Second Trimester
I told my sister I was pregnant before I told my husband.
We weren’t trying – I was only twenty, after all – but we weren’t trying to prevent it either. Still, the positive pregnancy test in July surprised me. I wanted to tell my husband Mark, but he couldn’t take calls at work and I couldn’t stand to keep this to myself. I had to tell someone. We were living overseas with the military at the time, so I calculated the time difference – me in Germany, April in Oklahoma – and waited until I was sure I wouldn’t wake her up. She reacted like any big sister would, as excited as if it were happening to her.
She was the same age as me when she had Blake, and her now two-year-old son was the best part of our family. He was every bit of two years old, with a cherub face and ornery smile, his light brown hair topped with one of his many Gap caps. He loved cars, Elmo, and ice cream. We talked about how fun it would be to watch Blake play with his cousin, all the trouble they would surely get into together.
I made it through the first trimester, enduring severe morning sickness, multiple ER visits, and relentless exhaustion. Then Summer turned to Fall, and just like the books promised, the beginning of the second trimester was a turning point. I felt stronger and more energetic, and I could finally eat! We discussed baby names. I even bought maternity clothes hoping I would regain the weight I lost. We heard the baby’s heartbeat for the first time one morning in late September, and I drifted off to sleep that night – content and at peace – replaying the beat over and over in my mind.
Then the phone rang.
“Blake’s been in an accident.” I heard my dad’s voice on the other side, broken but calm. I willed myself to wake up, sitting up straighter and rubbing the sleep from my eyes. Nothing he said made sense. My 2-year-old nephew Blake and his dad, my sister’s ex-husband, were hit by a semi truck that morning. Glenn had several broken ribs, but the impact was on Blake’s car seat. He had been airlifted to the hospital — unconscious, with severe head trauma and other serious injuries — and it didn’t look good. “You need to come home.”
Since we were in Germany, we wouldn’t be able to leave until the next day. The last-minute plane tickets took every bit of our tiny savings, money we hoped to spend on flying home for Christmas. The journey home wasn’t easy even in the best circumstances — one hour to Frankfurt, ten hours to Dallas, one hour to Amarillo, another hour home. Additional time for layovers and Customs and baggage claim. Longer if the weather was bad. But now, with nothing to do but wait, Mark went to work, leaving me alone with my grief.
I focused on packing our suitcases, unsure if I should laugh that the maternity dress I’d recently purchased from H&M was black. I sat in the bathtub and cried, hypnotized by the way my tears dissolved in the water. I read a book hoping it would distract me from the empty hours ahead, but the Nicholas Sparks novel I purchased that weekend only brought more tears. I ate three bowls of Cocoa Krispies. I tried to sleep.
Blake died before we made it home. My sister, only 23 years old herself, signed the papers that turned off life support. I should have been there. Even though she was surrounded by family and friends at the hospital, if it had been me, I would have wanted my sister. We hugged for a long time when we saw each other at the airport, my growing belly between us an unfortunate reminder of my great fortune and her great loss. The other travelers witness to our reunion, oblivious to all that the hug held.
We were immediately tossed into a sea of grieving relatives. Neighbors bearing sympathy and casseroles. The unimaginable task of planning the funeral. Reliving every moment of the last two years through photos. Jet lag.
I slept in the room with April that first night and couldn’t help but think of how unfair it all was. What should have been an exciting time in my life quickly turned into a time of devastation, grief, and confusion. She said she was happy for me, but I still kept it to myself each time the baby kicked.
The weather was perfect on the day of the funeral — blue skies, no wind. My black dress, meant to be slimming in all stages of pregnancy, was absurdly so as it hung loosely on my frame. Mark and I rode to the cemetery with April and my parents, and we joked on the way that it would be just our luck to be stopped by a train before crossing the tracks. “Blake would love it,” I said. We drove the rest of the way in silence, each of us lost in our own thoughts and grief and memories.
After the service, I stood at April’s side as people simultaneously offered her condolences and me congratulations. I don’t know who felt more uncomfortable, the two of us or the friends who meant well but didn’t know what to say. I finally stepped away from the unofficial receiving line to release us all from the burden of making a bad situation worse.
A family friend embraced me just before she left. Growing up she had been my piano teacher, then my Sunday School teacher. A long-time friend of my family, she was devoted to reading the Bible and always seemed to know the right thing to say. When she hugged me, she whispered in my ear that she was rejoicing with me. She knew I was hurting but at the same time rejoicing the miracle I had growing inside of me. “It’s ok to be happy,” she said. I cried and nodded, if not in agreement, in hope, my hands covering my stomach as they had most of that day. To hide it. To protect it.
My son Andrew was born five months later – three weeks early, but right on time. On that day, I held those words close: it’s ok to be happy. And years later when my sister gave birth to a daughter and then a son, I shared the words with her, too.
Today the words still act as a reminder, an anthem. I’ve learned it’s not just okay to be happy – it’s essential. Our lives are filled with challenges: loss, illness, broken hearts, and accidents. They are also graced with moments of joy: babies being born, Christmas lights, remission, and second trimesters. The joy doesn’t erase the sorrow – there is room for both. There must be room for both.
We wouldn’t have chosen this story for ourselves, lessons learned and all. Even now the grief can hit as hard as it did that day in late September, 18 years ago. I watched my boys play with their cousins and often wondered how Blake would have fit into their games. No doubt, he would be the instigator of mischief — with his cherub face and ornery smile, probably still wearing a Gap cap. I watched my sister bravely step into motherhood again, not without fear, but with hope strong enough to hold her. I watched birthdays and milestones pass, always fun but always missing someone. And I watched life keep moving on, as it does. As it should.
