Five years ago this Thursday, I got two pink lines on a pregnancy test and, of course, life as I knew it changed.
When I first found out I was pregnant with Dacey, we were in the middle of a transition from Fort Worth down to San Marcos, Texas. Kyle had gone ahead of me and I had stayed behind to finish teaching the school year, and so I was alone in Fort Worth for the first several weeks of my pregnancy. Right before school was out, I started spotting off and on and this lasted for about a week. I panicked, turned to the internet, and discovered the Birth Club Boards at Babycenter.com. I scanned the threads of other women who were due with January 2005 babies and found so much comfort in discovering that there were others who were worrying about spotting, too.
Obviously the spotting was just a scare and everything turned out fine with Dacey, but because of that scary week, I found myself drawn to the community of moms and moms-to-be in the Birth Club. Over the next several months, we went through the highs and lows of pregnancy together and before we knew it, our January babies began to arrive. About the time our babies turned six months old, we splintered off from the main board at Babycenter and formed a smaller, private message board.
In the nearly five years since I have known this group of women, their friendships have become invaluable to me. For some it may be hard to understand how people I have never seen face-to-face could be so real to me, and if you aren't part of an online community, I can see how it would be hard to understand. Through hundreds of discussion threads, a plethora of shared photographs, dozens of phone calls and meet-ups, this group of women have grafted themselves into my heart permanently.
(As a matter of fact, if it weren't for this group, SortaCrunchy wouldn't exist! My original purpose in starting this blog was to share a little more about my natural family living interests with my friends. My message board friends were my first and only readers for a long time. It was also because of our message board that Laura and I met and became fast friends who now have a crazy dream of writing a book together!)
In the past five years, we have gone watched each other be blessed with more children, mourned far too many pregnancy losses with one another, hurt with those going through divorces, rejoiced in new marriages, stood by Suzy in her fight against breast cancer, and loved each other though just about every life circumstance you can imagine.
Yesterday, our community was shocked to learn that one of our darling January 2005 babies has been diagnosed with a rare congenital heart defect - Myocardial Bridging causing Restrictive Cardiomyopathy - a condition which it now appears can be corrected by finding a completely new heart for Miss G.
A heart transplant. For a four year old.
Miss G is just a few weeks older than Dacey. I feel especially connected to her mother, Kristi, because our second children shared the same due date (9.11.07) and her little boy PJ is just days younger than our AJ. As I have watched Dacey play and sing and dance and jump and paint today, my heart has just broken in pieces all over the place for Kristi and her Miss G. You can read more about the details of their situation at Kristi's blog Listening Thru the Noise. In the meantime, if you are the praying kind, would you please say a prayer (or many) over Kristi, Miss G, and the family who will endure tragedy and lose something precious so that Miss G might live.
As I thought and cried and prayed over my friend this morning, I couldn't help but to question why oh why is this world is full of such pain. You know what came to my mind? This post from Jon (which I think may be one of his best) that has been comforting my heart each time I bump up against heart-searing pain.
Thanks for joining me in covering this sweet family in prayer.
