imagine anyone liking being told that their child has passed, being checked in to a special room on the L&D floor, far back in the corner... a room with a nice big window, a bed, a tv, all the normal things that we've always had in any other L&D room but it was missing one very important item... the baby warmer. I spent most of the time there looking to my left, out the window and avoiding the right side where the warmer should have been. I didn't like where my head was at that point in time. From our room you could see the NICU rooms and we spent a lot of time hoping and praying for those babies too... getting excited about seeing the infant seats in the windows knowing that another family was that much closer to taking their baby home. I laid there praying that one of my other friends wasn't contracting anymore, 2500 miles away. I really wanted to just have a little bit of hope at that point in time. I would have loved to have been almost 30 weeks pregnant and trying to hold off labor, at least he would have had a fighting chance or, to be sitting in the NICU. At least I would have been able to hold my son and feel the life in him. For whatever reason though that wasn't our fate. I have hope that someday I'll see the rainbow and have some small understanding of why our story was written this way.

Oh, and in case you're wondering. We made it to the dentist and back, just fine. Eli was of course on my mind. I thought about how I couldn't have offered to hold little R on my lap for x-rays had I been pregnant. I thought about how the chair that I sat in while K got her teeth cleaned would have been really uncomfortable with the sciatic pain that I am "blessed" with during pregnancy. But, I didn't lose it. I didn't come unglued. I didn't cry. That doesn't mean that I don't miss him with all of my heart and soul but this is my new reality.

In addition to waking with the word "hope" on my mind, in one of the support groups that I belong to we've decided to focus on hope. Maybe I'm looking too hard for signs but the name of the group was inspired by the movie Hope Floats. The song that Jim and I danced to for our first dance after our wedding was "To Make You Feel My Love", which by the way, is the main song in the movie. It may be a stretch, but it's a comforting stretch.

I'm hopeful that my body will soon be healed and that my heart will soon follow. There will always be a scar there but I'll wear it proudly. Without hope, there is nothing.