The Power of A Sacred Pause

The final voicemail message delivered the news that we instinctively already knew. She sounded winded, as if she was holding her breath, hoping we would pick up the phone. After a long pause, she exhaled and shared that her sister had “moved to Las Vegas, Nevada to deliver and care for “her baby.” The last two words stung like a bucket of ice-cold water thrown in our faces. Her tone turned to anger, stating her sister and the baby would live with her. Adding a final parting shot, she told us not to reach out to her or her sister because the decision was final and, in fact, her sister never intended to place the baby with an adoptive family. Jax and I looked at each other in shock, reeling; we must have listened to the message five times before the reality of the situation fully registered. We were losing Noah. No, we lost Noah. We would never have the moment of seeing him born, cradling him in our arms, and letting Ivy hold her little brother for the first time. There was no negotiation, no option; she didn’t change her mind; she duped us from the beginning. It felt final as if he had died, yet he wasn’t even born yet. I loved Noah and had imagined our lives together for seven months. I heard his heartbeat and felt him kick whenever we would sing to him. I anticipated his hair and eye color based on knowing his birth mother, and I allowed myself to love him as if he were in my womb, not hers. God had gifted us with Ivy, and I trusted we would have the same joy at Noah’s birth. How was I going to tell Ivy?

I sunk to the floor, bouncing from guttural weeping to spouting off words of utter anguish. Jax attempted to comfort me, but I could not receive his love; I was too angry and hurt. Suddenly, I heard a loud sound just outside of the kitchen and then heard him yell out in pain. I rushed to him, unable to imagine anything worse could happen to us. He stood there, all six feet two inches of him, cradling his right hand with his left. Bloodied and bruised, I soon saw the hole in the wall that he punched in despair. Without a tear shed, he purged his pain and frustration in a manner I had never seen before. He is my rock, and seeing him respond by punching a wall oddly comforted me. I wasn’t alone in my pain; he wasn’t just there to comfort me; he, too, felt helpless and hopeless.

We stood in the kitchen applying ice to his hand, and the tears flowed out of me without pause until we fell asleep exhausted and equally unprepared to share this terrible news with Ivy. Waking up in the early morning brought to light the reality of what we had to do next. As I walked down the hall, I stopped in Noah’s room. The Noah’s Ark theme was infused into every corner of the small room adjacent to Ivy’s room. I stood alone for a long time, desperately trying to compose myself before Ivy woke up. Her little tender heart always seemed to know when her mama was hurting, and telling her that she wouldn’t get to meet Noah was devastating. Explaining to a child who already has a brother who doesn’t live with us that the baby brother she was expecting would never come home didn’t make sense to me. I placed her on my lap as I sat on the rocker we shared for story time, and I told her Noah wasn’t coming home. She turned to me and gently touched my face and said so softly, “‘it’s okay, mama, you have me.” Tears streaming down my face, I held onto her with a grasp of despair, never wanting to let go, as she patiently allowed me to cry. My heart was broken, yet my love for Ivy grew and overwhelmed me simultaneously. Was it possible for love and pain to coexist? If so, I was experiencing both emotions with equal levels of intensity. I was emotionally frozen and knew that my grief was beginning to be revealed.