kristinamariedaily

Today is March 19, 2022. A year ago I was living a nightmare… falling asleep only to dream of you… dream of searching for you… and waking up to realize all over again every single day that I had lost you. Every morning it was like the weight of the world fell on top of me the moment I woke up. You were dead. I spent hours wondering what I could have done differently. I spent hours reprocessing over and over again every traumatizing moment we had been through. Scouring through research and locating others who had lost babies to PPROM for any indication of what went wrong. The sad reality was and continues to be… nobody knows why these things happen. There are not enough resources spent on research to find the answers. Nearly all of the doctors I have seen have said it was “just bad luck”. Recalling the first few weeks and months after we lost you is sad… those days were the darkest days I’ve ever experienced. And although our yard was the only place I felt any sense of peace… I didn’t get the chance to fully appreciate the warm spring air through the thick fog of grief.

This week the air started feeling like spring again…smelling like spring again… I can’t describe the smell of spring… but it’s there. The warm sun has started to shine and the cool breeze blows every now and then to remind us that the seasons are just starting to change. Soon the grass will become green again and everything will grow.

This year is different. The heavy fog of grief has lifted and is more like a mist or sprinkle… and I can appreciate all of the signs of spring that make me think of you. Writing this from our yard, I feel you in the warmth on my skin, the breeze that blows the little hairs on my head trying to grow from all of the hair I lost after you… I hear you in the wind chimes we hung for you… and although Daisy is trying her best to distract me with her never ending game of fetch… I see your garden….

Your garden is empty now… waiting for me to plant within it…. and with all of the signs of spring I am starting to feel ready to begin dreaming up what I will do with it this year. I love that every year we will get the chance to plant a garden and watch it grow through the spring, summer, and fall. It’s another way we can honor you and make sure you are a part of our family for as long as we are here on Earth.

Last year I planted your garden with your Grandma in the month of May and tending to it throughout the summer (and even fall) made me feel closer to you. There was so much love involved in the care of your garden… from those who contributed to the creation of your flower bed… to those who delivered it to our yard… from those who sent garden related gifts and flowers… right down to every moment I spent watering it, trimming it back for new growth… Helping it to thrive.

Here are some of the photos from your 2021 garden.

“If I had a flower for every time I thought of you, I could walk in my garden forever.”
Lord Alfred Tennyson

I can’t believe it’s been an entire year since we held you. Since we lost you but also since we met you. I recall the moment I got to see you after laboring just like anybody else… but knowing you would not take your first breath. I was in awe. How was it possible that we could create such a precious, perfect, little girl? While your Daddy cried, I was still… in shock… wonderstruck… Even with your bruises from labor without any fluid to protect you, you were the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. And we had just hours with you before we had to say goodbye.

The morning we had to say goodbye was March 9th and I remember asking your Daddy to hand you to me to hold while the sun came up. This time was ours… just a little while in a dark, quiet hospital room in a muted corner of the labor & delivery floor… watching the sun rise with you in my hands… and that is when my tears came and it’s when I started to realize the journey of loving and deeply missing you had just begun. The journey that has been this past year was just starting and nothing could prepare me for it. Just as nothing can prepare me for the journey that will continue.

This year has been a blur of devastation and deeply missing you. And it’s been so closely intertwined with our infertility that sometimes I feel guilty for not carving out a space that is bigger for you. My grief from losing you is too closely tangled with my grief from all of the other losses and disappointments we have faced and I feel sad that I cannot devote myself 100% to you. But then there are days like today where it is only you… and there are moments dispersed between other moments where it is only you on my mind. In the past year I have found so much of you in the flowers we grew in your garden… the flowers that sprouted even when it was beyond the season or the wildflowers that surprised me with something new and beautiful. I found so much of you in the flowers growing along the mountains in Colorado and in the single Dandelion that survived our only winter snow. Where I see life growing… flowers blooming… that is where I see you. When I feel the sun shining on my face… the same sun that helps the flowers to grow… I feel you. The past few months of winter have been difficult with slowed growth, but I find peace in knowing that each year your Birthday will be the start of a new season of blossoms. It’s a little blessing in a terrible situation. You leave floral footprints on my heart.

Sitting here today I feel something I cannot describe. Maybe it’s calm? Numb? Weary? Am I just exhausted? I think I’m feeling a bit of disbelief that a year has already passed. Disbelief that I’m still here, because quite honestly I still don’t know how any parent survives the depths of this grief. There have been too many moments where I have felt like I could not go on. But somehow I always go on. And with every year that passes I am both farther from you and closer to you at the same time.

Happy First Birthday Among the Stars, Amelia. We hope that wherever you are it is magnificent & we hope you know how profoundly you are loved.

Love, Mommy

Author: kristinamariedaily

If I had a flower for every time I thought of you…

Your first Birthday among the stars…