Spirit Babies

A few weeks ago I was thinking a lot about the babies I've lost. The 3rd anniversary of my 2nd m/c and the D&C I had to have for it is about a week away. DH noticed I was down in the dumps and when I told him why he just listened. I asked him if he ever wonders about them and what they'd be like he just smiled and said - they're J...they were all J waiting for the perfect time.

Well, that's one way to look at it, and while I'll never stop being sad and wondering what would have been I take some comfort from DH's perspective and belief on this subject. It's the same idea as the article below, which is a real tearjerker. I came across this on a pg loss board after my 2nd m/c. I guess DH is not alone in his thinking about m/c.

RELATED ARTICLE: Spirit baby.
PEGGY VINCENT
NOVEMBER 1983
OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA

Colin, my 12-year-old son, discovered me late one rainy afternoon sitting at the kitchen table, a damp Kleenex crumpled in my left hand, wiping my eyes as I tried to compose myself for his sake. It was the third week of January, two months after I'd miscarried a pregnancy, but I still found it impossible to get through a day without at least one meltdown into misery.Stunned when the test came back positive, my husband, Rog, and I had stared at each other with doubt and ambivalence.

At 41, my professional life consumed me. I had just achieved what some had predicted was an impossibility: I'd been granted delivery privileges at Alta Bates Hospital in Berkeley, California, and as a consequence, my midwifery practice burgeoned. Some months I delivered 12 babies, and no one ever knew if or when I'd be home. Rog, too, felt stretched to his limits, keeping his business afloat while picking up the slack for my frequent unscheduled absences. Colin and my daughter, Jill, approached their challenging adolescent years. How could we fit an infant into our lives? But when I lost the pregnancy and all hope for resolution dissolved with my tears, I fell in love with the baby that was not to be.

Colin asked, "Are you crying about the baby?" and when I nodded tearfully, he said, "Well, you just have to have another one, Mom, because it's a Spirit Baby, and you should be its mother."I must have looked puzzled because he said, "Don't you know about Spirit Babies? How could I know about them if you don't? I mean, you're my mom!" But he could see my perplexity.

So my first child, this not-yet-teenaged boy, pulled a wooden chair to my side and draped his thin arm across my shoulder, saying, "Well, Mom, here's how it is. See, I was one myself, so that must be how I know. Anyway, every woman has a circle of babies that goes around and around above her head, and those are all the possible babies she could have in her whole life. Every month, one of those babies is first in line. If she gets pregnant, then that's the baby that's born. If she doesn't get pregnant, the baby goes back into the circle and keeps going around with all the others. If she gets pregnant but something bad happens before the baby's born ... now listen, Mom, because here's the really cool part. It goes back into the circle, but it becomes a Spirit Baby, and all the other babies give it cuts. Each month, it's always first in line. Isn't that great?