Today and tomorrow and the day after that, I will feel grateful

With Mother's day a day away, things in my life have truly come into perspective.

I have not posted in a long long time. Things have sort of been turned right side up, turned upside down, and then shaken out and emptied.

In December, we decided we were going to stop trying not to get pregnant. Little did we know, it would only take a few weeks for it to happen. Needless to say, we were absolutely thrilled when I found out I was pregnant on January 9th. We were so scared and so excited. I was exhausted all the time, but we could not have been happier. It was like our lives finally had meaning. We had finally figured out what we were here for. Things were going smoothly for about three weeks. Then things took a turn for the worse.

On February 3rd, we saw a heartbeat in our beautiful, darling, little baby. But, the doctor was very concerned because the heartbeat wasn't as fast as it should have been. She explained to us, that although there was a heartbeat, things didn't look promising. She told us to prepare for the worst. Five days later, at the next appointment, she could no longer find a heartbeat. We were absolutely devastated. It was like the world came crashing down on us at that moment. Our little bundle of joy had left us, and we would no longer be parents.

I had never really understood depression. I didn't get it when people said that they couldn't get out of bed and all they wanted to do was sleep. But when I lost that baby, I got it. I understood depression. I fully comprehended the hurt people feel and talk about. All I wanted to do was sleep. It was all I could do to go through the motions at work and get back home and into bed. I cried more tears than I thought was possible. My heart hurt, my head hurt, my toes hurt. I was angry with God, angry with fate, angry with everyone who told me that it was just part of His plan. I didn't understand how this could happen to good people like us who wanted to be parents so bad. From the time I found out I was pregnant, I believed in that little baby, I believed that little baby was mine, and I would hold it in my arms. When I lost the baby, I legitimately believed that I had lost a baby. It wasn't a little ball of cells, or just an embryo. It was my baby.

So it's been a couple months and although things have not gotten completely back to normal, things are getting easier. Life is getting easier. I see light at the end of the tunnel, in fact the light is getting brighter. I was sure that this Mother's day was going to be different. I was going to be a mom for this Mother's day. I would have been about 20 weeks along. Halfway.

Even though it would seem like I would be incredibly depressed on this Mother's day, I actually have hope. I have hope that I will be a mom to a little baby that I will be able to hold. But what I've realized, is that I don't have to hold that baby in my arms to be a mother. I was a mother to that baby that is no longer with us. I'm still a mother to that little soul. And Adam was a father. So tomorrow I will feel grateful that I have mothers all around me who have taught me so well. I feel grateful, that for 7 weeks, I was a mother. I get to be a mom to that soul. And someday, I will get to be a mom to a baby I will get to hold in my arms. I hope that it will happen soon, but that is not up to me. Today and tomorrow and the day after that, I will feel grateful and I will have faith that I will get pregnant again.