I started to post this the other day, and then I chickened out. I wanted to write something to the baby that didn’t make it. I wanted to show how much I thought of it, and how much I loved it. When I read over the post I felt like it didn’t give enough pause to the love I felt for the baby. I am posting it again. If you read it, please be kind. The emptiness that I felt and still feel is present in the post, but there is still love in there as well.
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I’ve been thinking a lot about you. Ever since the day we found out you we’re going to be. But we never got to really see you and you never got to really be.
You existed in my thoughts, were constantly there, every pain, every cramp, I thought you were settling in. I made some room in my heart and was waiting for it to be filled.
There were hundreds of names given to you over the course of the weeks. And every week that passed I became a little more confident that I might really start to feel you move inside of me. I might get to feed you cookies, and feel you kick in delight.
I got so confident that I thought I might really get to hold you. I might really get to smell your skin and hair, and count your toes and fingers. I would hear you cry and help to calm you just by placing you by my heart.
Your sister was hoping you would be a sister to her, but your brother wanted a brother. They didn’t really understand that you were coming. That is probably for the best in the end.
And when I worried and called my doctor, I thought perhaps I was just over-reacting. But when they looked for you, you were not there. You didn’t make it very far, and I don’t know how long you had been gone.
Those weeks when we were naming you, and you were becoming more and more real in my mind, you were already gone.
And now you are gone. Ruby, Evelyn, Nona, Magnolia, Liza, Jude, Katharine, Jackson, Michael, Maxwell, and on and on
These were all of your names, and at the same time you never had a name.
So even though you couldn’t be with us in a physical presence, you were wholly present to me, and remembering those weeks and thoughts and writing them down, I feel like I am telling ghost stories.
Your mother loves you – and awaits the day when she can hold your spirit.
