At ten-thirty last night, the phone rang. That always scares me, but usually it's foundless. Last night it wasn't.

Inkling was on the other end of the line & she was fighting to talk. My heart dropped like a rock.

Her youngest brother & his wife were expecting their fourth child. She had passed her due date by a few days. Something went wrong. The baby didn't survive.

They found this out last night & Inkling's sister-in-law was in the hospital having her labor induced.

Inkling said, "I don't know how they aren't dying." At the time I was numb. I was so shocked I didn't know how to react. I mumbled & stuttered & kept saying, "Oh...oh no...oh my." Inkling said it on her blog: There's nothing to say.

After I hung up the phone, I went in to tell Husband. I barely choked out the words before I called QM to tell her. Even with tears, I was oddly numb.

Eventually I crawled into bed & my mind went into overdrive. How do you carry a baby for 9 months only to say good bye before it's even drawn breath? How do you deliver a baby you know is already gone? How do you explain it to the three small children waiting at home for their new baby? My heart ached desperately for my cousins. My mind continued to drift back to Bitsy. How would we have survived without her? I sobbed into Husband's chest for a few minutes until I realized I needed to process this alone.

There was an empty place in my chest that physically hurt. If I'm hurting like this, how are my cousins still breathing? How are my aunt & uncle able to make the necessary phone calls? How is anyone any closer to this even functioning? I'm only feeling a small fraction of the pain Inkling is in so far from her family.

In front of our fire, my prayers, which had been mumblings & stutterings up to this point, took on more specific questions & pleas. My heart broke not only for them, but for my mother who lost a baby when I was three, my aunts who'd lost babies they'd never met, my cousin who miscarried early on, my grandmothers, my great grandmothers....for all of them.

As I poured out my heart to my God, I knew He heard my cries. I knew He was hearing the cries of my family. I knew He was in the hospital room with my cousin & his wife. And I knew that this precious baby would never feel pain, never suffer, never be broken hearted or hungry or cold or ill. I knew that she* was in the arms of the Lord. I knew that she was meeting her Great-grandma Christmas Gift & our Granny. I knew that my baby brother and her cousin, Grasshopper's older sibling, were there. She is surrounded by people who love her in paradise just as she would have been here on Earth. My heart didn't ache for her any longer, but it still aches for her parents, her siblings, her grandparents, and the rest of us waiting here.

Please pray for my cousins. They need it most of all.

*I really have no idea if the baby was a boy or a girl. In my mind I pictured a girl. It made things a bit easier to process....easier is the wrong word, but I hope you understand.

*****Updated*****
At seven thirty this morning, my cousin gave birth to a baby girl. She has a beautiful name & is well loved. Please continue to pray for our family as her absence will leave a huge hole in all our hearts.