A day honoring our Sweet Pea

Today has been a day I've been dreading. Today was the due date for our first Sweet Pea. It has been a long journey filled mostly with tears and growing pains. In my head this day was going to be filled with some really ugly crying, some severe shouting at God, and a total 6 month step back in my process of healing. However, the day turned out differently.
I took the day off work and was able to sleep in and spend 2 extra hours in bed laughing, talking, and reflecting with Brand. We also ate lunch at our favorite Thai restaurant to celebrate the life of our Sweet Pea. It was the first place we went to when we found out we were pregnant. We also bought some baby toys that we then donated to Sacred Heart Children's hospital. Sacred Heart is the hospital where our Sweet Pea would have been delivered and we wanted to do an act of kindness to honor our Sweet Pea. When Kelly, the giving coordinator, met us to take our donations she asked our story. (P.s. Kelly is massively pregnant. If you've ever been through a miscarriage then you know how difficult it is to see a pregnant woman..and they are everywhere). We told her that we had a miscarriage last year (cue crying to a stranger) and that today was our due date and that we wanted to make something positive out of something negative. Kelly was touched and shared that she had three miscarriages prior to her new baby on the way. She was so sweet and told us to come in when we have good news and that they hope to see us deliver there soon. (PPS she was one of three strangers today that were the sweetest people. Two didn't know our story but connected to us in other ways. It was a blessing on a day like this.)
Then tonight we lit a candle, listened to Blessed Be Your Name by Tree63 (a song we played at our wedding during communion to remind us that during the good and the bad we will always serve the Lord), and read letters that we wrote to Sweet Pea. There were some tears, especially when Brand read his. But in general the day was not too dreadful and it felt good to reach this milestone.
Next week we have orientation with DCFS to begin the process of becoming foster parents. It is weird that life has brought us here. We are so excited to become a forever family. Even though this is something we've always wanted to do, we never would have done this so soon if it wasn't for our Sweet Pea. In some ways, the foster parenting route could bring even more heartache (it is possible to have a child in our care for 2 years and then just given to some deadbeat dad or something...awesome) but if anything has taught us it is that being a mom and dad is not about us. Though this process may hurt us a lot and it is going to be difficult it is about the children that need a home not about two people that just want kids.So we're excited to take on this challenge, be humbled, and ultimately fall in love with some rockin' kids.

PPPS If you were wondering where Sweet Pea came from, when I was pregnant my little app on my phone would say how big the baby was. One day I read it and told Brand "Our baby is the size of a sweet pea!" I love sweet peas because they are the April birth flower so I loved it. Re-read it and it said "small pea". But Sweet Pea stuck :)