This Time... Again

It's the holiday season once more. Even though it has become easier to endure this time of year, I know for many, myself included, that after losing a child, the holidays are forever bittersweet. This year, like last year, I have my sweet boy Louis with me. He fills the house with his cries and laughter and the energy that only a little boy can possess. He runs around with curiosity in his eyes. He comes up to me and smiles for just a second before returning to his crazy antics. I dress him up in adorable red and green pajamas and watch his eyes light up when we turn on the Christmas lights.

He is a blessing. He is the blessing of all blessings. This I know.

But with all my heart, I wish there were more presents under the tree. I wish I could take one of those family photos with one child looking at the camera smiling and the other, completely oblivious, picking his nose and looking at the ceiling. I wish I had all my babies here with me. But mostly I wish this could just be happy joyous festive time. Instead of the bittersweet, wish-I-could-change-so-many-things time of the year.

Yesterday was Poppy's 2nd birthday. It feels like forever ago that we learned she was gone. I remember feeling so lucky to be pregnant again thinking that it would somehow make the holidays easier to get through. December is such a difficult month to lose a baby. It's hard, really more like impossible to get in the Christmas spirit when the one person you want to celebrate with the most is gone.

It's now been almost 3 1/2 years since Gabriel died. I imagine Louis and Gabriel opening presents together, playing with new toys on Christmas day while watching Christmas cartoons, the way my sister and I used to do when we were kids. I wish Louis could have that. I wish my family could have that. I wish for once we could have a complete Christmas with no one missing.

Sending love, peace, hope and healing to all of you this holiday season.

And happy birthday to my little Poppy celebrating her birthday and Jesus' birthday with her brother in Heaven this year.

Three

Three years ago you were all mine to hold. I held you in my arms, kissed your cute little nose, willed myself to remember every inch of your tiny body. That day came and went so quickly, too quickly. If there was ever a time I wished for time to stand still, it was that day three years ago. But night came and I kissed you one last time, held you close to my heart and gave you every part of myself that I could. The hardest thing I've ever done in my entire life was saying good-bye to you.

I still think about that day all the time. Every day I think of you, talk to you, wish you were here. I wonder what it would be like to have a three year old you. To know what you like to eat. And your favorite songs. And your first word. I'll never know any of it, but I'll forever have the memories we made together three years ago on that special day. I want you to know that your birth was the single most beautiful moment of my life. That it changed me down to my soul. That I get to be who I am because of you.

I love you sweet baby. Happy 3rd birthday Gabriel <3

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.