Letters to my number 5

Today 'that' is late by about 4 days, maybe more. Each day that passes, each tiny twinge, and niggle whispers to me, the promise of you. Daddy and I havent tested yet. We will. Your dear Dad knows his wife all too well, and though Im itching to know, days of waiting, patience, quietness do me well. They teach my soul to be still. Having you there, my dear love, is above and beyond my dreams. Gods always known about you, but at 4, I thought we were done.... still my heart has dared to dream, to grow, to extend.. and we are blessed with you. I never dreamed I would get to see another positive pregnancy test, hear another beating heart, feel another wriggle under my ribs or know the blessed uncomfortableness of a large belly. But it seems, I will. And I will treasure it! This here is a diary, all about you. What each week brings and teaches me. Right now I am eating a lunch of tuna salad. All those nutrients I pray, will make you grow stronger. And healthier. And into the amazing person Jesus Christ is making you. My sweet one, we love you. Your siblings dont know about you yet, but wait till they find out. They have been asking God for you, and I worked out that you are due, right on Christmas Day! Undoubtedly the best present we all could ever ask for. May God BLESS you as you grow today. From your most honoured mumma. xxx 19th April. Today we tested and found out you are growing. For real. What a dream!! The excitement has bubbled inside me all day... though woah, do I feel tired. I forgot how tired one can feel. Im making a roast dinner in celebration of you tonight. I also realised that I would get to wear the t shirt I designed for Egg Maternity, back 4 years ago. It was brought out on the shelf after Amy was born.. but I bought it to tuck away... cant believe I will get to wear it. So stoked. I was thinking today, we will be asked a ton of questions the next 9 months.. I will write here the answers. #1. Were you planned? Yes. Wholeheartedly yes. You my dear, have been wept over, prayed for, believed for.. the testimony of the desire for you is a story I cant wait to tell you. Suffice to say, that God uses all things for good. Even pain. I wonder what your name is and I pray we can find a name that matches that meaning! #2. When did I know I was pregnant with you? Well, two things hapenned this past month. Your Nanny Parnell told me the Lord said to her that I was pregnant. I wasnt (yet) but it made me think that perhaps you were already conceived in His eyes. And secondly, the little twinges in my side, that I only get when Im pregnant. Like wee elastic band pings inside. Ive loved feeling those.. secretely Ive rubbed my belly and longed to feel you there. I cant wait to feel you wriggle. #3. Do we want a boy or girl? Either tickle me to bits. I have no leaning either way in preference, I have bought you already, boys stuff, and girl stuff.. mainly boy stuff. Yet, I feel like you are a girl. Either way, our hearts are hugely welcome of you for who you are. You will bring much joy to our family. Love you poppet. God bless. Your honoured hotel. 20th. Woke up this morning my dear, gagging, and fretting about how our test wasnt as dark as I would have expected it to be. And how Ive heard lots of bad things about that. And how scared I am to lose you. Going on the internet only made that fear worse. I grabbed my Bible and went back up to my bed, to lie quietly beside Daddy, who is still sleeping. His presence makes me calmer, even when he says nothing. As I opened up the Word, it fell to Ecclesiastes 11 "Cast your bread upon the waters...".. for a moment my thoughts were lost in what that verse means. I have visions of bobbing loaves of bread, and finding them days later, washed back up, allbeit soggy and inedible. Clearly need to study that verse! But... as I read down I smiled when I read this verse: "As you do not know the path of the wind, or how the body if formed in a mothers womb, so you cannot understand the work of God, the maker of all things". There, right there, God speeaking to me "FLEUR, DO YOU REALLY THINK YOU KNOW HOW I FORM THAT WEE BODY INSIDE OF YOU?". Oh rebuked. Who am I to know or guess what my hormone levels and test results should look like at this point in time? Sweetheart. I achingly give you back to Him. I love you, but you are safest with Him. Your mummy. xxx 22nd. I have had a small amount of bleeding today. I have bled with all my pregnancies at some point, so it doesnt surprise me, yet nor does my heart ever get used to it. The knowing that I can do nothing to ensure you will grow.. you are hidden away in a secret place, being knit together by the hand of God. Dear precious one, I love you. I pray God makes you grow big and healthy and strong. You have already changed my heart completely, even in the few days old you are... my life will never be the same sweetheart, I thank God for the gift of you. Daddy loves you and thanks God for you too and we cant wait to tell your siblings all about you. xx 22nd EveningTonight my bleeding has got heavier, and it looks like we are losing you. I have named you Poppy. I will ask God if that is your name, but for now, you are my flower, my red bloom of love and the means for which God has enlarged my heart. Right now my heart doesnt feel enlarged, it feels raw and empty, a huge hole there that I never imagined could exist. My motherly arms feel emptied, of the chance to hold you, know you, smell you, see you. Its comforting to me that you are in heaven, that you are with Jesus.. but sweet baby, I weep for you. Within my tears and grieving is a hope that Gods ways are so much higher. His purposes are bigger than ours. His understanding greater. I pray for the grace to make you proud my love, to highlight in my loss, the richness of who Jesus is. That this hole of grief thats been carved into my heart, will become filled with an ability to more deeply love as He loves. I told Tim about you this evening. He was praying for a miracle while tears streamed down my face. I was able to tell him that God holds you. Always. Your daddy has been lovely tonight. He has held me while Ive cried. His sadness is different from mine.. he hates seeing me cry.. and I cant explain in words how tangibly real that void is, now in my life. That when I look at our family photo, I see 5 kids, the precious lil one that wasnt on that log, but in my heart. Oh baby, I love you. I love you. I give you to Jesus. I give you to the One who loves you more. Love your heartbroken mummy. xxx 23rd I cant decide if its the pain in my heart, the cramping or the hunger that has woken me. Maybe all of them. I realised I have barely eaten today, and the cramping is hitting me worst in my susceptible sciatic nerve.. insult to injury. But my heart... As Daddy was holding me tonight while I cried, he soothed me "you are one big heart". I sobbed back "indeed, and that heart has had one big hole carved in it". There is a peace too, that exists there in my sorrow. I never knew it could be there. I never realised how tangible it could be, as the tears fall down my cheeks. I realise now the depth of that scripture in 1 Thess. 4.. "so you will not grieve like people who have no hope". Poppy, I have a hope that death itself cant strip from me: Oneday we will be together with the Lord. His Word says "Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also". Matt 6:21. Heaven holds a treasure for me, and that is you... it is fair to say, you have taken a huge chunk of my heart heavenward, and eternity holds a deeper anticipation for me. As I reflect upon this past week, some things stand out about you. I have dreamed of all our children, my dream of you was different. I didnt dream I was pregnant with you, as I did with the others, I dreamed of you before you were here. In my dream, you were sweet, innocent, gentle, untouched. Your heart was like mine, without the weariness of this world and its struggles. You had a tender impish face like your brother Ben, delicate and refined. Gender didnt define you, what marked you, was that you were gracious and pure to behold, and your smile beamed feminine back at me. And now you sit on your Makers knee, no sadness, sorrow or sickness to know. Youre beautiful there. Darling, can I express to you honestly my deepest fears? Daddy and I talked tonight about praying for another child. For another tender cherub to hold, for milky cheeks to kiss, and chubby thighs to squeeze. I laughed as I told daddy I will in fact be the most useless housewife ever, when it comes to having more, as I wont be able to steal myself away from enjoying that..... but I am afraid of this: that the next little person, somehow lessens the reality of you. Not that you will ever be anything but real to us, to me.. But to this world, there is nothing to show for your brief blink of existence inside my womb. Nothing to put into the ground that says "here lies Poppy". You have no gravestone, no birth or death certificate. The only proof I have that you were here, is two pink lines on a stick. And tears that fall relentlessly down my cheeks, because my arms will never hold you. Even writing that, I think upon Jesus at the cross when He looked at Mary and the disciple he loved and said "woman, behold your son". I bet all of Mary wanted to scream out "You Jesus, are my son, you are the one I bore and have known", yet Jesus' words comforted her, because He knew that a mothers heart. To love, beyond its brokenness. To heal and flourish in giving out. Poppy, loving you has multiplied my capacity to love others, to embrace others. You really have been the instrument by which Jesus has enlarged my heart. I can just see your impish wee grin respectfully telling me "you got it mum". I do get it. I love you. And Jesus, I Love you. Thank you for carrying Poppy. For carrying me. For knitting Sam and I closer than ever before. For working in me a purpose that tastes of eternity. You are ever worthy of my trust and adoration. Your emptied vessel, Fleur, alias, Mummy.

25th April Poppy, let me tell you how your name came to be. Its a precious little story. Back in September last year, your daddy and I were walking through a street in London, when he said to me, out of the blue "imagine having a little girl called Poppy". I teasingly hit him, saying "dont be so mean!". He knew that it would take little to convince me that another baby would be fun... and from that day on, you became something of a nudge in me. A secret longing, an unuttered prayer. But God knew :) When I knew I was pregnant with you, and that you were a girl, I said to my dearest friend "I think her name is Poppy" but, I laughed, it doesnt fit with our name styles, does it? Timothy, Nathaniel, Benjamin, Amy... and Poppy". We giggled at the switch out from these 'proper' names, to a little girl whose name held no sense of tradition. However, I couldnt shake that Poppy seemed so perfectly you, my wee poppet whose pure heart and graceful radiance was going to add beauty to our lives. We didnt get to hold you, like we imagined. We didnt get to see your button nose, your crystal clear blue eyes, your mousey blonde straight hair that hangs elegantly around your delicate face, the expressions that you have that are both intense, discerning and gracious, all at once. At least not yet. Today is Anzac Day. Poppies are everywhere, and I see no sense of chance or coincidence in your name. We do remember, we remember them. And we will always remember you. Love your honoured mummy. xxx