I wish I'd held her

I remember her
Her little body looked like it was made of glass. I was afraid to touch her. They urged me to go, to pick her up, to rock her body and hold it close to mine, but I shook my head.
I didn't want to touch her
Her tiny hands were balled up into fists, her face pale.
She was tiny. God, was she tiny. And lifeless and harmless and helpless.
I wish I'd touched her
I wish, when I'd had the chance, I'd kissed her head. I wish I'd touched her fists.
I wish I hadn't been afraid. Everyone else in the room held her, touched her, cried over her, but I didn't.
Tomorrow I'm getting my memorial tattoo, a permanent reminder of my girl. Also of the person I've become since she died.
I watched a video today about stillbirth and cried.
I wish I'd held her.

Infant loss remembrance day 2014

Today is Infant Loss Remembrance Day.
Today my facebook newsfeed was filled up with posts from mamas and daddies, aunts and uncles and grandparents who had to say goodbye to their babies too soon.
Today I remembered my own darling girl, gone too soon for my liking, but forever in my heart
Today I give a silent nod to you, all you mothers and fathers with wounds of your own, holes in your heart from missing your babies
I nod to you, new parents, still freshly grieving your loss. The hurt never goes away, but it does change, and it gets easier to deal with. You are not alone.
I nod to you, you seasoned veteran. Maybe your baby would be a teenager now, or perhaps an adult. Your wound is no longer fresh and gaping, but it is still noticeable, still there. Your loss still matters.
I nod to you, those who have lost more than one baby. Their lives mattered, and have forever changed who you are.
I nod to you parents and family members and friends of lost potential and babies of all kinds because your loss matters, and your story matters.
Do you hear me? Your story matters
Your story of loss, whatever that looks like, matters
And tonight I light my candle in remembrance of all our babies.
We stand together
So tell me, dear friend, what's your story?
If you're feeling brave, maybe comment below with the name of your sweet one and how long it's been since they left this earth
And regardless of whether or not you say a word, know I am standing with you tonight, and honoring your sweet babe(s)
Their lives matter
And so does yours

2 years out and I have a few things to say

I haven't written in a while
Because life is busy. I spent the summer traveling. I returned to the place where my sweet daughter's ashes are scattered, and I had a sense of peace knowing that she is always a part of me and I do not have to frantically work to remember her.
This knowledge has been following me lately
Sometimes she arrives as I am hunched over at the supper table
Sometimes her quiet voice speaks to me as I am running late for my morning class
Or in the silent hours of my work day right before closing, when everything is still and my heart is full
And there are days when I can go almost all day without actively thinking and remembering. As I crawl into bed at night, I sink into the soft embrace of remembering my sweet baby. But the pain doesn't sting like it used to, not always. More often than not it is a soft, gentle ache, a remembering of what should have been but isn't.
She was never mine to keep
She was always going to journey home
Her second birthday came and went, and it's been almost a month now since that day.
I can scarcely believe that my baby would be 2. If she had lived I imagine a birthday cake with pink frosting and presents. I wonder how many words she would know, if she would be fearless or timid.
I guess more than anything I want to write here to remember.
I wanted to write here again because my life is changing, and I'm not the same broken new mama I was 2 years ago, who had lost everything
Yes, I still miss my girl. I miss the life I could have had.
But I think 2 years, for me, has brought a sense of understanding. She had to go, for reasons I'll never be able to understand. Her brief life forever shaped me, as a person and a mother. She is always a part of me, and because of her I am able to experience this life more fully and deeply.
I feel like I don't have to write it out anymore, have to repeat my grief and make it known. It's something small, something I hold close to me. It's personal and beautiful and mine.
So I may still come to this corner of the woods every once in a while, to write and reflect and connect with you other baby loss mama's and daddies.
I may also spend my time going on spontaneous adventures and working the closing shift and taking pictures and writing poetry, which is ok too
Either way, I nod my head to you, as you sit over there in your grief and I stand here in mine.
Life has a funny way of changing when you least expect it. The thing you once thought was impossible has happened.
My heart is more full then I ever thought possible on that day 2 years ago when my baby died
And even still, there is a tiny piece missing, the size of her
I am just learning to cover that hole with so much love, to make the aching just a little easier

I carry your heart with me (I carry it in my heart)

"Choose a poem," The instructor of my tiny writing class says as she walks up and down the aisles, her shoes click clacking as she walks.
I picked the poem by e.e. Cummings (I carry your heart with me (I carry it in my heart))
She asks us to write an analysis describing what the poem means to us
I want to ask her if she ever lost a baby
I want to look into her eyes as if examining her for some broken piece that screams she knows my pain.
Instead I look at my page, at the others in the group. None of them know about Mia and sometimes I wish they did and other times I am quite content to keep her memory to myself.
I try to think of something to say that wouldn't betray the memory of my dead daughter.
I end up turning it in with only having analyzed metaphors and figurative language. On the front I write on a sticky note:
To my darling girl, I carry your heart with me (I carry it in my heart). Love, Mama
I set it on the teacher's desk and leave quickly, head down as if trying not to be noticed. I wrap my coat around myself to ward off the chill


I carry your heart with me, baby, I carry it in my heart

Parallel Universe

I watched the snow fall from the hospital window. I sat in a chair overlooking the city beside my mother, who had come in to get some tests done.
She was being tested for cancer. It runs in the family. My grandmother died from cancer, my aunt died from cancer, my cousin died from cancer.
It seems death runs in our family, like a winding ribbon or a vein, tying it all together.
My heart felt heavy as I thought of how things should be.
Sometimes, in my head, I live in this parallel universe. One where my baby didn't die and my love didn't die and my mother isn't being scanned for cancer and where I'm not sitting in a hospital in December, days before Christmas, thinking the one thing that links our family is death.
I drink my tea and watch the thick snowflakes and the dim glow coming from the bright lights and I hear her voice.
"Hi Mama."
I look around. She's not here. I know she's not here. She's dead.
"Everything will be ok, mama."
They are the only words I hear from her, sweet daughter of mine.
Sometimes, in the midst of a snowstorm or late at night, she whispers to me. I can feel her hands on my face, her breath on my neck.
It's only for a moment, only a brief second in this parallel universe where my daughter still exists, where she is learning to whisper my name, when her father is just in the other room instead of buried under the frosty ground.
But a minute is enough, enough to keep me pushing forward.
"I hear you baby," I whisper into my tea, "I love you."

One Year Later

One year...
How is that possible? It feels like only yesterday I was sitting in that hospital room, receiving the news that I thought would end my world. That my Mia was gone.
I was broken. Something inside of me snapped.
For months I crumbled, continuing my darkest decent.
It was in December when I decided I didn't want to live anymore.
It was in February when the strings inside of me broke and I was sitting in a pew at my church and sobbing.
Ever since that day in February, things began to change.
And now I'm here, a year later, something I didn't even imagine possible at month one, or six months.
And I'm doing ok.
Of course I think about how things could have been different, but I have days now when I can think clearly and realize that it was never not going to be like this.
The journey of losing Mia has made me a different person than I would have been if she was here. Maybe I would have liked that person better, but I'm not here.
Instead of changing diapers, I'm going back to school.
Instead of scheduling birthday parties and play dates, I'm scheduling counseling appointments and trips to the grocery store, where I buy enough food to feed only one.
Mia's death broke me, but her life saved me. Because of her short, beautiful existence, I am a different woman than I would have been otherwise.
 I'm stronger, and gentler. The impact of her short life is making ripples, spreading out.
She makes me beautiful. She makes me strong. She makes me a mother.
And yes, even though the pain of losing her has been unspeakably awful, and while I would have given anything for it not to have happened, her short life forever changed mine, and I am grateful. I wouldn't change a thing.
So here I am, one year later, blessed.

I love you, baby girl. The light of your life will not go out, and your life forever changed mine.

My Girl

I was watching My Girl in the hospital.
I was a strange mix between being tired and being emotional.
They'd just given me the medicine to start my contractions (so I could give birth to my dead daughter) and I was convinced it wasn't going to work (In that moment, as in most of my pregnancy after I found out Mia was sick and would die, I just wanted it to be over with.)
"You need to give me more," I cried to the nurse, unsure of why I was crying. I was wrapped up in some of those blankets from the warmers. I had an IV in my left arm, medicine that was supposed to help me give birth to my dead daughter flowing into me.
"You're fine," The nurse assured me, "Just try to relax, darling. Labor will start before you know it."
But I wasn't convinced. I was hysterical. More, I needed more.
I just wanted her out, just wanted this nightmare to be over. I was terrified of the idea that the medicine meant to induce labor wouldn't work.
I kept trying to get up out of bed and go somewhere (I'm not really sure where). I kept asking for more medicine, kept hysterically sobbing and telling the nurse it wasn't going to work.
In the end, I did end up needing more medicine.
In the end, I got an epidural. I pushed and screamed and cried, the warm blanket that was quickly losing its heat wrapped under me, stuck to my back with sweat.
And there she was, so tiny, so fragile, so perfect.
This wasn't what I wanted. I didn't want a dead baby. In that moment I would have done anything to put her back inside me, where she belonged, where she was safe and alive.
All the while the closing song from My Girl played from the TV screen in the corner of the hospital room. I don't even know how it was still on, but it was.

My Girl, My Girl, My Girl.

Hatred and Loneliness

Someone I know is having a baby. I woke up one morning, checked social media, and saw status updates from my friends about someone having died, a little one having passed on. Immediately my breath got stuck in my throat. Had something happened to my friend's baby?
It turns out there was another little boy in our community who drown.
I hate that I live in a world where babies die.
***
I came home from work today, exhausted. I barely made it into the house before I was hit with a wave of nausea. I stumbled to the couch and lay there, sipping on water and chewing crackers until the urge to vomit passed. But as I was lying there, I thought about how much it felt like the morning sickness I'd had with Mia. All of a sudden I was bawling on the couch, gagging over a bucket, screaming for my little girl. Because this moment, being so sick I could barely move, it reminded me of her.
I hate that the one thing that reminds me of her is sickness.
***
I got an email today from an old friend of mine. I haven't seen him since pre pregnancy, pre Mia, pre becoming a dead baby mama. So he sent me this nice, chatty email apologising for the lack of communication, asking how I was and how my Easter was.
What do I say to him?
Do I tell him about Mia? If I did, would that make me seem like I wanted pity? How would my friend respond to hearing about my dead baby? When he asked how I was, did he really want to know how I was or did he just want a glossed over, 'fine' answer?
Do I not mention Mia? Would not mentioning her feel like lying betrayal? I could just say I'm fine, but that, of course, would be a lie, but how do you tell someone you doesn't even know you were pregnant, and had a stillbirth, that life sucks so much some days I can't even get out of bed without sounding like a suicidal nut case?
I hate that I have to think about these things now.
***
I'm numbing the pain with too much to drink, not enough to eat and countless hours spent in front of the TV watching TV shows on DVD. It's not a permanent fix, I know that, but I don't know what else to do right now. Feeling hurts too much...

On Monday, I had a rather upsetting conversation with my friend. She basically told me that losing Mia was preventable (It wasn't, the doctors have assured me, there was nothing Cam nor I did that caused her medical conditions and, ultimately, her death, though that doesn't stop the guilt from washing over me) and she told me if I wanted to have any chance at a future and becoming a powerful, strong, inspiring woman I needed to get over my daughter's death.
What the hell?!?!
I wish I would have been witty that day, coming back with a sharp, sarcastic remark.
Instead I went home, locked myself in my room and cried. I got snot all over my pillow and my eyes were red and puffy and my hair was messy from raking my hands through it as I screamed and I looked more like a zombie and less like an actual human.
I hate that I have to deal with people like this, and especially hearing this stuff come from people I thought supported me and were there for me.
I hate that everything I feel hurts and I just want to run away from my life
I hate that this is my life

If you wanna leave a comment in response to my baby loss angst and venting, tell me what you would do in regards to my friend who sent me the email. Tell me the ways you numb yourself (or if you do...), tell me what you would have said to this 'friend' of mine who said those rude things about my daughters death (in case I decide to send her a strongly worded email). Tell me about you, and how you've been doing. What makes you miss your babies? What makes you burn up with anger and hatred?
Or just talk to me... cause I've been feeling a little lonely now that I'm here all by myself.

Thoughts on Missing my Mia

I miss my baby.
I want to write about something else, something important, something about my life, maybe, or my other relationships, a poem or a song... something!
But all I can think about is her, missing her.

I was reading a book yesterday and one of the lines hit me. It said, "I lost something I never knew I needed." In the book, she was talking about her mother who died when she was a baby.
But I lost something I never knew I needed, too
I never knew how much I would miss Mia
I never knew how much I would miss having faith in my body (Now I can only stare at this lump of flesh with a look of pure betrayal.)
I never knew how much I would miss that blind hope, that innocence, that naive nature that comes from living in a world where babies don't die.
I lost something I never knew I needed. I never knew I needed her. But now that she's gone my heart is empty.
***
Yesterday I got to be alone. Cam (Mia's daddy) went out and left me in the house alone to do whatever I wanted.
My first reaction was, "Oh my goodness, what the heck am I going to do? I'm on my own. I can do anything I want. There's nothing that I have to do. Don't leave me!"
Early yesterday morning a friend of ours came by the house. He was collecting bottles for a road trip he and some other friends were planning for this summer. It was a road trip Cam and I were supposed to go on, our baby between us in the back seat. After I lost Mia I didn't even want to think about going anywhere, especially not a trip I had planned to go on with my baby. So this friend came by, and I am so thankful Cam was still home. I hid in our room. I know, it wasn't the mature, adult thing to do but I did it anyway. Cam talked to him, handed him our bottles and sent him on his way.
I don't feel like I wish I was still going. I can't imagine going, actually. It just makes me wish Mia was still alive, that I was able to do those things, that I felt like I could get up and go on a roadtrip.
Cam left and I had the house to myself. Despite my panic attack earlier, the silence wasn't as bad as I had expected.
I had a nap (Glorious!) and did some laundry, and I dug into a new book (the one I mentioned above) and I missed Mia.
***
I tell myself I'm going to be fine. Some moments I even believe it. There had to have been a reason Mia left us so soon, and while I don't understand why I have to believe there's a reason. I throw myself into growing and patching up the broken places and I tell my story - Mia's story - and people tell me things about how strong I am and how I survived the unthinkable and all this beautiful stuff and I think maybe - just maybe - something good can come from this tragedy and I can use my story to inspire others, to do something good, to make Mia's life (and death) matter.
Other days I'm a ball on the floor. My heart aches with the longing for my baby. I wail and groan and flail around. I scream at anyone who will listen how this isn't fair.
Because it's not fair.
Because Mia should be here with me.
Because this shouldn't have happened to someone like me.
I miss her today. I missed her when all my friends were talking about their roadtrip. I missed her when a girl I know announced she was pregnant, and bleeding. She was going in for more tests to try and figure out why she was bleeding, and if she was losing the baby. And while I feel for her, and I don't want her to go through this I got mad. I wrung my hands and tried to count to 10. A part of me feels like I want to be the only one with a dead baby. No, you can't have a dead baby, it's mine! And I know that's selfish, and mean, and hateful, but as I sat there with all my grief and heard friends say they will be thinking about and praying for this friend and her baby I wanted to scream, "What about my baby?!?" I missed her when I was going through the motions of normalcy, and in that moment when someone mentioned something and I got a little spooked and made a mad dash for the restroom, tripping over my heels.
I missed her today. I missed her everytime I took a breath, and when I held my friend's daughter who would have been the same age as Mia.
I missed her.
I miss you Mia.
***
How are you? And what are your thoughts on missing? Does it get any easier?

Release

It's been a while since I last posted.
I've been running from baby loss blogs, running from the voice in my head that says, "No, no, no, no, no, don't torture yourself!" that comes up whenever I read these blogs.
I've been running from the feeling that says I have to remember every single painful detail, and also running from the feeling that says I must forget every single detail.
There are moments though, sometimes for a second per day, sometimes longer, and these moments are peaceful. I can sit with the memory of what happened and not obsess over not taking enough pictures of Mia, or comparing my loss to that of other baby loss mama's or thinking I am absolutely insane. There are these moments that are so peaceful and all of a sudden all these other things don't matter and I can just sit with the memory of my baby.
***
I'm a week past 5 months and I am in awe that I made it this far. On the 5 month anniversary of losing Mia, I sobbed like I haven't before. I was sitting in church and I was thinking I was going to be fine. There was only one little part left, I hadn't cried yet, I would be good. And then... last section... I lost it. I was sobbing, inconsolable, a distraught mess just shaking as people around me stood to go through the final part of the service. And in my head there was this voice saying, "Em, you are being pathetic, wipe your tears away, stand up and freaking sing!" But lately, there's this gentler, motherly voice inside of me that whispers, "No. No, you can cry, even if you don't understand why. It's ok to cry." And this past Sunday/Monday, I was laying in bed at almost midnight and I couldn't stop the tears from coming. I shook and sobbed and i was a red eyed, snot filled nose, blubbering mess. And there was that voice again, "It's ok to cry."
It's not so much that I miss her, that there's this unfillable constant ache like there was in the first few months. Now it's more that I have to live my life without, that my life changed in a way that was so different then what I thought it would be. I thought I would be happy, relieved, ecstatic that all my hard work had paid off into this living manifestation of hope. I didn't think I would watch a dead baby be delivered. I didn't think that my whole identity was wrapped up in being a mother and after her death I had to figure out not only how to deal with this life changing situation but also trying to figure out who the heck I am now. I don't know who to be if I let go of the pain that is associated with all I know of motherhood.
***
I saw a medicine woman last week. It was a final leap of faith, a final desperate attempt. She told me this: "You've lived through something most people couldn't live through and you survived." I didn't understand that, mostly because i was just doing what needed to be done, and curling up and dying wasn't an option. But she told me a lot of people would have just given up, and I survived. I survived, I didn't curl up and die. And it's time to figure out how to truely live.
***
I haven't been in blog land for a while. I hope to visit here more often. As I'm sitting here this morning, still in my pajamas with a cup of tea, I'm finding this release has been good for me. Just saying her name and this recognition, it is therapuetic for me. It is that moment of peace, that moment where it's ok to be nothing more then just her mother.

Love you...Mean It

I haven't written here for a while. I have a feeling most of the posts I write here will begin like this. Because I'm not one who blogs regularly or often and so when I drop in it will be to say hello, to raise my candle in the air and whisper the words I repeat every day in my head, "I miss you, baby."
It's been 4 months. On the 10th it was 4 months.
I started working out to lose the weight i gained during pregnancy and i started eating right again and i'm doing all these things and i feel good and sometimes i'm so worried about fixing dinner and getting work done that i forget. sometimes it's a full day before I even nod a hello to this baby of mine.
but tonight is sad and i'm missing her. and i don't know what to say because i'm glad i'm not drowning in sorrow every day anymore but moving on and not consciously thinking of her every moment of every day feels like a betrayal.

4 months. is that all? has it only been that long? has it really been that long?

Sweet baby girl, I miss you. I love you. As I write those words and listen to them roll off my tongue as i speak them aloud i want to keep saying them, over and over. I love you, i love you, i love you. I mean it, so much. I hope you know that... i hope you knew how much i loved you.

That Christmas

This Christmas has become that Christmas.
My first Christmas without her has passed. As the actual day approached I found myself not in the Christmas Spirit, found myself dreading the actual day.
And when it came, gathered around family and friends, I wanted nothing more than for this day to be over. Nothing was the way it should be. I couldn't make myself be happy when everything felt so wrong.
So, when the clock struck midnight and turned from December 25 to December 26, I let out a sigh of relief.
I made it through my first Christmas without, the first of many to come.

I miss you, sweet girl. I wish you could have been here. I'm sorry.
I love you
Mama

Coming and Going

I wasn't going to write here anymore.
I made the crazy decision one morning while brushing my hair and pondered it some more while making breakfast for myself and drinking coffee and while i did the grocery shopping and as the silence wrapped it's way around my evening.
I wasn't going to write here anymore.
I made the decision that I was going to let go. I was going to be super woman, I was going to never speak the name of my daughter again.
I was a little delusional and crazy that day. it was also the day I wanted to get her ashes out of my house so much that I set her little jar of ashes on my back porch.
They are now back inside my house, by the way, back on my bookshelf.
I just wanted to get rid of her. I know that sounds cruel but I can't think of a better way to put it. I wanted to do some spring cleaning in my heart even though it's the end of November and I wanted to brush out all the cobwebs that have been there since she died and I wanted to think of her death not so much as her death.
I wanted to not be haunted by memories of my dead daughter.

As I'm sitting here now a lot has changed. Obviously, because I swore I wasn't going to write here anymore and I wasn't going to talk to any other baby loss mama's and I wasn't going to surround myself with stifling sadness.
I feel better. I spent time talking to friends who love me and praying and journaling and I did crazy, spontaneous things like going to the zoo when it was so cold I could see my breath and my cheeks turned pink, or dying my hair back to blonde - which was the color it was when Mia died - and making the effort to reconnect with old friends.

A lot has changed, and now I feel my heart whispering to me, "You can never let her go."
She's there when I look in the mirror every morning and she's there everytime I take a painful breath. Even when I didn't want to acknowledge her or my loss, she was there.

I don't know what this means for me or my little blog.
I'm not who I thought I was. She's not who I thought she was either.

this whole come back was actually inspired by Angie's post I don't know if that's what she meant for someone to get out of reading her post, but that's what i got.
thank you, Angie.

Transition

I saw this show a while ago, in the spring, when I just found out I was pregnant, when I was blissfully happy and complete.
One of the quotes I remember went something like "When my brother and I were younger, my dad used to take us out sailing. Sometimes we weren't moving, but we were always sailing."
I loved that quote, even then, full of happiness and wide eyed wonder, naivety and hope.

And then the baby I was carrying got sick, and then she died, and then I was left to wander through this life on my own.
For the past 2 months, and sometimes even now, I can't eat. I can't sleep, or think, or breathe. How is it possible to miss someone you never knew?

I was stuck. I remember waking up a few weeks ago (Weeks? Days?) and thinking, "Wow, it's November," not remembering the last half of September or any of October.
I was stuck. My wheels were spinning and mud was flying up and covering my hair and my clothes, covering my skin until I looked like brown sludge. I wasn't making any progress, just a mess.

I doubted my experience, as a mother, as her mother, as a woman. I doubted that what I had experienced was enough. After all, I never knew her, how could I be her mother? After all, i created her, she was created in a time of desperation and need, does that still make her real? Does that still make me her mother? I wondered about the mother's who watch as their children cling to life in the NICU, wondering if somehow seeing their children  makes them more of a mother.

Over the last week or so, I've began to feel my vehicle moving out from under the mud, the roar of the tires as they groan and ache, trying to release me from this pit of mud.

Sometimes I wonder if I want to move on. Sometimes I wonder if I really am. I haven't gone back to the places where my friends gather, and talk and laugh about things other then hospitals and dead babies.
But my friend told me today about her new boyfriend, and I listened and for once I didn't want to scream at her.
I feel like I'm moving on, and to be honest, that scares me to death.
I don't want to move on. What if moving on means forgetting? What if, in moving on, I take away some of the value of Amelia's life?
What if, in trusting my experiences, accepting that what happened happened, what if it means loosening my hold on her just a little? What if I lose her again? I already lost her once, I can't lost her memory. It's all I have left. Sometimes I'm not so sure i even have that.

I feel like I'm putting more trust in myself, in what happened. This is my truth, therefore it is enough. I'm worried that doing this will mean I'm letting go of her.

I'm slowly getting unstuck, or at least I feel that way. I feel change happening, on the inside, though it hasn't managed to peak it's shining face through to the outside yet.

I still miss her with everything I am. I still write about her everywhere, because I can't stop. I can't stop thinking about her.
But I'm picking myself up off the floor. I'm no longer weeping at every little thing, no longer screaming at people who don't understand, or who try to talk about something other then her.
My grief is in transition, I am in transition, and it's scary because I feel like, sometimes, transition means loosening my grip on her.

I'm getting unstuck. While I was still sailing, even when I was stuck, I am now starting to inch forward. I feel like gripping the rails of this boat, like even the slightest movement will make everything I've built up regarding her and her memory come crashing down.

I am in transition. I don't know how to be in transition, just like I didn't know how to be in grief.

How do you be in transition?

28 weeks

I failed her, you know.
That's what my mind keeps saying, whispering over and over as I lay here in the dark, alone.
I failed her.
I failed to keep her inside of me, safe and alive.
Instead she was born at 28 weeks, so tiny, so small.
I failed to give her the things she needed to survive, so that when she was born they could take her into surgery and fix her.
Instead she was born with a broken heart, dead.
This is where I fail. This is where I am not enough.

She was tiny, so tiny. She was 28 weeks, but she was perfect. She was perfect, aside from the fact her heart was broken and she was dead.

I failed her. I feel like I failed her. I feel like this is where i wasn't enough. I was sick, I wanted the pregnancy to be over.

I thought she would get better. I thought she would be born alive, that the doctors would fix her, that we would get our miracle.

She was born at 28 weeks, so tiny. Her heart was broken.
It was because of me she died. She is dead because of my body. It is because of me she got sick, because of me she died.

I can't stop thinking about that tonight. it feels like it's on repeat in my brain, like a broken record. I've tried writing this post over and over again, and every time I write it it doesn't come out like i want it to. It's not poetic, maybe not even coherent.
What about grief is poetic?

I feel like it's my fault, even though so many people have told me it isn't. I don't know if I fully believe them. It is because of me she died.
Ah, but it is also because of me she lived, lived for those 28 magical weeks.


I'm not sure what I wanted to get out of writing this post. I don't want to be told this isn't my fault, that i did everything I could. maybe I want companionship? someone to come along side me and say that, as a mother, it is the worst feeling to feel like you failed your child.

I feel like I failed her.
But in the dark, if I listen hard enough, I can hear her whisper, "But mama, I'm ok."

Mama

I don't have long to write so this won't be something eloquent and beautiful.
No, this is the short ramblings of a woman who thinks she just might be going crazy...

I was watching my friend's son tonight so she and her husband could have a date night. Why I get myself in to these things, I don't know. Her son is 2, and the cutest little thing ever.
His blonde puff of hair smelled like shampoo, and he crawled right into my lap.
As we read stories, I heard the words I was longing to hear cross his lips... "Mama"
They were words that didn't belong to me, they don't belong to me, not now.
I don't look anything like his mother. Where she is blonde, I have brown hair now. Where she is tall and willowy, I am short and can't seem to get rid of the few extra pounds I gained while pregnant.
As we had snack, as I tucked him in to bed, he kept whispering the words, "Mama, mama." When he wanted to get my attention he would tap my arm, "Mama!" he would exclaim.
He said them like the words belonged to me.
Not your mama, I thought, not anyone's mama anymore.
I tucked him in to bed, sang to him, watched him close his eyes and drift off to sleep.
It made me think of everything I will miss. I'll never get to tuck Mia in to bed, never get to sing her to sleep. She'll never call me mama.
It hurts to think of all of the things I'll miss, how I'll never get to do those things with her mothers are supposed to do.
I have a friend whose daughter is adopted. She got to be a mother without ever giving birth. I gave birth... and never got to be a mother.
Oh, what I would give just to hear my little girl call me mama.
just. once.