No one said it would be easy...

When I began writing this blog I made a commitment to myself to keep it honest and straight forward, not to sugar coat things or leave out important moments just because they were difficult or unpleasant. Today has turned into one of those days. It seems very surreal. I got a simple message today. It said:

"It turns out the both Sophias are the same girl. I'm so sorry. I know this will be difficult news. I believe that God has a special child/ren just for you and in His time, He will reveal them to you. "

What this means is simple. For whatever reason I do not have a daughter named Sophia in Haiti. My Mom was with me when I got the simple version... she was "not available". I have to admit, I refused to believe it! What about all the rest? The name, the birth date? I felt...FEEL like she is my daughter. How could I go from looking at middle names for her yesterday to not having a child today? We thought that this week we would have a new picture, we planned to send out announcements as soon as we had the official picture and paper in hand. Like most parents who are expecting we could not wait to share the news and find out everything about her!

It feels a lot like a miscarriage. Oddly enough I am taking comfort in that. A few months before becoming pregnant with our son Joe I miscarried. We had been so excited about the pregnancy because we had very clearly heard God promise us a son. The same day that I heard that promise I went home and took a pregnancy test. It was positive! Sean began calling the baby Captain. He said he had always thought "Captain O'Carroll" had a nice ring to it. When I lost that baby it was physically, mentally and spiritually one of the most difficult things that has happened to me. Why had God promised a son and then taken him away before he was born?

Just a short time later a good friend was expecting. I heard her children refer to the baby as "Captain!" We had not even mentioned Sean calling his son Captain and I didn't say anything then. When her baby was born they asked us to be his God-parents. It was one of the few times I have seen my husband cry. While, as Christians we do not believe that it is the same baby or spirit, I do believe that some how it was significant. I pray for Captain a lot... and he means something really special to me because he is "Captain".

We did have a son about a year later, and he is amazing. We no longer mourn the child that we lost because we can now see the beauty of God's plan. This gives me encouragement that the absolute sadness I feel today (boy, this blog really is bi-polar) will somehow be a part of God's revealing himself to me in a way that is greater than I can imagine.