An (Extra)Ordinary Day

Yesterday was an ordinary day.

I got up early with my girl and our day was filled with playing, eating, naps, and diapering. It was a typical day around here with a nine month old who is becoming more active by the minute.

But nine years ago yesterday I lost the first baby that I carried.

I don't know that baby's gender, name, or face, but it was the first of our children that we loved, wanted, and cherished. It had been the first positive pregnancy test for a young couple who thought they would become parents nine months later... instead of nine years later. When we found out that we would lose the baby it was the first time my heart was really and truly broken, and that same deep hurt would be felt five more times in the years that followed.

I never did mark the day on my calendar, but it was a date that I always remembered. This year was no different. I was mindful of it all day long even as my hands were constantly occupied with toys and baby food. While we drove to pick up my sister from the airport yesterday I remembered our late-night drive to the hospital. She was with us then, too, pregnant with her second child. Our babies were due one month apart. My nephew will turn nine years old this December, and I wonder what it would be like to have a child that age...

July 6, 2002 is a day I've thought about often. It was the day that changed everything for us and started us down a path we never imagined we'd take: recurrent miscarriage. But God has been faithful. He was good then and He is still good today.

Here's one example of how He was good to me yesterday:

It seems incredible to me, but during my "ordinary" day, my baby girl said "Mama." She had been babbling it for about a week or so, but yesterday she said it for real. I was able to mark the date of July 6, 2011 on her calendar with the sticker "Says Mama."

She's not the first baby I loved or carried, but she is the first one I've had the privilege to hold and sing to and rock to sleep. I'm so thankful that there's someone here who calls me Mama.

After waiting nine long years to hear that word, hearing it yesterday was particularly special. And it sure turned my ordinary day extra-ordinary.