Blog Post Title One

I knew you were there before I ever got two pink lines. I felt a sudden change in my heart, mind and soul that something was coming. The anxiety, excitement, curiosity, sense of impending doom perhaps? I felt so many things including exhaustion, nausea, my acne worsening, tenderness in my body and more.

I knew you and then I lost you before I ever got to know life with you before you left us for the other side. All that I’m left with are the questions and thoughts of what could have been. What would you look like? What would you sound like when you laughed or cried? What would it feel like when you nuzzled into my chest before bed? What would be your favorite bedtime story? What sports you’d play or if you’d be more interested in art or performing arts (or both)? Who would you become?

Then there’s the questions selfishly about me. Would I be a good mom? Was I ready to become a mom? Why do I have to bare the pain of knowing I’m here and your not continuing to grow inside me? Why didn’t I get to hear the flutter of what would be your heart? Why me? Why us?

Fetal Demise. Words stamped into my brain from our first and only ultrasound. Words that continue to haunt me as I try to navigate life knowing I knew you were there, but I’ll never get to know you or meet you on this side. I’m so desperate to hold on to you I kept the pregnancy tests I kept taking to make sure you were really there with me. I hold onto the bracelets from the day you left me fully. The blanket the hospital gave me as comfort, but is more of a painful reminder of what could have been, or really should have been. The packet the hospital provides to families suffering similar fates of where you go on this side to bring us another level of comfort knowing you weren’t discarded in a bin, which may have happened anyway. I hold on to the memory of the nurses holding my hands as I cried begging for this to be a bad dream and not the reality I’d have to continue to face.

I also hold on to the moment I got those two pink lines, and the next, and the digital “pregnant.” The moments of your dad holding my stomach talking about our future as a family of “five” (we count dogs as family here). Calling your dad because I was in a panic and could only get the words “holy shit” out because I was in shock that you existed (in the best way, I promise). Hearing your dad say “congratulations, this is what we’ve wanted.” Remembering the moment we told your grandparents you were coming. The moment we told your aunts and uncles. The nine weeks we lived in bliss going through what was developing that week so I could use it as the reason I was so tired. The nine weeks we got to love you for existing not knowing our fate, though some part of me knew something wasn’t quite what it seemed, a mother’s intuition I guess.

Thank you for making me a mom even if it was only for a little while. Thank you for letting me experience a whole new level of joy unlike I’d ever felt or experienced, even through the nausea. I’ll love you forever Little Bean.

Until we meet on the other side.