Parenting after Loss

I have had the experience of pregnancy and parenting both before and after loss. I have found it a little different this time around. With Gabriel, I did not have much fear. The thought of not having a healthy pregnancy or having a child that did not grow up never entered my mind. I made sure he slept on his back, but I was not really concerned about SIDS. Although I didn't purposely try to expose him to illness, I was not that concerned about colds or other small ailments either. You could probably say that I belonged to the majority of people who believed the worst would never happen to them.

This time, it has already happened. I have held children not knowing when their last heartbeat would come, but knowing that it would happen within the next few minutes. I have packed up my dreams of what my family was to have been. Does this make me a better parent now? I'm not so sure. I have spent much of the last year fighting down fear. Fear that I would lose one or both of the girls before they were born. Fear that I would have them finally here just to lose them in early childhood. Fear that I would endanger them by the choices that I made for them.

I don't think either way is a healthy was to parent. I think both are understandable given my situations at the time, but I don't think they show much dependence on God. I have been entrusted the care of these children during this moment just as I was with the boys. I need to learn neither to hold to the expectation of a certain tomorrow nor fear what it brings. Becoming dependent on Him is a daily (or sometimes hourly) task.