5 factors that went into us deciding to have another child after infant loss.
Disclaimer: This is not meant to be a step-by-step guide on how to prepare yourself to have another baby after a loss. We say this a lot, but everyone’s journey looks different. You can’t compare your own journey to ours or anyone else’s. This is simply a glimpse at the factors that helped us determine that we were ready to try again.
We gave each other time.
In total, Blakely and Bennett were born nearly 14 months apart. In the grand scope of things, we know that’s not a long period of time. With that being said, after Blakely passed away, I had decided that I wouldn’t bring up having another child to Tyler until I knew he was ready; I knew I would have to wait until he brought it up to me. I did this for several reasons, but the one at the forefront of my mind was I didn’t want to rush him through his personal grieving process. He was every bit of a parent to Blakely as I was, and that would be the case for any future children. As I began to think about it and process it, I didn’t want Tyler to push his own needs in that process aside to try to meet me where I was. Regardless of what the timeline looks like for you and your spouse, I believe it’s crucial that you allow each other to walk through your own process of grieving without placing expectations on the other to be exactly where you are. For us, it took about 4 months; for others, it could be immediate or it could take years, if at all. No matter where you fall, give yourself and your spouse time.
We still longed to be parents.
As we started to talk about what the future held for us and when we might want to start again, we discovered that we had two distinct desires in our hearts. The first - we wanted to have Blakely here. The second - we wanted to be parents to a child here. We were painfully aware that the first desire would never come to fruition, but it wasn’t until we started to feel a distinct separation between both of those desires that we started talking about having another child. While we couldn’t do anything about one desire and were in the process of coming to peace with that, we could start the process of seeing the other desire come to fruition. We realized we wanted both Blakely and another child, not a child to simply take Blakely’s place.
We sought Godly wisdom.
We were only a few weeks into counseling when we brought up the idea of trying to have another child to our counselor. Now I am a person who constantly has to remind herself that she doesn’t have to answer to others or allow others opinions to cast a deciding vote in her life; and in this grieving process, I wondered if other people thought it was too soon if I smiled just a month after my baby died, or if it was appropriate to post anything on social media that was light-hearted when I was in the midst of grieving, and I even wondered if others thought we weren’t ready to have another baby yet. Discovering the difference between being a people-pleaser and seeking Godly wisdom was a turning point for me. I came to the conclusion that Godly wisdom is something we should allow to shape and guide our decision while people-pleasing is allowing others to totally take the steering wheel of your life. As Tyler and I talked it over with our counselor, it quickly became evident that she had no interest in telling us we were nowhere near ready to have a baby yet. Instead, she listened to our worries about the process and spoke truth when we needed to hear it. The Godly wisdom we sought in the months leading up to having Bennett silenced the fears we had of trying to replace Blakely with Bennett and equipped us to both grieve Blakely while having joy about another baby in the process.
We questioned our motives.
I already talked about this a little in the previous point, but if there was one thing I was very thorough in doing, it was questioning my motives for wanting to have another baby when we did. I remember asking our counselor at one of our sessions, “I’m so nervous that I’m gonna be a mega helicopter mom or even worse, I’ll have this baby and wish the baby was Blakely.” It doesn’t get more real than that. I didn’t want to become the insane mom you see in some horror films. She responded with “the fact that you’re aware that you don’t want to be that mom brings a level of assurance that it won’t happen.” From when we started talking about having another baby up until we actually had our second child, I kept myself and my motives in check. Blakely deserved for me to be the best mom to her and all of our future children deserve the same.
We trusted ourselves and Jesus.
The biggest factor that played into our decision to have another child was the trust factor. After losing Blakely, we questioned our own judgment as parents and wondered if we had failed. Moreover, we had a hard time fully trusting God and his plan for our family. First of all, regaining that trust in myself was only going to be possible if I could stop the cycle of endlessly analyzing how Blakely passed, the hours leading up to it, and constantly berating myself for not seeing the signs. As I conveyed this through an immense amount of tears to our counselor, she said some words that literally changed my life at that point. “Morgan, you need to give that version of you grace. You shouldn’t have even been put in the position you were in.” That. Rocked. My. World. I wasn’t a terrible, neglectful parent. I was a parent whose child suffered from something that plagues less than .3% of the population in their lifetime. I couldn’t blame myself for the aftermath of it. Regaining our trust in God was an entirely different process and probably deserves an entire blog post to itself. In short, I had to come to terms with the fact that I am not in control, and while suffering does happen and I had experienced it to a pretty great extent, God was still good and “all things work together for the good of those who love him.” If I could confront the thought that there could be some more pretty deep valleys ahead and something may happen to our next child, and still find the strength and trust in God to try, I would then be ready to take that step.
All of this to say, move at your own pace and don’t expect to the completely “fixed” before stepping into a new chapter. Our journey through grief is far from complete, but we now have the joy of telling our little boy all about his “little big sister,” and it all happened in perfect timing for us.