Benjamin Louis

For awhile now, Rocky and I have known we would name one of our sons Benjamin.

This past Thursday was the day we finished the 33-day long St. Louis de Montfort - Total Consecration to Jesus through Mary. Some of you may be familiar with it. Rocky and I had consecrated ourselves individually before we ever met, and then we renewed it together, dedicating our Marriage to Jesus and our Lady, and again, renewed it to dedicate little Gemma when we were pregnant with her. So this most recent renewal was for our most recent addition to our family.

You see, this past Friday was supposed to be the day that I made my announcement here on my blog that we were expecting Baby #2. But the bleeding had started the day before - the exact day we completed our Consecration. And I thought I'd wait it out to see if the bleeding cleared up, as it had when I bled with my pregnancy with Gemma. It didn't this time around.

Last night, we held our tiny, tiny baby in our hands. We wept over him, and we just knew he was a boy. Our first son. To be honest, I'm still so shocked. It's hard to accept that just a few days ago, he was growing in my belly, and now he's gone. I just can't make sense of it.

This morning, we said goodbye to our sweet baby boy, Benjamin Louis. We placed his little body into a box, sang a hymn, and sent him out into the water off the dock in our backyard.

Even in the midst of this pain, I'm so grateful that we have an eternal perspective. That I can find some comfort knowing that he's in Heaven now with Jesus, and that our gentle Mother is holding him in her arms. It doesn't make me miss him any less, but it at least gives me a small token of comfort in knowing he's there. A friend of mine this morning who has known this kind of loss herself said "Just think, as parents, our job is to get our babies to Heaven so ... check. One down." I'm so thankful for my faith. I know I'm not going through this alone.

This morning at Mass, the responsorial psalm was "Praise the Lord, who heals the broken-hearted." I do praise Him, and I pray for healing, because my heart is truly broken today. All I can do is keep praying, cry when I need to, and thank Jesus for the beautiful blessing of my daughter, Gemma, who has already made me smile so many times today. Without her, I don't think I would have smiled for a long, long time.