It's OK to Not Be OK

This week marks the start of long multiple/week visits for SB's bio dad.  The visits are long, most of the day long.  The first one wasn't so bad.  My brother took LB to the movies and SB was out with her dad, SP took a nap and life was so serene on Sunday afternoon. 

Then, another paper cut.  We were asked to start calling SB by a new name....a totally different name.  The name might as well be, "not mine".  Jaggedly old cut across the heart.  I asked SB if she liked her new name, she smiled and said, "yes", so that's a consolation at least.  Still, it's hard not to take her to Sunday lunch with my parents.  It's hard to learn a new name for the child I have raised from birth to age 2.  It's all just hard.  It's hard for everyone involved and there's really not a way to make it easier, other than not making it harder with unkindness.  So, we're all being as kind as we can to each other and supporting SB through this huge transition. 

Still, last night as I lay in bed, I felt cranky, mad with nothing to pin it on, just out of sorts.  I started thinking about all the changes our family will be seeing in the next few months.  I started thinking about how these last two weeks have been so much less strenuous than I thought they would be.  I thought about how seeing SB with her dad made sense and I saw them fitting together.  I thought about losing my baby.  All these thoughts were clashing inside of me.  I haven't cried about this all in a while, and my emotions have been running pretty evenly.  I attribute ALL of this to the prayers of others.  I am not an even keel kind of gal, so to go through the process of losing a child on an even keel can be attributed to nothing but grace.  Grace is pouring down on us.  As we seek to forgive this broken system that has hurt us all, it's not easy.  I don't have to be happy about it.  And it just hit me last night, as OK as everything has been feeling, it's OK to have those moments and even days where things just aren't OK.  Just because I've been feeling OK doesn't mean I'm not allowed to lose it.

It's not supposed to be easy to lose your baby.  It's not OK, not for any of us.  I don't have to be OK.  I don't have to try to hold on to some facade.  I can just be here, me, slowly giving away a child I thought I might get to keep forever.  Giving her away anew each day when I wake up, until finally, I give her away for good.  I'm giving myself a pass, I don't have to be OK with this.  And with that, maybe I can cut myself some slack in the coming months....try to steer away from making everything a big to-do of LASTs.  She's not dying, she's being born into a new family, slowly and with great pain.

I don't know what our new part of her life looks like, but I know that sweet baby runs towards me and says, "mama".  Whether I spend the rest of my life praying for her, or seeing her in person, our second child will always be SB.