Replacements

Tomorrow will be 10 months since my son was born.  And tomorrow, I will find out what his little sibling will be named.  Yes, it's been ten months without our Carpenter, and our little M is now 18 weeks old.  It feels like some official passing of the torch.  Carpenter celebrates a milestone in Heaven, and M becomes somehow more substantial.  For a mom who has been hiding from a post-loss pregnancy, giving M a name will be a huge moment for me.

I was thinking about those "Little Brother" or "Little Sister" onesies they make for newborns.  I bought one for Liv after Carpenter was born, and she wore it with pride.  (Well, I was proud.)  But today it occurred to me that if I buy big- and little-sibling shirts for our living children, no one will know that Carpenter is our middle child.  Everyone will just think that M is the little sibling, Liv is the big sibling, and there's no one in between.  
 
As if M has replaced Carpenter.

And that is what has troubled me all day.  

I have heard many people suggest to babyloss moms that once their rainbow arrives, then they'll be happy again.  You know the line.  "At least you can have other children!"  (Yeah.  At least I can punch you.)  And this thought-process bugs the crap out of me.  You see, when we have our rainbow pregnancy, it's not a filler child to replace the hole left behind by our loss.  If that were the case, there would be no reason to have more than one child ever, and they'd be as interchangeable as Legos.  

But they're not.  Our rainbows are special parts of our family that we chose, we prayed for, we WANT.  Just as much as any other child we might have. I may be scared to death during this pregnancy, but M is a necessity to our family.  M was chosen, prayed for and wanted.

Tomorrow, no torch will be passed.  No attention will be diverted.  No love will shift attention.  As with each of our children, our love and attention will grow in order to make room for our sweet little M.

...right beside Carpenter.