24 weeks and 1 month
Today is one month. One month since Julian and Preston were born and died.
Today would have also been 24 weeks in my pregnancy.
Viability.
So really, today is a rough day in so many ways. All kinds of emotions and thoughts, what if’s and could have’s.
Most days I don’t let myself dwell on what could have been for long. Or curl up back into bed and bawl. Or replay my pregnancy and their birth over and over in my head. But today I did because I wanted to. And the ever nagging thoughts in my head of how they missed any type of acknowledgment on paper of their lives because they weren’t quite 20 weeks, and how I hadn’t looked at their pictures yet weighed on me. I don’t know why, but the thought of them not being recognized as babies bothers me constantly. As much as I know, and you all know, they were.
Then I got up and went in the closet where their little memories boxes are. I’ve never seen them, but the nurses gave them to us before we left that day. Standing there, I wondered if I had the strength to look inside. But something told me I needed to. I opened them up and there were little cards inside. All filled out by hand with their vitals and ours – like a birth certificate. With their hand and footprints in them, names, time of birth, how much they weighed.
One for each.
They were here. I have proof. Those cards healed a wound I’d carried for my boys. I held the papers with their small prints and sobbed because I thought my heart might break I missed those two so very much. Their weeks and hours with me hit full force as I realized once again that this was never, ever going to be different. I will never have them here on earth to raise and love and kiss.
It hurts. No matter how much you believe in heaven and the journey God has planned for your life, death hurts.
Then I saw at their pictures and cried, how tiny they were. How perfect. Sam and I sat and looked at the pictures on our phones we captured. Just one of Preston while he was still alive but it is precious. I am so glad we have them. So glad I was able to look at them and remember the peace of those moments we had.
I took the time I needed today to let myself grieve again, and it was good. Not everyday, not all the time. But today was good to remember even the painful moments. To break through the terror of seeing their pictures or hand and footprints – there is no fear anymore of those sending me back into the overwhelming pain of the first few days. It was healing to see them and to know a part of them was recorded, short as their lives were. That I can see their faces when I want.
So today was a hard day, but it brought a lot of healing to my heart.
((hugs))
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