Wishing for a Baby this Christmas

You’ve heard the term, and some even make fun of it.

Baby hungry.

Some young college girls think they know the feeling. They think its just an overwhelming feeling of “cute” that they want to own. I’ll tell you right now- they don’t know what ‘baby hungry’ is. Because if you’re REALLY baby hungry, it isn’t something you want to chat about, brag about, or joke about. If you’re actually baby hungry you don’t day dream about the cute, (okay you do, but not just the cute) you’re thinking of the late nights and the blow outs, the endless screaming and the peaceful sleeping… The things you’re MORE than willing to deal with, the things you’d give anything to deal with.

“Dear Santa, for Christmas all I really want is a baby.”

You could be here because you and your partner have tried and tried for a baby, and never gotten it. You could be here because you got close, and it was ripped away right when the little life was becoming real to you. Or maybe you had that baby, felt them move, heard their hearts beat, and had all that vanish one day.

It sucks being here.

Whatever the circumstance that puts you here, it’s no fun, we all know it.

Christmas is supposed to be a time with all your family around, laughing, giving gifts to one another and celebrating the birth of Christ. Caroling, sledding, visiting friends and family. Big dinners, long shopping days, and family pictures to share. So when you’re missing some of that family, when your own children are in heaven, the season doesn’t feel quite right.

All the little “my first Christmas” pictures pop up all over your social media feed, feeding your imagination of what your own baby’s pictures might look like, what little outfit they’d wear.

You distract yourself with things to do, errands to run, Christmas gifts to buy- but you’re wishing for diapers to change, sleep to catch up on and most importantly little clothes or toys or books to put under the tree.

Decorating gravesides instead of bundling up babies is a trade no parent would opt to make. But leaving nothing there doesn’t seem right either.

Those who haven’t been here don’t understand. Those girls who think they’re baby hungry forget all about that feeling at this time of year. They unwrap clothing and hair products and laugh with their family… They don’t sit at gravesides or pray one more time for that angel to come to live on earth with you.

I browse Pinterest, looking at baby pictures and products for hours at a time. I convince myself that I’m looking for things I’ll use when I finally have my rainbow. The truth is that my hormones are still insane and I’ve still got babies on the brain. My body still thinks I’m supposed to be caring for two little boys, and can’t come to grips with being a lonely mom.

You can’t help but look jealously on at Mary in every nativity scene, looking down at a perfect baby boy. A perfect LIVE baby boy. Every Christmas Hymn makes you wonder why that kind of miracle somehow missed you, but all of the people around you got to keep their babies. Instead of hanging little stockings to stuff, you’re hanging little glass ornaments with angel wings inside them.

But there is another side of it. Another side of baby hunger. The other side of the rainbow…

It’s the appreciation. The TRUE appreciation only you who have been what you have can feel. The things any old new mom would complain about that you will revel in and even thank God for.

The understanding of the true miracle Christ’s birth was.

The abnormal gratefulness you will have on those sleepless nights and for cleaning the poppy messes when you finally have babies here.

Taking a moment. Looking around yourself at the table at Christmas dinner and seeing the family who is here. Realize the miracle each of them are. And the miracle that you can be with all of them, and those perfect ones already in heaven, forever.

That’s my challenge. And I know it will be a hard one. But please, for me, but more importantly for your own little angel, remember this Christmas how blessed you are to have the family and friends around you that you do. And if you sit still listening to the happiness around you, you will be able to feel your angels with you, too. They wouldn’t miss this kind of happy day.