My Birthday & A New Hope

October 22, 2007
My birthday on September 22nd was supposed to be a wonderful occasion. Mindy was going to throw me a party and it was wonderful to spend time with our friends it was challenging without Callie. Even though I knew I was a father and we were able to talk about everything that had happened, it still hurt. I wanted to be able to hold my daughter in my arms as I heard happy birthday sung to me. Although I thought I was alright with the whole thing because my little angel was supposed to be there to celebrate with me. I guess in hindsight Callie was watching over me, on my special day. She was celebrating my day in heaven singing happy birthday to her daddy with Jesus.
Exactly two days after my birthday on September 24th I traveled across Fort Wayne to meet Mindy for dinner. I was early for dinner and decided I would stop by the cemetery and visit Callie’s gravesite. As I pulled up and felt all the feelings come back of losing our daughter I started to regret ever going. I knew however, that I was there for a reason so I walked to her grave and sat down beside it. I just sat there in silence for a while before I started to pray. Shortly after starting to ray tears began to fill my eyes. I can recall the majority of the prayer because I was voicing our desire to be parents. I knew that God had already knew the desires of our hearts, to be parents, but it was extremely hard without Callie, my birthday, and the fact that Mindy had thought she was pregnant just the week before, before she had a negative test from the doctor’s office. As I prayed I simply asked our little angel in heaven to put in a good word with the big man for me about our request. I left the gravesite that day with a heavy heart still but there was a small flicker of hope for some reason. The good thing was that I would only have to wait a couple of days for that hope to be fleshed out because my daughter works extremely quickly when it comes to helping her parents out.
As I mentioned yesterday Mindy and I didn’t have to wait long for our little girl to voice our concerns to God. Three days later we were preparing to leave for Nashville for the weekend to celebrate Owen’s birthday. Mindy came home earlier than usual from work and handed me a card, I quickly racked my brain for some special occasion as she remembers things that I don’t! But nothing came to my mind so I asked her what the card was for and she just told me to open it. As I opened the card and read the words my eyes began to fill with tears. These were not tears of sadness or despair but rather those of sheer joy and celebration. About the time I finished reading the card she placed a home pregnancy test on the table (which was positive!) I guess she figured that I would find it like I did the last time, so she carried it with her all day long. She had left work early to go to the doctor’s office to confirm her idea and dream and they informed her that it was true that we were expecting another child. This joy is still bubbling in my heart today as I think about being a father again. It’s going to be a struggle and some difficult times as our fears of what happened last time could happen again. We are praying every day for the health of this little one as we are dealing with our anxiety. It’s also hard because we desire to develop new hopes and dreams for this child rather than carrying Callie’s over. Although this will be challenging we are looking forward to spending our lives loving this little one in the same way we love our Callie Grace.

October 25, 2007
The gift of life is something that neither Mindy nor I take very lightly. After losing Callie we realized the importance of life and even more so the importance of life and even more so the importance of eternal life. Because of this realization we have spent extra time in prayer for our new special little one. We have asked for God to bless this child while keeping it and Mindy healthy. During our times of prayers one instance stands out above the rest. On October 7th as we found ourselves partaking in the Lord’s Supper. I felt something in me click. After taking the elements I knelt at the altar and began to pray. This was not your ordinary prayer as I found myself praying for our baby. As I was knelling at the altar I could feel the number of people next to me who would come, pray, and leave but yet I remained at the altar. I just couldn’t bring myself to leave as I knelt and prayed for our little one. I already feel such a connection to this child and I have been developing hopes and dreams for it knowing that it is no bigger than a grain of rice. God is an amazing God who is truly meeting our needs by giving us the blessing of this new little one along with all the hopes and dreams of being parents again.