Life after losing Case has been very difficult but we move forward every day. Always moving forward. Never moving on. It's a very strange place to be, but it's one we will be accustomed to at some point. You never "move on" after loss. You simply continue moving forward.
Grief comes and goes. This month, it came full force for me. So many daily tasks are stinging reminders of what we lost, of what we left behind. I realize that as we walk places as a family, people see a happy group of the 3 of us and think our family is ideal and just the way we wanted it. No one can look at us and see the missing baby that would be 5 months old today. Nobody can see the gaping hole in my heart where the love of watching him grow up should be.
We went on a walk the other day and brought the stroller in case our 3-year-old's legs got tired, which meant I was pushing an empty stroller for a while. And so I walked, thinking the whole time about how this stroller should be filled with a sweet little boy. Then my mind wandered to what life would have been like. How would we be adjusting to life with a preemie at home? Would we have been able to take walks with him? Would he be healthy now or would we need to go to the doctor all the time? Would he be breastfed or would I still be pumping? Would he still look so much like his sister? So many things I'll never know the answers to.
We had an amazing opportunity this month to go to Hawaii thanks to the generous gifts from some wonderful friends of ours. Seth had a conference there which we knew about months ago. I wanted to go (who wouldn't?) but once I was pregnant with Case, we knew it wouldn't be a possibility. He was due Feb. 2 so he would have been about 6 weeks old. I wouldn't have been comfortable taking him on a plane (for 17 hours of travel) at that young age, and I certainly wouldn't have felt right leaving him. Simply going on this trip was a blessing and a horrible reminder. A blessing because it's always been a dream of mine to go to Hawaii. A horrible reminder because I should have been home, spending long days and sleepless nights nursing a newborn and entertaining a toddler.
I had hoped the trip would be a perfect way to "forget" about life's struggles. Turns out, it was the perfect way to "think" without a toddler, crafts, taxes, bills, cooking, cleaning, etc. getting in the way. The amount of babies and toddlers there shocked me. Instead of getting away, I was constantly reminded. To be honest, I was okay with that. It wasn't a sad trip by any means, but I thought about Case and hoped for the future the entire time we were there. I look at families in a completely different way now though. My mind goes back and forth between hating them for having more than one child and then thinking they may have lost a baby too. Life isn't "perfect" for anyone. And then I wonder why this is our story, why this is our path.
A friend of mine recently told me that she grieves the loss of the future she had planned for herself. She's missing out on the future SHE had planned, but she's not missing out on anything GOD had planned for her. That moved me in a way I can't put to words. I know our journey isn't over. I have no idea what the next step will be. Does our future involve more biological children? Adopting a baby? Adopting a toddler? Adopting siblings? No more children? I feel very blessed with the wonderful little girl we have and the few days with our amazing boy, yet I crave the insanity multiple children would bring to our lives.
I think about Case every day. I think about what color his eyes would be. If he would sleep through the night now. How frightened I'd be when he did sleep through the night. If his apnea monitors would be going off and scaring the tar out of me. If big sister would want to help with everything or if she would be battling for attention. If Case would have looked like a normal 2-month-old now or if he'd have physical signs of being a preemie. I think about him and miss him a little more every day.
Happy 5-month-birthday sweet boy. I hope you're feeling the hugs I'm sending your way.
