This week's thoughts have been centered around death. That may seem really horrible and morbid, but the reality is that with life on this earth comes death. Our first child died in utero, and when you lose a child like that, the pain sticks with you. Both of my pregnancies since that loss have been filled with thoughts of that child.
In our culture, babies in utero are seen as dispensable. We can create them in a lab to freeze and use or kill at will, we can kill them because we don't think we have the time or resources to care for them, we can make the choice that they don't deserve to live because of an abnormality that will "obviously" make them unhappy and unproductive, etc. Basically, until they are born, we can do with them as we please. This makes it increasingly hard on couples who lose children in miscarriages to actually mourn. Our culture doesn't understand it, because we have made these children un-human. Our culture says, "How can you miss someone that wasn't really there? How can you still be upset about that? You can always have another one..." Children are seen as a commodity - to be chosen at will. I pray for couples who have lost children in miscarriages and couples who are unable to conceive, because the world has told them that children are a thing to choose to have at the appropriate time. I can assure you, if that were the case, I would have my first child here in my arms and many barren couples would be having babies right now.
And, if I were able to choose to have children at a certain time, I would certainly be in labor - right at this moment.
