Hope for your children

I called my mom on my walk yesterday. I mentioned to her that I think of Gigi's stillbirth as I go through the cemetery, and mom corrected me on a few parts of the story. She too couldn't say whether the baby never had a name or if simply no one used it, but Mom said that she didn't come between my dad and my uncle in the birth order; she was before all of them. Her, and all the miscarriages. And there weren't two or three, Mom said. She had nine of them.

Nine miscarriages. And then a stillbirth on top of that. Can you imagine? Can you imagine becoming pregnant and losing it ten times? And then to keep going with your life, no breaking down, and keeping on trying to have children even though every sign pointed to just bringing yourself more pain? My melancholic self can't even imagine the kind of fortitude it would take to keep hope.

My mother said when she was pregnant she thought to herself, look at all the people around you. They all had to be born sometime. If this many made it into the world okay, then yours probably will too, and you'll come out of it okay as well. There's always something like that to draw hope from. And in the end, Gigi did go on to have three healthy babies. They never would have been if she'd given up. And in the end, even Mom's baby, born sick, got well.

Something to remember the next time I feel like I can't keep hope.