In the still of the winter, it’s difficult to feel you here with us. Even more so this winter with how busy (and tired) your brother & Daisy are keeping me. But I know that soon the air will turn warm, our grass will green all over again, and I will be able to prepare and plant your next garden. I can’t wait. I can’t wait to pick out the flowers at the nursery that make me think of you… and I can’t wait to show Benjamin all of the beautiful colors as they bloom. I can’t wait to feel you here with us more often again. It will be so nice to spend more time in the yard where your presence is strong… It will be so nice to have moments for just the two of us as I prune and tend to your next garden.
A few weeks back we had some winter weather. And although your garden is brown with flowers that are ready to be cleared to make room for new, I couldn’t help but stop and photograph what I saw.
The icicles dripping all around your flower bed were so pretty and just like you, they would only be here a short time. After taking Daisy inside I had to sneak back out with my phone to capture the moment. I know how important it is to capture moments before they are gone.
In a few weeks we will celebrate your second birthday among the stars and spring will arrive with new perspective and growth. But for now, my sweet girl, I want you to know that I haven’t lost you. Not even a little bit. Not at all.
Today I’ve felt a little off. A little sad under all the happiness I feel. It took most of the day to figure it out… but I realized what it is. Today is New Years Eve and although I’m right where I’m supposed to be, a part of me is missing you. For the first time in a while I’m excited to see what 2023 brings our little family, but I’m also missing you.
Two years ago we spent an excited NYE with you inside my belly, learning you were a healthy baby girl with our family during a zoom gender reveal as this was the first year of the pandemic and we were all keeping our distance. What a way to spend our NYE, ringing in the new year celebrating the baby girl we would be welcoming in 2021! Finally, we would turn the page to a new chapter that would include you. We were overjoyed with the news of you! Our family was overjoyed. Your Daddy and I picked up a steakhouse dinner and snuggled as we watched the ball drop at midnight. This night was one where we felt so certain of the future… It was one of the last innocent, carefree moments of our pregnancy with you because just a few days later the bleeding started. And many weeks later we would receive the horrible news that led to us losing you.
Pink confetti! I will never forget the moment we burst the balloon and saw the confetti.
One year ago we also spent NYE at home, this time with a dear friend visiting and you among the stars. We had lost you and by NYE we had been on a heartbreaking nine month journey of navigating life without you and facing infertility treatments and procedures with no idea when we might get another chance at parenthood. We had experienced many firsts without you and had experienced many fertility setbacks at the same time. I’d be lying if I said New Years Eve 2021 was anything but depressing. I didn’t have a 2021 highlight reel to share, no top 9 Instagram post to share… I couldn’t even bear to look on social media to see everyone else’s highlight reels. Life felt unfair. The new year did not bring any promises. How could it after we lost you? How could it after so many infertility failures and setbacks?
This year… Amelia, this NYE our evening is similar but our world is so vastly different. We are once again at home… but this year your baby brother, Benjamin, has joined our world! And Kilroy has joined you among the stars. Today we can reflect on a few hard moments, but also all there is to be thankful for in this year. There was so much good in 2022. It started out sad, with a failed embryo transfer and your first birthday among the stars. But soon after this we found out Benjamin was on his way… and although our anxieties were high there was still so much joy experiencing our subsequent pregnancy. There has been so much peace in welcoming him earth side and experiencing parenthood the way it is supposed to be. This NYE we can look forward to the next year and all the joy that is yet to come. Your brother has filled our hearts and healed our souls in ways I had always hoped and wished for.
Family photo. All that’s missing is you & Kilroy.
But no matter how much space Benjamin takes up in our hearts, there will always be a space carved out for you, Amelia. In times of great joy and happiness my heart will still ache for you… even just a little bit. And days like today may always hit a little harder or leave me feeling a bit off. The days are a lot easier now with much less heartache, but I will always love you. And as long as I love you I will miss you… even just a little bit!
As I finally take some time to slow down, sit outside in the warm breeze, and listen to your wind chimes… I realize, Amelia, that I have been too busy preparing for the arrival of your brother to notice you as often as I should. We are in a season of endless to-do lists, trying to stay busy to keep the anxiety from creeping in, and preparation for what is to come. But I know you are there. You are there quietly loving me and cheering me on as I waddle around, nesting like I wasn’t able to do for you.
Every now and then I still feel that pang of guilt…the longing and wishing I could’ve done all of the things I am now doing… with you safely inside my belly. As I begin to reconnect with old friends and meet their babies that would’ve been your friends… I sometimes still feel that slight hint of sadness that if you were here you’d be as big as them, talking like them, walking like them, and doing all of the same types of things. But I also feel myself turning a new corner. I can see these children who should be your friends and feel joy, happiness, and a sense of wonder at who you would’ve been.
A few weeks back we got the chance to have a maternity photo session with your brother and I asked you to give us some wildflowers. I still feel silly asking you and talking to you out loud… I’ve always felt pretty silly talking to your Papa out loud, as well… but I really wanted you to be represented in our photos and I figured it wouldn’t hurt to try. A big storm came through that almost canceled our photo session, but then it cleared, a breeze came through, and a beautiful sunset came. I told myself not to be disappointed if there were no wildflowers from you. I’m not quite sure how I feel about miracles and it honestly didn’t make any sense that there would be wildflowers in Dallas in September after a hot, dry summer. But there you were. You answered me with the sweetest little patch of blue wildflowers at the very end of our photo session. We were able to include you in these photos after all.
Your message was loud and clear. You are here! And sometimes it is easy to find you… and other times I have to be sure to look for you in ways that may not be so clear.
I know the days are about to become busy with a new set of challenges… but I promise I will try my absolute best to slow down and look for you. Keep sending me messages, my sweet girl. You will always be a part of our family… a part of our story.
Today is August 20th, 2022 and it feels wonderful outside at a “cool” 82 degrees. It’s been a while since I’ve written to you, Amelia, but it’s also been a while since I’ve been able to connect with you peacefully, outside in our yard near your garden. It’s just been too hot in Texas this summer. It’s been too hot to sit outside (unless in a pool!) and it’s been too hot for your garden to thrive and reach its full potential. I’m amazed by the Zinnias that continue to grow tall. They’re the only seeds that turned into flowers this year… but my view this morning is a bit more messy, a bit more wild, a bit more sparse than I would have liked to see. Your garden lacks the bright color of last summer and while I’m learning to accept that each year your garden will be different just as each year you would be different if you were here; I am hoping to plant a few new things and revive it for the last few months of warm weather. Maybe then I will share photos from start to finish.
August 20, 2022. Texas heat has not been kind to your garden this year…
Amelia, you’ve known the whole time, but it was only recently that we shared our news with everyone that we are cautiously anticipating the arrival of your baby brother in November. While we know how lucky we are, we also know how quickly we could lose him… and since March we have faced many emotions. Amongst the anxiety, fear, hope, and joy one of the most difficult emotions I have faced recently has no name to describe it… I long for both of you, but I know I can’t have both of you here with me. I have two separate places in my heart for each of you… but just like any parent with multiple living children I have to make sure to devote time to each of you and sometimes this is difficult to do. Sometimes I feel as though I am failing to give to you both equally.
When we made it through two anatomy scans with your brother and things looked great both your Daddy and I felt relief and allowed ourselves to celebrate a little knowing the anxiety would creep back in days later. Then I felt something like guilt… guilt that we get to celebrate milestones with him that we never got the chance to celebrate with you. When his estimated weight passed the 14.4 oz that you weighed when we delivered you, I again felt some relief… and then some guilt. When we made it to viability and started to trust that maybe he will make it safely to our arms… again there were conflicting emotions… relief and hope and guilt and sadness.
This whole pregnancy has been a series of check points… even becoming pregnant was a check point that took a full year and a lot of devastation to achieve. But prior to 20 weeks the check points were similar to yours… just with a lot more emphasis on reaching them this time knowing how quickly things can go wrong. Now we are at a point where with each check point we feel more and more hopeful that he will safely make it earth side and at the same time I wish we could’ve had this experience with you. It will never be fair, but it will forever be our story.
I know the next three months will have their own unique emotions… as we prepare for his arrival by completing the nursery that should’ve been yours… install a car seat where yours should’ve been… take maternity photos and newborn photos that I had imagined with you… and more… but one thing I want to make sure everyone knows is that your baby brother does not replace you. He is helping to heal our souls and fill up space in our hearts…but he will never fill the space that is carved out for you.
Grief is love, Amelia… and I will both love you and long for you forever. Thank you for sharing my heart with your brother and thank you for sending him to us when we had lost most of our hope. I look forward to the days when he can learn your story and help me with your garden. I look forward to showing him the beauty of all of the flowers we see around the world and hope he, too, develops an eye for all of the floral footprints you leave for us all.
Note: Pregnancy After Loss Support (PALS) is a resource that has helped me tremendously through this pregnancy. The instagram app, website, and pregnancy tracking app have all provided validation that I have needed during difficult moments. Pregnancy after loss is beautiful but not easy at all. There are complicated and messy emotions… and this resource (especially the articles published by other PAL parents) helps us to know we are not alone.
July 14th…. it was the perfect due date. I know babies aren’t often born on their due date, but yours felt special. Yours felt like it was hand picked just for you. We conceived you one year after we lost my Dad, your Papa… and you were due to arrive just 4 days after his Birthday! I used to think there must be some force, much greater than ourselves, orchestrating all of this… and everything about you made this thought seem much more certain. But when we lost you, I realized how cruel it would be if this same force that gave you to us also took you away… and now I think differently.
Now I’m not so sure if life is orchestrated or if it is just a series of events… some good, some bad… that sometimes align in ways that seem too good to be true. Maybe your due date was just a coincidence… but what a beautiful coincidence it would have been!
Last year your due date was hard. Just like all of the other “firsts” of last year… the days approaching your due date were the most difficult. Your Daddy and I decided to pack up the car with Kilroy and drive to Colorado for the week around your due date. We spent our time in nature, connecting with you through the flowers, and leaving your mark on the world… I felt you in the peace of the mountains… and I felt you in the storm we made it through in our kayak… You were everywhere and nowhere at the same time.
On July 14, 2021 I received a video from many of my coworkers…sharing their beautiful words, sharing how you had changed their lives, and showing their support. Your Daddy and I took Kilroy on a short hike, carved your name into a tree, went to the most wonderful spa for massages, and had a dinner just the two of us. I wrote to you a social media post that poured out from my soul… and the whole day you were on our minds.
On July 14, 2021, while we were at dinner, I also received a message from our OBGYN asking for my help with therapy resources for another patient who lost a baby like we lost you. Another coincidence? I’m not sure. But the timing of this message made me feel as though you and I could begin to change the world.
Today is July 14, 2022 and Amelia, I do believe we are slowly changing the world together. Loving you has lit a fire within me to love you out loud and share our story. What started as loving you and sharing on my social media page to a smaller audience has turned into this blog… which I hope will continue to reach so many others around the world. Together, we have the potential to help others feel understood, less alone, and to spread awareness around baby loss. We have the potential to spread awareness around PPROM, second trimester loss, anatomy scans that can and do go horribly wrong, and choices some Mothers and Fathers must make to induce labor and end the most beautifully wanted pregnancy in order to keep the Mother safe. Maybe someday we can raise more than just awareness and raise funds to study PPROM, why it happens, and help find better ways to prevent this from ever happening in the first place. If only there had been a way to prevent this from ever happening to you… to all three of us- your Daddy, me, and you.
This due date may not be as devastatingly dreadful as our first, but this due date I find myself thinking about what you would be like. If our pregnancy had been routine and things had worked out you would be a bright little 1 year old bringing us endless joy and providing us with endless challenges! You would probably be walking now, have a few teeth, and baby girl, if I could hold you I swear I’d never let you go.
Today I’m thinking about who you would be. I’m thinking about your smiles, your shining eyes, how much joy you’d be finding in this world. Maybe we’d have a splash pad in our back yard for you to stay cool during these hot summer days. Maybe we would have had a 1st Birthday, just the three of us… or maybe more of our family would be visiting to celebrate you big. One thing I definitely know is Kilroy would be enjoying these days, licking food from your fingers as you begin to explore more and more…
I think from now on, for the rest of my life, I will always think about who you would be. Every year on July 14th I will reflect and imagine how life would be if things had worked out. Today, just a year later our life would be so much different… but you would be here and you would be beautiful like the flowers that grow in your garden.
It’s a quiet Saturday morning and this is my view…
The sun is illuminating your young garden in a way that photographs do not do justice and Daisy is in her spot along the back fence waiting for her ball to be thrown (she’s non-stop). I wonder what this morning would be like if you were here…
If you were here it wouldn’t be so quiet, but it would be perfect. Rather than waking up to Kilroy barking at the door and Daisy licking my face I would’ve woken up to the sound of you. I would have greeted you in your nursery to see a smile on your face. You would be just about 10 months old now. Would you hold your arms up for me to lift you out of your crib? Would you have a favorite blanket or “lovey” that you must bring with you to the kitchen? Everything about you- your sounds, your smiles, your chubby little hands and big shining eyes- would be absolutely perfect. Would I realize this if I had never experienced loss? Would I take you for granted if I had never lost you? My perspective was different before I lost you.
In an alternate universe maybe things worked out and we are together. Maybe I’m feeding you your favorite puréed fruit. Kilroy is so gentle now with his age and his cancer… maybe you’re snuggling up next to him helping him feel all the love before his time runs out. I know you would’ve loved him… especially now at 10 months old with your personality and growing independence. Maybe in this alternate universe your Daddy approaches you and your eyes light up because he’s your most favorite person. Oh, I’d love to experience this.
And if you were here I wouldn’t have this view. We wouldn’t have your beautiful memorial garden. We wouldn’t have Daisy. Our backyard wouldn’t look the same… not near as beautiful… but I’d have you.
Leaving work on Friday a friend called out “Have a Happy Easter!” and my mind and heart immediately felt uneasy…. because this meant I was approaching another holiday without you… Another holiday where Daddy and I would pretend it’s just another normal, run of the mill Sunday, spending the day with the dogs outside in our backyard.
After losing you every holiday that previously brought joy has brought a sense of sadness and longing for you. I suppose this is how most people who have loved someone and lost them feels about the holidays. What I do not know yet is how long holidays will feel this way… will this last forever? Holidays feel fundamentally different for us now, because since we lost you our faith has changed. But will it always be this way?
What I do know is on holidays like today I have to avoid social media, because no matter the true meaning behind holidays society has made each holiday about the children. Society has us believing you must share photos of your children with everyone you know on holidays. You must share photos by texting out to everyone and posting on your social media page. Today social media platforms will be filled with photos of everyones babies dressed nicely for Easter… everyones children finding Easter eggs, eggs filled with candy and presents, baskets filled with everything from toys to chocolate bunnies. And while I recognize how wonderful it is to celebrate holidays through the eyes of the children…it is such a devastating thing for me to see when I am missing you. It’s a devastating thing when I am without my baby in my arms. It’s a feeling felt by many in the baby loss and infertility communities, but it is not often talked about. Holidays are hard for grieving parents.
If things had worked out for us, you would be 9 months old today. You’d be sitting on your own, crawling, maybe even taking your first few steps a bit early! Would your eyes be brown or blue? Would your hair be light or dark? I can imagine you would have your two little front teeth already and I’d be able to give you tastes of delicious things today… tastes of things you would have never tried before. Would your eyes light up? Would you smile at me and laugh? I’d give anything to be able to kiss your chubby little fingers as you reach out for a new Easter toy. I’d give anything to see your little hands at work pulling apart plastic Easter eggs to discover what is hidden within…
I imagine if you were here some of our family members would be here with us, too, and this holiday would look a lot different. They’d want to see you on your first Easter dressed in your pretty little Easter dress. They’d want to spoil you with your first Easter basket and see your eyes light up in wonder…
But today is another holiday without you… just another day for us to get through… hoping someday these holidays will be different for our family. We will fill these Easter eggs with dog treats and laugh while Kilroy and Daisy sniff them out all over the yard… all the while missing you. We always miss you.
I’ve tragically lost both my father and my daughter. Losing a parent and a child both bring on a grief that you can only really intimately know once you’ve lived through it… A grief that connects so many of us but that we all wish we didn’t have to know. And at the same time this grief feels incredibly lonely and like you are the only one experiencing it.
When I lost my dad, I was able to locate hundreds of photographs, videos of him, voicemails, text messages, and hand written cards and notes… I have countless memories to remember him by. I know exactly who he was and what he stood for. I know the details of what he looked and sounded like. I had 31 years with him in my life. I have countless people who knew him and loved him and remember him with me.
When you lose your baby you don’t have all of this to remember them by. Even for those babies lost shortly after birth or just months into their lives, there are not enough memories. Since losing Amelia just 21 weeks into pregnancy I have collected anything that can serve as a memory of her… the sonogram photographs, my weekly “bump” pictures, a video of her heartbeat, her footprints, and photographs with her in the hospital… but it’s not enough. I have a Molly bear that weighs exactly as much as she weighed when she was born… but it’s not enough. She rests in a beautiful urn I had hand crafted with care for her… but it’s not enough. I’ll never know who she would have become, what she’d look like, or what she’d sound like. While everyone around us gets the chance to watch their babies grow we miss out on every milestone… every Mamma.. or Dadda… every laugh, smile, cry, and challenge. We miss out on everything… and since our time with her was so short there are not enough ways to remember her. The other difficult part is that although our family and friends love Amelia, they never really got to know her. They didn’t get to see her and hold her like we did and that makes this grief feel more lonely, more isolating… because we are the only ones who really truly knew her… for the brief speck of time that we had together.
So what do bereaved parents do? We develop traditions.
Over the past year we have developed traditions that we can carry out to honor Amelia and remember her when memories are not enough. I always wear a necklace and a ring that have her birth stone… and we have plans to someday have tattoos made for her… but throughout the years we also want to do a little something more.
Traditions we have made so far…
Amelia’s Garden
Every spring we will plant new flowers in Amelia’s garden and watch them grow over the summer months.
Just yesterday we prepped the flower bed for new flowers and seedlings to start the second season of her garden. Kilroy seems to love this spot. I can’t wait to see how this season of the garden turns out.
Travel & Making Amelia’s Mark
Hiking on her due date last year on July 14, we left her mark on the world. It seems silly but this little thing made me feel like we were leaving a piece of her there for eternity to bring beauty to the trail and I imagined going back out there years later to see her name among the trees. I imagined wild flowers sprouting around this specific tree as if Amelia is saying “I’m here!”
Although we won’t always do something exactly like this, I like the idea of “leaving her mark” somehow when we travel. It may look different for different travel adventures, but somehow we will leave the world a more beautiful place through Amelia.
Photographs of flowers
Whenever I see beautiful flowers growing I will photograph them. Everyone we know with living children has the opportunity to fill their phones with photos of them. Since we cannot fill our phones with photos of Amelia through the years, I am dedicated to photographing every single beautiful flower I see growing around us. She was beautiful like these flowers…
The Wave of Light
October 15 is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day. On this day there is something called the Wave of Light… Across the world at 7 pm those of us who have lost a baby light a candle for one hour and this creates a wave of light across the globe through the different time zones. Last October, Brent chose a sweet little candle that we used. It was perfect for her… and we will continue to light it for as long as we shall live.
Wave of Light 2021. Amelia peacefully resting in her custom made urn with the sweetest little candle.
Amelia’s Birthday
Possibly the biggest tradition of all is Amelia’s birthday. It’s a complicated day because it is her birthday and yet it is also the day we lost her…. the anniversary of one of the saddest and most traumatizing moments of our lives. But it was also one of the sweetest moments…meeting Amelia and holding her…even though she was already gone.
We had a full year to consider how we wanted to honor our baby girl on this day … and while the weeks leading up to it were filled with every emotion possible… we really truly love what we came up with together.
One part of this tradition is her birthday candle. I had ordered this ahead of time and we plan to light it every year on her birthday… in the evening… when we can experience some quiet time for reflection.
This is the other part, which turned out better than we could’ve imagined. In the future, we will continue this tradition, hopefully with less sadness and a growing family…
Each year on Amelia’s birthday we will buy a single pink helium filled balloon. We will write messages for her on the balloon and send it to the sky. Watching her balloon float up and up until we could no longer see it was something truly special. It was another one of those moments where it felt like it was just the two of us and Amelia… and time had stopped around us. It felt like she would be greeted in the stars by the balloon meant just for her. With sweet messages from her family.
(Our messages have been blurred as this is one of those things we want to keep special…between the two of us and our daughter)
While the intention of our traditions is to continue each and every year that we are alive… the beautiful thing is that traditions can evolve and grow each year and with each changing season in our lives. Traditions can outlive us in our families. I am certain that our traditions will continue on and evolve just as our love for our sweet baby girl has and always will. I look forward to keeping Amelia’s memory alive & I look forward to continuing to love her in the ways only a bereaved mother knows how…
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.”
Amelia's Floral Footprints 