Having a baby after losing a child has been full of highs and lows. On one hand, it is a tremendously positive thing as it gives us hope for the future; hope that we will get the chance to love another little one again. On the other hand, it amplifies our feelings of loss by making us think about caring for a child, something we will never get to do for our sweet Maddie again. Understandably, our feelings have been pretty mixed up lately. Yesterday Mike and I were talking about this and realized that we both had strangely similar dreams.

My dream happened right after Mike and I made the decision that we were going to continue trying to add on to our family, and it was the first dream I remembered after Maddie passed. In it, I was going to the hospital to see the baby I’d just had the day before. I was frantic, running through the halls to get to the nursery. When I got there, I asked the nurse where Madeline Spohr was. The nurse said, “There isn’t a Madeline, but there is another Spohr here.” She took me around a corner, and I saw the baby before she was pointed out to me. I knew she was mine. The nurse said, “This is your daughter.” She was a beautiful little girl that looked so much like Madeline, but not exactly like her. I looked down at her name tag and saw her name “A___ Spohr.” When I woke up, I knew we were making the right decision, and I knew we would have another girl.

Mike’s dream was a few months ago, after we knew I was pregnant but before we knew Binky’s gender:

In my dream I had somehow missed the birth of Binky, and was racing to the hospital to see her. Upon arriving at the hospital I jumped into the elevator and rode up to the maternity ward, kicking myself for having missed such an important moment in my life. Once on maternity I hurried down the hall toward the nursery where a nurse sitting behind a desk told me all went fine with Binky’s birth and that she was inside. I asked her if I could see Binky, and she nodded before pushing a button that opened the nursery doors. As I headed toward them the nurse suddenly called out.

“Oh, Mr. Spohr?”

I turned back. The nurse smiled.

“Maddie’s here too.”

Just then a second nurse pushed through swiveling doors carrying Maddie. Maddie started giggling and reaching out for her Dad upon seeing me. I took Maddie into my arms and it was like we hadn’t been apart a single minute. I kissed her over and over before walking with her into the nursery. Together we looked into Binky’s hospital bassinet and saw this beautiful little baby. I reached down and caressed Binky’s little hand, and, as I stood there with both my girls, I felt joy like I never have before.

It’s hard to wrap our heads around our dreams…knowing that we were both right about having another little girl, but also knowing that our Madeline won’t be there on Binky’s birth day to greet her baby sister. It’s hard to dream dreams that won’t ever come true.