All As It's Meant To Be

When my wife and I had been married for about three months she became pregnant. It was news that was a positive in a time of much sadness and confusion in my family that summer. Everyone was happy for us, and of course we were both excited about becoming parents, picking out names and making plans. It was an event that got us more focused on the future, even though we didn't know it at the time. The happiness we felt was short-lived, however, as my wife miscarried and lost the baby. It was very hard for us because we had directed so much of our hopes into having a child, and now it seemed like the world was crashing in on us. In an unexplainable way, we had connected with the unborn child and it was a very real death for us, weighing heavily on our hearts. Less than a year later she was pregnant again and the excitement started all over for us. We still had worries, but when she had made it through the first trimester we relaxed a little bit, and eventually our son was born (not before a lot of tense moments while she was giving birth, but that's another story).
The years have gone by and the family has grown with the addition of two more sons, and we all have settled into one mostly-happy family. There have been quite a few times, however, when we will sit down together to eat, or will be doing something as a family, and there is a feeling that we're missing someone. I think that feeling comes from the child we lost. Even though we never even knew it's sex, it stamped its existence on our hearts without us ever seeing it, and it's death left a void that's lasted all these years.

Though it was a hard time to go through, I believe that the miscarriage was one of those things that was pre-destined in order to help us grow and mature into adults. There have been a few more of those kinds of events in our life, and I'm sure that there is a plan in place by the Creator for more of them, but that one came to mind today, 22 years after it happened.