one month without you

december 16, 2017

it has been one month since you have left us. you would have been 10 weeks and the size of a strawberry. your vital organs would be developed fully and your fingernails and hair coming in too. i wonder what color hair you would have had. red like your brothers? blonde like your big sissy? you would weigh about 14 ounces; the same weight as the ring sling i would have carried you in. i might have even been able to feel you moving your arms and legs inside of me.

today was a typical saturday; get up, get ready for church, go to church, come home and hang out with your brothers until dad got home from work. we also had the annual family kris kringle party at melanie's house. but even with as typical as today was, it was impossibly hard.

we were supposed to be announcing our pregnancy to the family tonight at kris kringle. we were going to hand out the pregnancy announcement in envelopes to everyone during present time and watch each one of our family members open the envelopes in excitement and curiosity and wait for their reaction. no doubt a round squeals and hugs and maybe even tears of joy (i know i would have been crying). questions of how far along i would be, if we knew the gender yet, when the due date is, and as many other questions, i'm sure. instead we spent part of the night talking about our loss. but there was something wonderful about that. we got to tell our family about you, hazel. we shared our experience, our connection with you. how we were six weeks along, but already knew you and loved you and how you're still very much a part of our family and life-as much as one can be when you're no longer here. it was somewhat therapeutic sharing you with our family, the only way we can share you for now.

in addition to the difficult time not being able to announce our pregnancy, but share our loss, i also started a new cycle. it feels too soon. it feels like the last physical pieces of you just left my body. maybe there was still a piece of you left for me to hold on to. maybe this is your goodbye. it still hurts. its just a reminder that i am no longer pregnant and not pregnant yet, too. this is my body saying, 'you can't. not yet.'. it hurts.

these days have been hard. beautiful and hard. i'm trying to grieve, mourn... let go. not let go of you but let go of what happened and move forward. i don't want to dwell in the sadness of losing you. but baby, it's so hard when this is so new. when my thoughts of the future still have lingering pieces of you and what you could have been and all the places you'd go. those lingering pieces are getting more and more blurry, blending with the reality of what our future holds; a future without you (physically) in it. somehow stuck in the space of no longer and not yet.

it's been easier to talk about my pregnancy loss, though. through the deep sadness of what has come with losing you has also come light and empowerment and inspiration. and while i would never wish this on anyone, i hope to be a place where women feel they can share and talk and mourn-in any way they want and can. which is why i started this blog separate from where i was already writing. i want to share my letters to you in hopes that women can relate and know they're not alone. i want to share this experience and offer advice through what i know so women can feel uplifted and aware. i want all of this because there just isn't enough of it out there and it would have been nice for me to find a place where i am not alone in this. i want to share you.

but above all, i simply and impossibly miss you. and i love you so very much.