On the Second Day of Christmas

Well I thought long and hard about what should be my second blessing.... do I list my living children, do I list my angel children, do I go strictly by age and list my step-children. The truth is that the number assigned to the blessing in no way reflects how important the blessing is in my life. I have chosen to list My Angels as my second blessing for a very simple reason... there are so many lessons that I have learned due to the loss of my babies, that loss has translated me into a different parent than I would have been with out them. I make choices now that I may not have made if I had not known the agony of the losses of my babies. My WIC counselor told me once when she disagreed with one of my choices the she" understood my need to be a hands on mom having lost babies before." I don't know if that is really accurate... I have a suspicion that I would be the same mom that I am now when push comes to shove.
That is not to say that I have not learned some amazing lessons from the passing of our children. None the least of which is how strong I can be when I need to be. A repeating theme when people would talk to me about my angels was " I don't know how you do it" but the truth that I have recognized is that I didn't have any other choice. What else was I supposed to do? I had no choice but to get through it. That said, Dave and I were able to get through it, and that has made us stronger as individuals and as a couple. As we went through the process we learned that not giving up can indeed pay off. I have also learned that there is nothing in this world that is certain, so I have to remember to take every joy and enjoy every minute with my little ones who I have here. This means that my house is often messy, but my kids are often held and kissed. The trade off is fair I would say.
We have angels now that look over our shoulders. I know that they are there, I feel them every day. I feel so blessed to have my angels. While I would love to have them here in my arms... I know that they have something more important that they need to be doing. And if I had my angels I may not have my Earthly Angels... and I couldn't give them up for a million dollars a day. And while it seems strange to look at those losses as blessing, I cannot see them as anything else. My mother told me shortly after Aidan was born and had passed that one day I would see them as a blessing. I thought she was crazy HOW ON EARTH could I ever see something that had ripped my heart out of my chest and stomped on it a hundred times as a blessing? But now I look at the pictures I have of my Aislynn and my Aidan and I wonder how I could ever think of any of my children (living or spirit ) as anything BUT a blessing?!