Thanksgiving

Ryan and I spent Thanksgiving with his family up north in Show Low. Since I'm such a desert girl I was overjoyed that there was snow! There wasn't much, but to me it was beautiful and amazing. I was like a little kid looking out the car window, pointing, squealing and getting so excited. To Ryan it was not exciting because he lived in that, but it makes him happy to watch me have fun with it :)

The time with his family was good and we had lots of yummy food. Ryan's two sister's have both lost babies, one of them within this last year, so they're very understanding about our loss and open to talking about it. It's good in a way to have it out there in the open and not have it be the taboo subject. His sister who had a miscarriage this past year is now pregnant again, 13 weeks and finally starting to feel like she can enjoy the pregnancy more and not be so worried about another miscarriage. She talked about how having a miscarriage steals that joy from you in your next pregnancy. My sister is also pregnant- 11 weeks now I believe- and she has experienced the same thing. It's interesting to learn that from them and watch them go through these pregnancies and see how the miscarriage casts that shadow over what would normally be so joyful and exciting.

Our baby was of course on my mind all day and I really felt like there was someone missing- the little someone who would have been in my tummy. With these other babies expected in our families just a couple months after when I would have been due, it's hard to think about what would have been- sharing the pregnancies together and seeing the little baby cousins together.

Since we're trying again we did have hopes for a fun Thanksgiving announcement to our family, but no baby for us this month. But we have hope for the future, so we press on!

We're already geared up for Christmas with decorations and music and yummy treats. It's a welcome distraction from the humdrum of the everyday, and something to help turn my mind from the monotony that sadness can be. I haven't quite formed the thoughts fully yet but I've recognized that there's something that feels different for me about the expectation over Jesus' birth this year than any time before. I think it's coming from the intense longing that's already in me for the baby we lost and for the baby we hope for. So that deep, long yearning is a familiar feeling when I think of our "long expected Jesus". Those feelings of expectation and hope and yearning are the air I breathe- for a baby, yes, but I see how those same feelings can be funneled toward the coming of Jesus too. It wasn't just the Jews who were longing for a King and Savior waaaay back then. I feel that longing and deepest need today, now. So there's a new excitement in me as I walk through the Advent season and anticipate anew the day Jesus came in to this earth.

Come, Thou long expected Jesus
Born to set Thy people free;
From our fears and sins release us,
Let us find our rest in Thee.

Carrie