It has been one month since your were born, one month since I last held you, one month since my very being changed. It has been a very difficult month. My days have been filled by persistent thoughts about you, what happened to you, and what's to come. I have refused to undo anything about your nursery. Your clothes I bought, the clothes I washed for you from your big brothers, swing, seats, carriers, blankets, the punk hats, even the bouncer that arrived after you were born, everything is just as it was.
The night after you were born I woke up with "you raise me up" playing in my dreams. I don't think I ever listened to that song the whole way through, so I made a point to do that after that night. Did you send that song to me? The night after that I found myself as a deer in my dream. I was running through the forest and turned around to see one of my fawns shot as it was running toward me. The early days, everything was so raw I wasn't sure how I was going to put both feet on the ground and proceed with my days as "normal". Now still, just when I think I've got a handle on my grief for you, for what has happened, and that I'm doing "ok" I'll have waves where I just can't anymore. I can't do "normal" for one more second, when there is nothing normal about how I'm feeling. A few nights ago we drove through taco bell. After a particularly rough day inside my head, apparently the last straw was that they didn't include my meal in the bag. I stormed off. I was angry, I was crying, but about a burrito? No, it's about you. Everything lately has been about you. I was angry about the sun, when all I wanted was thunderstorms and rain, a reflection of my being.
Colin asks about you every.single.night. He kisses your picture, he prays to you and for you, he asks you to show him a sign. I wonder, do you hear him? Colin signs all of his emails to your nonna, "Love, Colin and Asher". Parker puts his hands on my now very soft squishy stomach and says "the baby isn't in there anymore...I really wanted a baby not an angel". We all miss you. So much.
This past month has been filled with reading others stories about other babies that have gone like you. Reading blogs, articles, something to find a connection. I also believe God put certain people into my life for a reason because I have just the perfect support system built in for me. Mothers that have lost unborn children, mothers that lost young neonatal children, and some just as I lost you, by a cord accident. Friends that I have had since childhood, some I gained recently in the past few years, and former clients that I worked with in Colorado. I can't help but think they were meticulously placed in my life for a reason. I remember my one client telling everyone when they asked her how many kids she had "I had six, raised five" with a smile on her face. Every single time. She was so proud, and such a wonderful mother, wife, friend, person. I wish my younger me would have known to ask her about that one child. It must have been sad for her to have no one ask about that child as I witnessed no one ever did.
I was in Colorado just a week before you passed and visited with a couple I used to train there. She gave me gifts for you, and was looking forward to my email about your arrival. I emailed her a couple weeks ago to tell her that you had passed away unexpectedly. What I got in response was not something I expected. She too had lost a baby, a girl, at 25 weeks pregnant. Her first daughter. She had the most sincere, helpful, and kind words for me. I have learned over the past 4 weeks that a mother never forgets, and the pain never fully goes away even 30-40 years later. But if in the end, in my older years, I turn out to be as beautiful as a person as those two ladies did, then I have been blessed.
My milk came in to feed you. So much that I was engorged for ten full days. Oh how I would give anything to have had you waking me up every hour to eat at night, that little whimper to wake me that before you, I cringed at the thought of. I would take a million sleepless nights if that meant you were here. Now, the milk isn't so much, it just leaks when I cry. When I cry. Someone wrote in an article that it was like their breasts were weeping. I thought how silly, it's just milk. But now I know why, and what that meant. Every part of my being weeps for you, Asher.
This week we are at the beach for a summer vacation, a vacation that was planned at this precise time so that we could come before you were born. You were supposed to be here in my belly with us, and I in my cute maternity suit to show you off, that I bought just for this occasion. "Supposed to be"...something I have been struggling with. I guess you really weren't "supposed to be" here right now...it's just what I thought was supposed to be.
Your cousin Olivia said she was playing with you a couple weeks ago and appeared to be interacting with someone. Was that you Asher? I look for you everywhere. In the trees, the clouds, on my runs, in my dreams. I see you in every other mothers pregnant bellies, and every little infant boy i see. I do see you. I see you in the faces of your brothers. Your wonderful siblings whom now are a beautiful and bittersweet reminder of you and what I won't have with you. Your big brother Parker fell asleep on me this afternoon during a break from the pool. When I looked down, it was like I was staring at you. Even the way his hand was laying was how you were laying on my chest just 4 weeks ago.
It's a known fact that maternal cells cross over the placenta and to the baby. But it has also been found that fetal cells cross into the mother and forever change her DNA. So while a part of me most certainly died with you, you will live on with me.
Love,
Mom
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