Well, here I am again. Sometimes blogging is a way to let out my frustrations, my feelings about life, my pain. Other times its just a way of talking about things that are going on in the world, things that are real. My blog today is about both. We are quickly approaching October 15th, which is, as most of you know, Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Day. Since I was 16 years old, this is a day that I have followed, celebrated, and acknowledged. Last year though, when my daughter was born...and i saw her, very much a person, with Jesus, and i could not take her home, the reality of what this day means hit home in a very serious way. There are a billion things i do in my everyday life to honor her, and to make sure she knows that she's such a huge part of my life, and who i am...but at some point, i have to figure out how to separate her, yet keep her close. How to acknowledge her life, yet live my own. That particular battle has been really hard for me...because...how do you suffer a loss so great and then just move on from it? How do you want something so bad, and have it ripped from your grasp....just as you get to meet it...and then just bounce back?

You Don't. 


But they don't really tell you that, do they? They tell you to move on, they tell you to "try again" as though a new child or new pregnancy will replace the child you lost. But it doesn't. You still long for the kicks that only she could make, and the comfort and peacefulness that came from knowing you were falling asleep with her safe inside your tummy. The grief, life without her in it- becomes the "norm" for your life. After the death of your child, you become forever changed. Its hard to even remember what your life was life before she was in it, before she died. I guess the real trick is to learn how to make it work without her. To embrace what she was, what she brought to my life, yet move on, and start our lives over again. Start to live, start to hope again, and start to love....i have to think that at the end of the day, that's what she would have wanted.