Mother's Day Behind the Flowers

On Mother's Day morning, I woke up to a bouquet of roses. This may seem sweet and natural to you, but to me - We don't usually do flowers. So, it was a nice surprise. As I went through the day, I realized there is so much more behind the flowers on Mother's Day.

Here's the four reasons I celebrate Mother's Day - My 3 babies and my own mom. But, honestly, there once was more than just three babies:

Behind the roses is so much more. This meme says it all:

I don't know the pain of holding a child in my arms, nurturing them, loving them, watching them grow only to turn them back over to the arms of Jesus, but I do know the pain of miscarriage. I had six pregnancies. Three of them resulted in live, healthy births. For two of the six pregnancies, all I have is an ultrasound picture and memories of a faint heartbeat and one heartbeat that seemed to be healthy.

As Mother's Day comes around, I always think of the other three. I'm sure there are many, many other mothers who have a similar experience. Behind the roses and the joys of Mother's Day is heartache.

But, if we are wise and fortunate, we press on.

In my case, I had a boy and I had a girl with absolutely no problems or no indication of infertility. I had no foresight that it was even possible to lose a baby after becoming pregnant. So, it hit me by surprise. The miscarriage of the first was a strange experience. We were ready to announce it to the world, but instead, the baby would cease to thrive. It was a delivery with labor pains and even came complete with the rush of joy afterwards, but strangely so because there was no reason for joy. There was no live baby to hold in my arms and nurture. 

I remember after the loss of my second pregnancy, I felt numb. I wanted to be angry. But, I was beyond any feeling at all. I remember reading the Bible. I remember it was a concentrated effort to do so, because I wanted to turn my back on everything I had ever hoped for or believed in. After all, my hopes had just been dashed and taken away. I remember coming across the verse - Where else can we go, Lord, for you have the words of LIFE!  This became my focus. I didn't understand the reasoning behind the losses, but I had no where else to turn but back to my faith in my creator.

Eventually, I became pregnant again. And, again, I lost the baby. It was then that I prayed my Hannah prayer. Like Hannah in the Bible, I asked God to bless me with a baby.

He not only blessed me with another child. The story of her life over the 9 years I have been privileged to hold her so far is nothing short of miraculous. God not only answered my prayer for a baby, but she was healthy, she was beautiful, and she came so quickly that my husband delivered her at home - At home, within about an arm's length of where I had miscarried the second baby! Now, I sat holding a beautiful gift.

This year, Mother's Day rolled around again. I am blessed beyond belief!

I spent the Saturday before at my mom's church where they always have a mother/daughter banquet. She likes it that we come. This year they had asked us to send in videos with pre-written questions, so we did:

We had also been reviewing an art curriculum, and had made felt flowers thinking we could give some to my mom. Well, as expected they didn't turn out as best as we had hoped, so I just kept them: