A birthday never seen

While working at LCPC, I obviously researched a lot on the loss of babies whether it be from abortion or miscarriages/stillbirths. Many women reported increased symptoms of grief/loss during either the anniversary of the death or the anniversary of her due date. Thankfully, I feel like God has brought both Andrew and me a long way since September of 2008; but I definitely have thought about Kenan more during the past couple of weeks than I have in a while. At least for this year, the anniversary of my due date (Feb. 16th) has brought more sadness than this past September did.

This afternoon we were driving around, and happened to pass a cemetery with a funeral in progress. We both saw the tiny casket at the same time, but Andrew commented first that it was an infant sized casket. Of course this led to a discussion about how we both had been thinking about Kenan and how things might have been different. There have definitely been times when I have wondered, "What would he have looked like?", "Would he have been more like Andrew or more like me?", "Would he have loved football with a namesake like Kenan (ha)?", etc. But more so than that type of wondering, I tend to ponder the more negative, like, "What was the Lord sparing us from?", "Would he have died 2 minutes, 2 days, 2 weeks, 2 months, or even 2 years after he was born even if he had lived?", "Would he have been handicap if he had lived?", etc.

A year or so before Ceilidh was born, a friend of mine lost a baby at 39 weeks. She went to the hospital that morning to be induced and they couldn't find his heartbeat. At the funeral, I vividly remember standing next to the OBGYN who delivered Gentry, and saying, "I can't imagine. I don't know if I could handle this." Little did I know... Jennifer and I weren't even that close at the time, but I would get weepy for weeks afterwards. One night while sitting on the couch, I told Andrew that I would never attend an infant's funeral again. I couldn't do it. After seeing that casket today, I sort of believe even more so that maybe the Lord was sparing my heart. Though life is life no matter how long or little the person lives it, I feel my grief would have been even more so if we had completed the pregnancy and then lost him, or gotten only a short amount of time with him.

How do I end this? I don't know. Why did I write this? I don't know. I have a need to "write" out what I'm thinking, and for some reason I feel the need to "not forget" him publicly. He is apart of our family, and always will be. He just beat us to Heaven.