I sat alone in the bathroom staring at a stick with 2 pink lines staring right back at me. I didn’t really need the test. I knew the answer before I
wasted the money. I was just hoping for a different answer altogether.
I sat there for the longest time with trembling hands and tears falling down my face wondering just how this happened. I mean, I knew how it happened
logically, but emotionally my mind just kept screaming “how”?
We weren’t trying to have another baby. Life was rocky, finances were just as rocky, and my 2 year old daughter was all I ever wanted.
I wept because I didn’t know what to do. I was not excited. I was ashamed of myself for not being thrilled. I was ashamed of myself for not wanting
this to be true. What kind of mother feels that way? What kind of mother can love her 2 year old enough to lay down her life for her, yet not be over
the moon about having another child?
I hated myself for this. It gnawed at my soul and when I caught reflections of myself in the mirror, I despised what I saw for what I was feeling.
I made my appointment with the doctor, still hoping the test was somehow wrong. Again, I received the answer that I already knew. I was about a month
along. My husband was happy. Our families were happy. Yet I was still loathing myself for not feeling the way everyone else did.
Days turned into weeks. Weeks turned into months, and I had a turn around myself. I started to love this other half of me, growing inside of me. My
baby. I was relieved when the sonogram clearly showed another little girl and felt my heart melt as I watched her on the screen sucking her thumb
already. I loved her more than life itself at that moment and I cried openly laying on the table. Hard. Tears of relief that I wasn’t a cold hearted
monster, and tears of happiness that she appeared perfect in every way.
With weeks left until delivery, I readied the nursery. I picked out clothes, bottles, swings, car seats, etc. I was growing giddy with anticipation
and could not wait to show my newest daughter what she would come to call her home...her sanctuary.
Not long after, I woke up with contractions. My husband and I dropped my daughter off with a grandparent and headed to the hospital.
A short hour and a half later on Father’s Day, we welcomed our second child into this world.
As I held her guilt washed over me again. How could I have not wanted this perfect love in my life? And again, I cried. Tears of shame for ever
feeling the way that I did and tears of joy so immense that only a parent could understand it.
The next day we all headed home as a family of four instead of a family of three. It felt perfect. I was more at ease this time around and enjoyed
seeing the differences in the following weeks between my 2 little girl’s personalities.
Again, days turned into weeks and a rhythm for my new family of four had been set. It was as if we had always been four.
Two and a half months in...and my world shattered into so many pieces, that it will never be fully repaired. Pieces will forever remain missing.
That morning I awoke in the bed with my back turned toward the crib. Instantly I knew... Something was wrong. I didn’t want to roll over. My feet
didn’t have to hit the floor for me to know that my my life was eternally fractured.
I couldn’t bring her back. I tried. God knows I tried. I called 911, I called my husband, and thought, dear God please don’t let my daughter walk
in on this.
The EMT’s came and continued their efforts. We got a neighbor to come sit with our daughter when she got up so we could follow to the hospital.
But I knew... I knew then, like I knew before I rolled over. I raged. I screamed. I cried. I lost all sanity on that hellish ride.
She was pronounced at the hospital and I raged again. Why? Ten million times, Why? I would rather it had been me... I felt like it had been me to a
degree. Why not a serial killer on death row? Why not some thrice convicted pedophile? Why not anyone on the face of this planet besides my baby?
Later that night after the chaos came to a minimum and I had a second to breath...the guilt came again. I recalled how I felt about being pregnant so
many months before. Is this Why? This is my punishment for not being “all in” from the very beginning? And God how did that hurt....there are no
words. There are days where it still hurts just like that and it has been 11 years. In retrospect, if it weren’t for my oldest, I would have thrown
my chips in that very first week. I spent a long time with Why. I still visit Why on occasion. Being bitter and angry was the only thing I succeeded
at for quite a while.
As days turned to weeks, weeks turned to months, months turned into years yet again, and I came to a realization....
Everyone enters and leaves our lives for a reason. I was indeed blessed to have my daughter for a short two and a half months. I would have rather had
her in my life for that time, than to have never had her at all.
As Garth Brooks said... I could have missed the pain, but I’d had to miss The Dance.
There are many things in life that this holds true to. There is no handprint so small that it doesn’t leave an impression on the world.
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on 7/9/2012 by Kangaruex4Ewe because: (no reason given)
