A Year Ago Today...

A year ago today, I anxiously awaited my baby girl's arrival. My due date was September 22- a day that had been circled on my calendar for about 9 months.  I had meetings scheduled at work for another week still because I knew the average arrival for 1st babies was 10 days after the due date.  But secretly, deep down, I hoped my baby girl would be on time and prove me wrong. I didn't know how much I hoped she would be on time until my due date passed, and she wasn't here yet. Every day seemed like an eternity. I felt so sure that she would be late and I felt so tough, or something, for working until I went into labor. But looking back now, I would give anything for her to have arrived on time. Because on September 22, she was healthy. Her heart was beating and she was alive and well. I even had an appointment on my due date. Looking at the ultrasound screen, my midwife made the comment, "good looking brain!" I smiled proudly- obviously my baby is going to have a beautiful brain (doesn't every parent think this about their child?!). If I only knew that I wouldn't get to see the development of that beautiful brain. At least not now.

I didn't anticipate September 22 being that hard this year-after all, it was a pretty uneventful day last year, so why should this year be different? But it is just a reminder of the hope, excitement, naïveté, and innocence that I had then. Last September, I thought it was absolutely terrible to go 10 days late! I literally couldn't imagine anything worse. The things I worried about included if my HypnoBabies training would be enough to help me through the labor, what my little girl would look like, what kind of baby she would be, how I would handle breastfeeding-I wasn't worried about her dying. I had a perfect pregnancy. At every appointment, we heard good news. I was low-risk, low-intervention-- a very boring pregnancy that resulted in a very traumatic experience and no baby to take home.

I love the fall, and that hasn't changed- we got married in the fall, my birthday is in the fall, we got Franklin in the fall, and of course, we met our baby girl in the fall.  I have reminders of Sloane everywhere right now, which is wonderful. Unfortunately, some of those reminders are mixed with pain too. They are reminders of what almost was, and of what we thought was going to be- a future that was in reach, and then a second later, gone. So every fall, while we will celebrate so many important events in our family, we will also take time to mourn everything that was lost October 2014.