After Alamanda died, I longed for another baby to fill my arms. It made sense that if sadness came from empty arms and the absence of baby warmth, cooing, and the smell of fresh baby breath and even the sour smell of tiny baby diapers, all it would take to make me happy was another baby. I knew another baby could never replace Alamanda, but he or she could fill the empty spaces and relieve the pain. But instead, I had to learn the hard way that the key to happiness is not from getting what I want but from gratitude for what I have been given.
When my baby died, the loss left a massive, bloody hole in my heart and my life. I wanted to get my smile back, but in a world plunged into darkness, my smile was hard to find in a way that wasn’t fake. Looking at babies, pregnant women, and ultrasounds caused nothing but agony, and in Utah, they’re everywhere. I kept reading LDS books on healing that showed all you had to do to find healing from the pain worse than any I thought possible was to study scriptures and pray. Both of these brought peace, as did prayers of friends and family. But above all, the formula in these books demanded I have another baby for my healing and happiness to be complete. However, as much as I studied scriptures and prayed earnestly, my rainbow baby never came. Pregnancy after pregnancy for 13 in a row, I met with more heartache, sometimes a quiet ultrasound with no heartbeat, a hospital visit or other medical intervention, but no baby. Each time, we bought another porcelain angel for my kids to name, so we could put him or her on the shelf to help them feel the connection and to help them understand the reality of their siblings. But despite testing and medication from the doctor to prevent another loss, there it came. I started buying porcelain angels in advance because I figured chances were I would need them. Every time I prayed about whether to keep trying, I felt like it was not yet time to quit. I have come to believe the reason I was guided this way was because I needed that time to hope in order to heal. I emotionally needed that crutch, so the Lord let me have it.
Eventually, I started noticing a pattern in the scriptures and in spiritual thoughts, LDS General Conference Talks, and other places. Again and again, I heard that joy came not in the getting such as getting a baby but in the gratitude for that which I’d already been richly blessed. I did not need a baby to complete me. The Lord would heal me and make me whole, or as whole as I will be until I hold my angels again. Elder Bowen’s talk from the October 2012 General Conference Really struck me. He told the story of his journey of healing after his baby died. He talked of the joy I can have even in spite of the pain, the healing that comes when I realize “How grateful I am to my Father in Heaven that He allows us to love deeply and love eternally. How grateful I am for eternal families. How grateful I am that He has revealed once again through His living prophets the glorious plan of redemption.” I realized healing is a gift from the Lord, and it comes, in part, through gratitude.
The Lord has given me so much. I was blessed with four blissful, though sometimes challenging, months with my angel baby, Alamanda. She was a truly special spirit who will be mine forever because of Heavenly Father’s plan for families. I have also been blessed with an army of guardian angels who will watch over me until they can come again and fill my arms. I have been blessed with a loving husband and two wonderful, warm, vibrant children I can hold and love. We have been blessed with several pets to fill my days when the kids are in school, including a cat sent specifically to be a hug from Alamanda to my little girl, who still misses her sister. I have been blessed with talents and opportunities to bless other lives through them.
I will likely never hold another baby of mine until the Lord comes again. But I can still find joy and happiness because of gratitude for my blessings and the knowledge that the separation isn’t forever, just for now.
