Hope

It's been an entire year already. Last year at this time, I was losing my second baby. I was scared and disappointed and wondering whether I would ever have a living baby. If you had asked me a year ago if I thought I would have a baby in my arms in time for next Christmas, I would have said no. I would have said that I was about to give up all hope of ever successfully bringing a healthy child into this world.

But here I am. I now have a three month old little boy and he is healthy and breathing and squirmy and adorable. And I feel like the luckiest person in the world.

It's hard to believe how much my life has changed in the past 365 days. I'm not saying life is perfect. I'm not saying it's easier now that a baby's cries fill my home. I'm just saying that it's different. That it's better in so many ways. And so incredibly more exhausting and overwhelming in other ways.

This life we all get to live is truly amazing.

It's just so beautiful.

But mostly, it's far too unpredictable to ever lose hope.

And far too short to ever stop dreaming.

Happy Birthday Sweet Baby. You've taught me how to love life and to never give up hope. <3

Happy 2nd Birthday Gabriel

To my amazing beautiful boy... Happy 2nd birthday in heaven! Two years ago I was blessed to hold the most perfect angel in my arms. Today I celebrate your beautiful life as I do everyday. I will never forget the moment I first held you and the day we spent together. I wish we could have had more time together but I'm grateful for the months I carried you and for the chance to be your mom.

We love and miss you Gabriel! <3

Dear Poppy

Today was the day you were supposed to be born alive and healthy and perfect and beautiful. You were supposed to be the baby who came home with us. The one with pink skin and chubby cheeks. The one to restore joy where it's melted away. The one to grow up here on earth. The one to melt our hearts with your cries and laughter. You were supposed to be the one.

Of course today you're not being born. You died many months ago and I'm still not sure why. I don't know if I failed you or if I could have saved you. I don't know why you had to leave so soon.

I miss you and I miss who you could have been. I'm sad knowing that I'll never get to hold you or hear your voice or touch your skin. I'm lost because I have no answers. Just a deep void where you once filled my world with hope.

But today I am also feeling blessed. Because of you so much love and beauty has come into my life. You came to me at a time when I needed you and for that I will always be grateful. I may never be able to tell you that I love you or show you how much you mean to me, but you'll always hold a special place in my heart. I will never stop thinking about what you would have looked like or who you would have grown up to be.

I wish I was giving birth to you today. I wish I could sing you Happy Birthday and that your big brother could hold you on his lap and give you lots of kisses. I wish that everything could be different and I'm sorry that I never got to give you the beautiful life that I dreamed of giving you.

You are so very loved little one. You are missed and thought of often. And I will always and forever consider you one of the greatest gifts of my life.

A Journey of Love

I never really expected life to be easy. I never expected it to go my way all the time. I've never been incredibly lucky or lived in the type of world where things have just been handed to me. Growing up, I knew that being successful would take hard work and dedication and time and perseverance. When I was in college, I worked hard to get good grades and graduate on time. I wanted to have a successful career, to make loads of money, to be the CEO of my own company one day. I dreamed of a life of working my way to the top. When I got out in the real world, I realized that it wasn't enough to dream. There were a lot of young college graduates who were just as smart as me, just as ambitious, and just as eager as me to start climbing the ladder to the top. I knew it would be a challenge. I knew I would have to work everyday to reach my goals.

Just as I knew that I would have to work for many things. Jobs. Promotions. Money. Success. Friendships. Marriage. I never believed that anything would just be handed to me. I knew I would have to work hard to have a good life. To be the person who I wanted to be.

But never once did I think that becoming a mother would one day be the most difficult challenge of my life. I assumed that when I was ready, when I decided that I wanted to have children, that it would just happen. I thought that having children was supposed to be easy. That raising them was the hard part.

But as I look back over the past three years all I see is a bumpy windy road of failures where I've attempted motherhood again and again. A three year journey to motherhood that is both endless and nonexistent. I've worked and I've tried and I've persevered and I've given it my all, but I'm still here waiting for the day when all of this will pay off. I used to believe that not giving up was the key to success. But now, I realize that when it comes to babies, a huge part of it is just plain luck.

Some people are so lucky. So blessed. Some people have lots of babies without any issues. Without ever having to say good-bye to one of them. Some people never struggle with infertility. Some people go their whole lives without ever knowing that babyloss exists.

And others work and work and try and try and invest all their money and all their time and all their hope and still don't have what everyone else seems to have so easily.

Some people struggle for years to experience the joy that others get in just 9 months. It doesn't seem fair. It doesn't seem right.

But I'll tell you one thing that I've learned over the past 3 years. That the things we feel like we have to work the hardest for... successful careers, money, cars, popularity, fame... are in fact the things that matter the least in the world. If there's one thing that is truly worth working for, sacrificing everything for, enduring despair and loss for, it's your children. I wouldn't walk this journey for anyone else. If one day I'm able to reach the end of this road, I'll know that it was not luck, nor hope, nor perseverance, nor hard work that got me there.

But love.

Love which not only makes the journey possible, but makes every minute of it a lesson that teaches me everyday that children are the most precious gift... that they alone give meaning to life's greatest sufferings and pave the way for life's most beautiful moments.

A New Semester

It's that time. The spring semester has begun. By some miracle, I was able to once again get into all of the classes I need. I am taking my last 3 prerequisite courses this semester and that means I'll be able to apply for the sonography program this month. Unfortunately, rumor has it that those who have completed all of the prerequisites get priority over those who are still working on them. But, I still get to apply which at least gives me a chance at one of the slots for this year's program.

Though my schedule is pretty intense, it's worth the time and work just to finish my prerequisites and to have a chance at getting into the sonography program this summer. If I don't get accepted this year, I'll have to wait a whole year to apply again which is a pretty substantial delay. So, I'm grateful that I can at least apply and try to get in.

Honestly, I have no idea how good or poor my odds are. I have good grades and the application is G.P.A. based with 4.0 students getting first priority, followed by 3.8 and so on. I have all A's except for one B in English which I took at U.S.C. (Let this be a lesson to those of you who are in school that grades do matter.) So far, everything has fallen into place and I can't help but feel like I am meant to be in this year's program. However, I know that there is no guarantee and that things don't always go according to plan. At this point, all I can do is try and hope for the best.

Please keep your fingers crossed for me!

Starting Over

It's hard to admit this to myself, but there are days when I really wish I could start over. I wish I could rewind my life and go back to January 2012. That's when the first domino toppled over: Gabriel's conception. That's when all of this was first put into motion. That's when everything changed far beyond my control, when my life slowly started to fall apart.

I wish I could get a re-do on the last two years of my life. I wish I could have one chance to take back one choice. Because I am constantly wondering what my life would be like now if I had done one thing differently. Could one choice made differently have had the power to change my fate?

This time, two years ago, I remember wanting a baby so badly. I was so anxious to get pregnant. I was naively planning to have three children and I wanted to get started before I turned 30.

Now, I wonder what could have been if I had been more patient. If we had conceived one month later, would that have made all the difference in the world? Would that baby be a happy, healthy 15 month old squirming in my arms while I blog about cloth diapers instead of stillbirth?

I think I will always question what could have been if I had been patient and waited a couple months... if those two months could have spared me the suffering I've endured over the past two years.

It's heartbreaking and frustrating to know that I am exactly where I was then. Two years ago I was sitting here wishing for a baby, scouring the internet for fertility tips, trying with all my being to make my greatest wish come true. It's been two years and no progress has been made on the baby front. Nothing has been given in exchange for 24 agonizing months of loss and disappointment and failures and hopelessness and tears. I have nothing to show for years of trying relentlessly to have a family.

I want to scream at the universe. What else do I have to do?! Why can't this just be easier?! Over the past two years, I have had to watch every single person I know have healthy babies while I am STILL waiting for mine!! This is not fair!! This is not right!!

I look back over the last 24 months and I see so many tears, so many lost moments, so many empty days. I see my heart breaking over and over again, my faith dwindling, my hope fading, my dreams melting as my ovaries just continue to age and age.

It's becoming harder and harder to imagine what could have been. It's almost impossible to imagine my life turning out how I thought it would. I feel like over the past two years I've drifted further and further away from that life. I can barely remember what it felt like to dream of a future, to make plans, to have the luxury of choosing to have children. I often wonder if the universe actually laughed at my 3-children-before-35-plan.

Sometimes, I wish I could go back to that time when my dreams had no boundaries just to remember for a moment what it felt like to have endless possibilities in front of me. That blissful time before I knew the risks of embarking on a new journey. Before I knew just what the road to motherhood had in store for me.

I think of everything I've been through on this journey, and I can't help but wish it had been different. I wish it had been easier... a lot easier. I wish I had been given a different baby, a healthy one that I could have kept.

But then my heart sinks knowing what I would have to sacrifice. And I realize that even if I could start over, I could never choose another path. I could never knock down a different domino. As hard as this life is, I could never give up the two babies I carried, the two babies who I love with all my heart, the two babies who aren't here but who I think about every single moment of every single day. Because even though I wish things were different, I don't wish for a life without them.

Even with the enormous pile of hardships that weighs heavily on my soul, this is the only life I have with them in it. This road is the only one that could have led me to both of my precious children. Whatever choice I made two years ago that has landed me here, I know in my heart that I could never choose differently.

Because they're my babies. And I'm their mother.

And that's the one thing that I would never want to change.

I Will Always Wonder

Was it my fault?

Was it something I ate?

Something I did?

Something I failed to do?

Is it because I didn't take my vitamins everyday?

Or because I waited too long to start taking baby aspirin?

Should I have demanded more blood work and prenatal testing?

Should I have gone to a different doctor?

If I had, would it have even mattered?

Was it that I complained about having morning sickness?

Or that I breathed a tiny sigh of relief after the first ultrasound?

Could I have done something, anything, to have prevented this loss?

If I had made a different choice at some point, would it have made all the difference?

Could her death have been prevented?

Could I have prevented it?

Did my body fail to keep her safe?

Or was she just too fragile to survive?

What happened?

Why her?

Why me?

Why us?

Why?

Dear 2014

I'll be honest... I'm not at all excited about you. It's not your fault. In 2013, I lost Poppy. In 2012, I lost Gabriel. And so it's not surprising that I've been conditioned to associate a new year with a new loss.

I'm sorry to say that I don't feel hopeful that you'll be a better year. I don't have much faith in the future. I don't believe you will be my year. I don't know how to wish for the best anymore, because clearly all the hoping and praying in the world hasn't been working.

Mostly, I'm worried that you will be yet another year plagued with loss and defined by grief. Though I know that inevitably there will be many moments of joy and love and growth and goodness scattered throughout you, I fear that ultimately you will be another year of disappointment and that loss will once again overshadow all the good times.

Your predecessor, 2013, let me down in so many ways. (Again, not your fault.) That entire year was a struggle that drained me of my last remaining drops of faith and hope. I honestly don't know if I have what it takes to make it through another year of failure, spirit-crushing disappointment, and babyloss.

I'm not expecting (or even asking) for anything extraordinarily amazing out of you. I don't need you to be the year I win the Powerball jackpot, or the year I meet Oprah, or the year I run a marathon.

I just need you to be the year that restores some of the hope I have lost. I want to be able to dream again, to imagine a future that isn't scary or empty or completely uncertain. I want to be able to enjoy our time together, not live in fear of what you may bring.

So, please don't be like last year and the year before that.

And, please don't be another year of sub-fertility/pregnancy loss/death/childlessness/bad news, etc...

Because more than anything, I really need for you to be the year that I don't lose any of my children.