5 love letters: dear baby #2

This week, I'm writing to my five children: my toddler Grayson, my three miscarriages, and the little girl nestled in my belly.

Today is the one year anniversary of the day we learned we had lost our first baby. I don't really want to rehash that time, about how we walked into a routine OB appointment and the silence that followed as she tried to find the baby's heartbeat. About the D&C and my postpartum anxiety that followed in the months after. If you want to read about it, here is a good place to start.

Today, I want to write that baby a love letter.

10 weeks pregnant with baby #2

Dear baby #2,

I'm sorry you don't have a name. We never found out if you were a boy or a girl, just like we never found out exactly what happened to you. I have a lot of regrets about that, but I do know that for 14 weeks, I carried you inside of me. I held you close and loved you hard, and I can't wait to see you again.

You changed my life forever. I know that the time I spent with you is overshadowed by losing you and the months that have followed after. I might think about how difficult it was to lose you more than how happy I was when I had you. But I want you to know that the experience of you is so precious to me. I'm forever changed by having you, and I hope to always make those changes as positive as possible.

I wish I could have seen you other than on ultrasound. More than anything, I wish I could have held you. I had dreams about you for a long time, and while those dreams have faded, the want of you is still there. You should be six months old by now.

I hope you realize that this baby girl is not your replacement. No matter what, you are our second child, our baby #2, the one we first tried to have. You'll always have a place in our family, and when your siblings are old enough, we'll share your story.

You'll always be my baby.

love,
mama