Spring is in the air, babies are being born, and we are quickly approaching the first birthday of the year in our little family of five. The youngest (Number Three) is turning four very soon! It seems to me that I am getting a new birth announcement every week right now and on top of it, the warm weather makes me super sentimental and reflective of those fresh baby days.

The store of Number Three is unique though. I’ve wanted to tell it for some time, but I had to be ready and it has to be told properly.

Sometimes retrospect really is the best therapy.

Six years ago I went through one of the saddest years of my life. Starting the year with two babies under four, I convinced my husband to try for a third.

We had two happy and healthy girls already. This wasn’t an attempt to “go for a boy”. We knew it would be a girl. We even had a name picked out. And as it turned out, at 33 I knew my body very well and my husband was conveniently on a schedule where he would be home every night. Whatever the reason, we were able to get pregnant pretty much by making eye contact.

I don’t need to speak on the details of pregnancy loss. I feel like that is a separate post for a very specific audience. If you’re in the club you never wanted to join, then you know.

I had four miscarriages that year. That’s four very short pregnancies, four due dates lost, a lot of doctor appointments, and no answers. The funny thing about pregnancy loss is that you may never know why. I still don’t.

And I grieved for something that I never really had, or at least for very long. What I truly realized in that very sad year, and still kills me to this day, is that you cannot go back. I wanted, with all of my heart, to feel those first days of motherhood again. And when it kept getting taken away from me, I grieved hard. I was mourning the loss of those days. Yes, I had two beautiful little girls to keep me busy and keep my heart full, but I could see Number Three before she existed. I knew her.

So I spent the first six months of the following year trying to move on. I worked out a lot, I went out, I drank, I listened to Florence + the Machine a lot (usually while drinking and crying on the floor), and eventually I even sold all of my baby stuff. It was a form of therapy. If I couldn’t go back, I decided to move forward on my own terms and take control of what I could.

But I still grieved. And I still saw her. And I knew I needed to try again. After doing everything I could medically and waiting the proper amount of time, I told my husband that I was ready to try again. It was a beautiful sunny day while the girls played at the park and I remember it clearly because he said no. He wasn’t willing to put me through it all again. (I don’t blame him, but I’m also pretty stubborn).

Clearly I won the argument, because a month later I got pregnant again. It was terrifying and I knew the road that I had gone down before. But once the hormones kicked in, I knew that she was there.

Nine months later, I gave birth to our perfect little Florence. It wasn’t the original name we had, as we knew we couldn’t use that name anymore because it was attached to such sadness. The name Florence, to me, reminds me of riding through a very dark storm, but coming out of it to the other side. It’s powerful and although I often still think of those moements crying hopelessly on the floor into my wine glass, it also reminds me of how lucky I am to have found the rainbow after the rain.

The very best part of having our third baby girl is that I got to experience every single moment with the people I love the most. From pregnancy to meeting her for the first time in that hospital room, I got to see so much through their eyes. She was born into this family that was already so filled with love and life. She has always known this little community that she is a part of. Every time she woke in the morning, she was greeted excitedly by her two big sisters staring at her over her crib, until she was big enough that they just climbed right in with her.

This is what makes Number Three confident enough to walk into a room of new faces, empathetic enough to really be able to look at people and truly see them, and smart enough to know how to wrap her daddy around her little finger.

I have never smiled more than I did that first year of her life, because I didn’t just get to go back, I got to do it all over again with the girls who made me a mama to begin with. I had their support and help to raise her in ways I never even knew I needed. We all learned together and celebrated every single first moment together. And we laughed so much, and still do. I savoured every single moment with her, and I still do, because I almost didn’t get to go back to those days.

Having a third baby was challenging at times, but nothing compared to the pain of not having her. And just like the fresh scent of Spring reminds me, sometimes we must endure the darkness before we can really appreciate the sun.

Yours in Spring Weather,

Modern Mommy Brain