Capture Your Grief, Days 25 & 26: Baby Shower/Gifts & Their Age

We found out mid-way through my pregnancy with Gabriel that our baby was not expected to survive. Looking back, I wish I had planned a baby shower and asked people to bring special items for the baby. I would love to have those things now to add to his memory box, but I didn't know back then that having things to touch and hold and feel would be important later on. Back then, I was too depressed, too confused, and too shocked to pull myself together for an event with friends. If I could go back and do it all over again, I would have given Gabriel the baby shower, the celebration of life, that he deserved. If I could go back, I would ask everyone to write a short poem that I could read to Gabriel on the day of his birth. Instead of the typical fun baby shower games, I would have had guests decorate patches of fabric and later I would have turned them into a quilt to wrap my baby up in. If I could, I would go back and do so much more for him.

Since I didn't have a baby shower, I've chosen a picture of the little shoes that Corrado bought me for Mother's Day. I was scheduled for my anatomy scan the following day. We were so excited to finally learn whether we would be having a daughter or son. Instead, we learned that the little shoes would never be worn. We wouldn't need shoes, baby clothes or a crib. We wouldn't need diapers or baby wipes. We wouldn't need that subscription of Baby Magazine that I had ordered the week before. We wouldn't need any of those things. We needed something they don't sell at Babies-R-Us. We needed a miracle.

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Gabriel was only with us for 29 weeks + 1 day. His heart stopped beating sometime around 10 A.M. on July 19, 2012. He came into this world silently 4 hours later at 2:11 P.M.

While I was in the hospital, the nurses gave me a small memory box and it came with this journal. I filled out the first page and stamped the corner with Gabriel's footprint. I'm glad I did this for him and for us. It's a constant reminder that he was here with us for those precious 29 weeks and that one very beautiful day.