I disappeared, it’s true.

I melted away from the everyday, retreated into the depths of my mind and disappeared. This blog is something that always kept me going in every other stage of life, then suddenly – we hit loss – and I just couldn’t muster up any words, let alone encouraging words, to fill this screen with.

After our miscarriage in the late spring, the world went dark. I cried everyday in the shower, when I took myself to bed at 7pm, when I prayed with my daughter before placing her in her crib. I cried. A lot.

I kept telling myself that I needed to write it out. I wrote our baby Hope a letter. It helped. I wrote the hospital a letter. It also helped. I spoke to patient relations at the hospital to make sure that mishaps that happened in our experience will not happen to another. It helped. I wrote a mock blog on my word processor, but I still couldn’t publish it.

I thought to myself, I’ll share it during miscarriage and pregnancy loss awareness month – that makes the most sense. But that month came and went – and as it turns out – was extremely difficult for me. I had to take a little break off social media because I just felt bombarded with reminders and stories that felt way too familiar when I had just emotionally been able to move on – it paralyzed me right where I was.

Then I thought to myself, I’ll share it at Christmas time – I know that’ll hurt this year – it’ll help me cope. So I wrote it a few days before Christmas. It hurt. I cried. My husband cried. But I didn’t share it. It wasn’t time.

So I thought to myself – ok, the baby’s due date – January 15th. That is when I will share Hope’s story. But the day came, and it just felt too personal to share. I didn’t want to grieve publicly with anyone other than with my husband and daughter. I went to the store and bought some cupcakes to celebrate the Lord’s faithfulness in our journey on this road. We decided that every year on this day, it would be our family’s annual cupcake day to celebrate just that. As I sat in bed eating my Oreo cupcake, I still could not share the post.

I didn’t feel confident writing any other blogs without sharing Hope’s story first; how could I just pretend that nothing happened to my viewers, I felt like a fraud. Therefore, I disappeared, until I was ready to be real and share the story of our Hope.

You can read our story here.

It was important to me to be able to share Hope’s story before our next little blessing arrives. I wanted to be sure that Hope had her space – that people knew that she existed and was loved. I found it so hard when I became pregnant with this Tiny Turvey that as we slowly shared the news, people didn’t know about Hope. I found it almost impossible to “yes we are expecting” with adding in an “but we also lost a baby in the spring”. I wanted to shout it from the roof tops because I didn’t want her to be a secret, unknown and unrecognized.

So thank you for taking the time to read Hope’s story and for walking alongside of us as we prepare for this new adventure!