Random thoughts

Someone recently posed the question: How did we know our family was done?

So this is something I've been thinking a lot about over the last couple of days and I was reminded of my own personal experience. While I was pregnant with Erik, I was perfectly content with him being our last. Throughout the whole pregnancy I thought things like, "This is the last time I have to get this huge," or "This is the last time my back will kill me every day" or "This is the last time I have to lose my lunch on a daily basis for nine months." And I was completely fine with that! Then the day came when Erik was born. That afternoon as I was holding him and resting, I heard a very distinct and clear voice say to me, "Don't get too comfortable because you aren't done yet." It was so loud that it startled me enough to look around and see who was in the room. No one else was around except for me and my little baby. I remember saying out loud, "You've GOT to be kidding me!" and wondering why couldn't that "feeling" wait at least until I got out of the hospital after just having had a baby! Or at the very least until the morphine wore off!


I was nervous and worried since it was a long and emotional year of charting and fertility drugs to get Erik here. I had what is called a "Luteal Phase Defect". But, I trusted that if it was what we were supposed to do then it would happen for us again. After six months of charting and finding that I had the same LPD as before then suffering through a chemical pregnancy, I decided I needed to start my first round of progesterone before moving on to the fertility drugs again. To my surprise, that was all it took! About three weeks later, I had spotting and started to get negative pregnancy test results after days of positive ones. When I went in for my blood test my number was only at 14. In order to register on a pregnancy test that I was using it needed to be at least 24. I thought for sure I was miscarrying again. I went in a couple of days later for another blood test to make sure my numbers were doubling like they were supposed to and my number was over 250! To this day, I'm not sure why I was getting positive tests one week and then nothing as well as the spotting. The only explanation I could come up with is that maybe I had double ovulated that month and the earlier egg that implanted didn't stick.

As the pregnancy progressed, we were anxious for the ultrasound appointment. Shortly after Lauren was born, I had a very profound dream of a girl with pretty long, blond hair that flowed at her waist. She was about five years old and in my dream she was skipping away from me. I started to call for her by name, Eden. She stopped then turned her head to look behind her towards me, smiled then skipped away. I caught a glimpse of what she looked like. I took a mental picture and embedded the image in my mind thinking I would recognize her again someday. Seeing what my own daughter Lauren looks like now, Eden was very similar, but different. Eden had a long, narrow face and a similar smile. The rest of her features were uniquely different. I had a feeling that I had just gotten a glimpse of a future daughter. So, to our astonishment of having subsequent boy after boy after boy, I began to question who this little girl was and why she wasn't coming to our family like I had thought she would. Since Ian was born, I have felt very sure that our family was complete. So I struggled with who was Eden and why do I have such a strong connection to her?

After some inner searching for answers, I felt at peace knowing she does belong to us and was our first child that we had sadly lost at eight weeks. My feelings were confirmed when I looked up the word Eden in the thesaurus. I read the synonyms Heaven, Next World, Perfection, Paradise. With each word, I felt confirmation that my dream was not just any dream and that her name was not just any name. I know that she will be ours to raise someday and I feel honored to have been able to meet her in this life, if only in my dream. I humbly recognize that not many are blessed with the same privilege.

What I also know for sure is that all of my children were meant to be here and that they will grow to do big and important things. I have a lot of peace in knowing that our family feels complete now.