Oh, dear.

It’s been a terribly long time.

I apologize for my absence.

I have nothing to blame except life. Busy day-to-day happenings, weekly ups and downs, responsibilities out the wazoo and doing my best to avoid responsibilities on the daily.

But, here we are, staring at the last couple days of October. How can this be? I feel like I was just doing the Fall Starbucks Drinks happy dance, and pretty soon that controversial red cup will be making its debut. If there’s one thing I know for sure, it is that time is passing…quickly. I also know that I love Dairy Queen Chocolate Extreme Blizzards. Very much.

I do have some news, though.

I am pregnant with baby #4!

I am thrilled. I am excited. I am nervous, for sure. I am hopeful. I am happy.

But I have something else on my mind…something else on my heart. It’s not something I have written about a lot, but that sentence right there….”I am pregnant with baby #4,” reminds me that I am actually not pregnant with baby #4. I have experienced pregnancy loss not once, but twice, and so while my voice is saying “baby #4,” my heart is screaming BUT THERE ARE SIX.

There are six.

If you have followed this blog for a while, you might remember that I experienced my first miscarriage 8 years ago now. It was a surprise pregnancy…our first pregnancy…and I had barely gotten my mind wrapped around the fact that I was going to be a mother when I went in for my first ultrasound at 10 weeks and saw an empty amniotic sac. I still remember our doctor’s words to us. “I’m sorry. This will not be a normal pregnancy for you.” I still remember that I was wearing Colts socks that day. I still remember not sleeping that night as all I could think of was that my body betrayed me in the biggest way, and perhaps that my God did, too.

My body believed it was pregnant. The bloodwork was all what it should have been. I felt different, but in a good way. I felt like a mother. But seeing that ultrasound and experiencing the deafening silence in the place where the heartbeat should be felt like the hugest, nastiest, Real Housewives-style slap in the face.

I felt like a joke.

And when the weeks went on and I still couldn’t “get over it,” I felt crazy. I actually told myself that I was being punished…for what, I didn’t know, but surely God felt I wasn’t worthy to be a mother and this was my sentence.

More negative thoughts filled my mind. Thoughts I have never shared with anyone other than Luke, until now. I couldn’t stand how the pregnancy loss was medically termed a “blighted ovum.” The very definition of “blighted” is ruined, wrecked, destroyed, infected. What terrible ways to describe what happened to this first baby of mine. Even Luke would describe the miscarriage as a blighted ovum, unable to abandon his doctor role and it would crush me every time. I felt like I must be the only one who actually believed this was a child.

Until even I stopped believing that for a time. I told myself how ridiculous it was to be so sad about something that never had a heartbeat. I went back to the thoughts that there would be no baby awaiting me in Heaven one day because it was never a baby to begin with. We never thought of a name because I thought it would seem silly.

And believe me, I know now how terrible that all sounds, but that is where my mind was for many months, and it isn’t until now that I finally feel brave enough to admit it.

I grew tired of being “the sad girl.” While no one ever said it out loud, I just felt their burden of having to watch what was said and tiptoe around me so I wouldn’t shatter. I would cry at holidays and at church and during the hour long commute to and from work.

Eventually, I stopped crying daily. Then weekly. Then monthly. When I became pregnant with Noelle about 9 months after the loss, I was full of fear and negativity….fully expecting to see another empty ultrasound. But, that’s not what happened, and I went on to have not one, not two, but three healthy, beautiful, smart girls.

What more could I want? Well. I wanted one more.

It is hard to explain to an outsider why I would possibly want more chaos, more diapers, more sleepless nights, more messes…. But this is my happy place, and my heart didn’t feel complete.

After 10 months of hoping and praying for another child, it happened. Positive pregnancy tests filled my bathroom. And then a couple days later, it become evident that this pregnancy was not meant to be.

Foolish. Empty. Crushed.

Familiar feelings and emotions came flooding back. The scab was ripped off the wound, and there I was again, questioning everything. Revisiting my thoughts of embarrassment that I would even be sad to begin with…given the extremely short length of the pregnancy. I shared this latest loss with no one as I just couldn’t put myself out there again. Many reading this will be surprised that it even happened.

Fast forward a couple months later to now, and I am pregnant, again. Just shy of 9 weeks along. And so you say, “Why are you making it public when you aren’t past the first trimester? You of all people should know the risk of announcing too early.”

Well, the only risk of announcing too early, in my opinion, is getting to actually see joy on the faces of your family and friends instead of just sorrow. With our first loss, we had been trying to wait until the 13 week mark, which is why the first our parents learned of our first pregnancy was when we were telling them it was already over. I never got to see their happy reactions as we announced our our pregnancy for the very first time. I only got to be the bearer of bad news. And while I know that we would ultimately have had to disappoint them by sharing about the loss, at least we would have had the happy memories, too.

And more and more, I am learning that there is no “safe zone” in pregnancy. While the risk of miscarriage goes down substantially after the first trimester, there are so many other tragedies that occur later in pregnancy. Unfortunately, a few women very close to my heart have had to say goodbye to their babies before they ever got to say hello.

So, no. I don’t have a guarantee that I won’t lose this baby, too. But life hands us no guarantees on anything.

The point of all of this is to say that miscarriage and pregnancy loss can make you feel so many ways, and it effects everyone differently. My experiences will differ from yours and hers and theirs. But the trend is that we don’t talk about it. It makes others feel uncomfortable, so we must keep our thoughts to ourselves. I have done that off and on for 8 years now. Share a little, but keep the rest to myself.

But today…because it is October for just a couple more days…and because October is miscarriage, stillbirth, and pregnancy loss awareness month, I will bare a piece of my soul that mostly stays hidden.

And to all of you who, when asked, have to pause when a person asks you how many children you have, because your voice says one thing but your heart says another… I get it. I feel it. I’m sorry.

I say four.

But there are six.

Um, hi. I am just looking for a cool new bumper sticker.

I want it to say, “My child is an honor student pulled a stick today.”

How many other parents would be interested in purchasing one?

It was inevitable. I knew it would happen sooner or later. No child is perfect, and my years in the classroom taught me that even the best and brightest will slip up and “pull a stick,” “flip a card,” “clip a strip,” “clip down,” “lose a star,” or any other cute way to say, “You slipped up.”

When my eyes met Noelle’s after school today, she was already fighting back the tears.

“I pulled a stick today,” she sputtered.

I threw my arms around her and pressed her cheek into my heart. My first thought was not anger or frustration or defensiveness.

I honestly felt relief.

You see, on the first night of school, when I was reviewing the classroom procedures packet that her teacher sent home, I felt a twinge of anxiety. It’s not that I disagree with the idea. I used a similar system with both my 4th graders and my preschoolers. I just knew that my sweet, perfectionist, sensitive 6 year old would want to “end on green” each day of this school year, which is a pretty steep  goal. When, not if, she would fall short, she would surely be devastated.

So, I was relieved that we hadn’t built a 174 day streak that would be broken by an ill-timed giggle or forgotten end-of-year assignment. Just shy of two weeks into 1st grade, and we are starting over tomorrow.

Of course, my heart broke for Noelle. I didn’t delight in her pain, and a part of me had to fight back the Mama Bear that was trying to come out. This is uncharted territory for us. Noelle provides a lot of challenges to us as her parents, but in school she is typically 100% golden. I didn’t exactly know the best way to handle this situation, and with Luke on a camping trip in Canada until next week, I was left to handle it on my own.

The offense — talking to a friend when she wasn’t supposed to be — was minor. And not surprising. Girlfriend loves to talk! In fact, she has been struggling with passing her 1-minute math fact quizzes because she likes to stop after every problem and chat with herself about how she got the answer or admire the way she writes each digit. Getting dinged for talking was bound to happen sooner or later.

Just because I wasn’t surprised doesn’t mean I wasn’t disappointed. Was I thrilled that she wasn’t being a model student? No. Was I annoyed that she allowed something so easy to control to interrupt an otherwise fantastic start to the new school year? You bet. On the drive home, I lost myself somewhere between wanting to bring on additional consequences at home or buy her a puppy to make her feel better.

I settled on having her write a letter of apology to her teacher with a promise to do better, and a strong warning that if she pulls a stick again, she will lose TV privileges.

We went about our night the same we always do. I helped her with her homework, which included studying her spelling words and reading to me. I made dinner while the girls damn near killed each other played sweetly together. I got them to bed at a decent time (and by decent, I mean an hour earlier than normal because the Law of Mondays and Out-of-Town Husbands prevailed).

After the house was quiet, I reflected on the day’s events and truly began to understand my role in all of this. As my children continue to learn and grow, they will continue to make mistakes. They will talk when they shouldn’t. They will laugh when it’s inappropriate. They will say bad words, tell a mean joke, and realize that many times it is simply easier to do “the wrong thing.” And it will cost them. Cost them sticks. Cost them recess. Cost them TV and iPads.

It is not my job as their mama to protect them from these mistakes. It is not my job to fight their battles or question their teachers’ every move, either. It is, however, my job to be there. To steadfastly be there. In all weather. In all seasons. In all triumphs and tragedies. To be consistent. To be predictable. To be firm when necessary, tough when it’s called for, and maybe just a little bit rough in spots. To be cool when they run a little too hot and to be warm in the palm of their hands.

Like a stone.

Some days I am granite, all pulled-together and polished, and other days I am gravel, just a shitstorm of clutter on someone’s driveway, but I am always their stone. And it will always be that way, no matter how many sticks they pull.

Another school year is upon us, and I am pinching myself as I realize that it was one year ago when I was dropping my oldest child off for her first day of Kindergarten. I remember trying to swallow down the lump in my throat to the point that it physically hurt. Tears burned my eyes as I put on a brave face and smiled and waved and blew kisses and wished her well.

An entire school year, and an entire summer later, and here we are….about to do this whole thing again. We have spent the past few weeks preparing for this day. Shopping for school supplies, picking out to new shoes, ordering new uniforms, and filling out paperwork…the process has been mostly enjoyable as I see how excited Noelle is to return to her beloved school.

But tonight, as I was packing the first of many, many lunches for this year, I thought to myself, “I should put a note in her lunchbox.”

I didn’t do this last year because…well…she couldn’t read. Every now and then I might slip a post-it with a smiley face or an I Love you, but I never did a note because I knew she couldn’t read.

But now she can. Now she reads.

So, with tears in my eyes, I folded up a card and tucked into her pink and purple leopard print lunch box with a sequined tie-dye heart (as you might imagine this was not the one I wanted her to pick, but I’m rollin’ with it…).

It struck me just how much she couldn’t do last school year, but now she can.

She couldn’t write her last name, but now she’s got all 11 letters of that sucker down pat.

She couldn’t tie her shoes, but now she’s a pro.

She couldn’t remember her address or her phone number (and by that I mean my cell phone number because…home line? what’s that?)…but now she recites them to a peppy little tune she created herself.

She couldn’t put her head (or chin for that matter) under water in the swimming pool, and now she jumps off the diving board.

The list could just go on and on and on and on.

Children are just amazing. They learn despite the circumstances. They succeed despite the failures. They run despite the fatigue. They smile despite the fear.

We have so much to learn from our children if we would just let them teach us.

And honestly? It scares me a little to think of what she can’t do right now, but will be able to do by the end of this year.

But it’s a happy kind of scared. A proud kind of scared. An excited kind of scared.

I have always said that we aren’t raising children, but we are raising adults, and heading off to school is just one step in that process.

So here’s to Noelle, and to your child, too….and all their couldn’ts.