a new season.

We pulled into the parking lot and parked the suburban. Behind us sat the building that housed some of best and worst moments in our life up to this point. Our highest and lowest memories happened within the confines of those walls. We sat there together, as husband and wife, with worship music playing in the background, holding hands and remembering.

We remembered the five babies we had brought into the world in that building, the joy of each one, and how each experience was different. We laughed out how fast Moses entered the world, and smiled fondly when remembering Sarah being born not knowing if we were having a boy or a girl. We remembered Silas and how sweet and relaxed of a baby he was and Hopey girl how she surprised all of us showing up ten days early. We both agreed that little Eden is the perfect addition to our family, everyone fighting to be her favorite. We reminisced about the divine connections we made with nurses and hospital staff. We loved being there just the three of us soaking up those holy moments of new life with visitors coming in to meet the newest Buckwalter.
Each little life forever changed ours.

We also sat there and remembered five other lives, four of which we lost in those walls of the building. Five babies waiting for us in heaven. Four of the lowest moments, leaving the hospital empty handed and heavy hearted.
Each little life forever changed ours.

We sat there for a long time, laughing and crying and remembering.

Today we had come to close a door on an eleven year season. A journey of nine pregnancies. A decade of birthing and nursing five babies. A season of filling and emptying the womb. A journey with lots of ups and downs and twists and turns.

After the miscarriage in November, one of the hardest things we had to wrestle with was "What's next. Where do we go from here?"

I felt emotionally and physically spent and honestly wanted to be done with the journey. But also knew I needed to wait on the Lord for His answer. Both Mark and I felt we were grieving more than just the miscarriage but an accumulation of the losses and maybe even more so, an ending of a season.

We continued to pray about it and process it with some close friends during the winter months.

During this time I felt a lot of expectations and heaviness of what a "good, radical, christian, holy (fill in the blank) mother " should do, be, look like. I felt the weight of these "shoulds" resting heavily on my shoulders. As I let them go one by one,  I felt the Lord say, "You are free to choose. What do you want to do?"

When I really boiled everything down I wanted to be done. And when I said those words out loud it was like the heaviness began to lift off of me. It was a wrestling match of identity and expectations, of choosing and trusting. But in the end I was free to make a choice.

So in closing the door to one season I am stepping into the next. Heart wide open, hands ready to receive whatever is next. There is grieving as I say goodbye to the old. But through the tears there is a deep sense of anticipation for the new and the unknown that is waiting.