Over the past few months, I have been sharing life changes, one piece of news at a time. Daddy got a new job. We moved to a new state. We bought our first home. Mommy started working part time again. This month, your sister started preschool again and... you're going to be a big brother! You already knew that, but the readers of this blog didn't. :)
When I found out I was expecting, I was told that this baby had the best guardian angel ever: you. As we passed each "milestone", I really did feel like you were protecting this new life.
Things have been rather bittersweet this time around. First, this baby never would have been conceived if you had lived. We always wanted many children but after preterm labor, I decided that was it. I wasn't going to put my body through that again. And then you passed away and everything changed. I hoped we'd conceive in March or April, but that didn't happen. May rolled around. That's the month you were conceived. I was scared of having a pregnancy that so closely mirrored yours, but I didn't want to throw away a month of trying either. So lo and behold, you and this baby are only a year and 10 days apart, according to gestational age.
The first ultrasound, you measured 4 days ahead. I was supposed to be 6w1d, and you measured 6w5d. This baby decided to copy you. 6w1d, also measured 4 days ahead. I had an anterior placenta with you. I do this time around as well. At this stage (17w4d), you were kicking up a storm and I could really feel you. This baby isn't quite as strong as you :) I looked back at some past pictures and realized we found out you were a boy on Thursday, August 28. Our anatomy scan was scheduled for 10 days after yours so I assumed we'd find out then. But on August 29, we went in for a cervix check and found out you're having a little sister! It's still so strange to me that we found out one year and one day after we found out you were a boy.
My feelings about having a girl are very mixed. Either way, this is going to be hard. I was terrified of this one being a boy and actually hoped for a girl. I knew I'd be tempted to live out my hopes and dreams for you through a new little boy. You cannot be replaced and I feel I would try to do that if we had another son. Perhaps it was God's way of making sure you stay just the same in my heart. The drawbacks of this being a girl are that we'll never have a son. Regardless of the outcome, my body cannot handle another pregnancy. So this is it for us. Our son is in heaven and hopefully we'll have two daughters on earth.
There's always the awkward question of "How many kids do you have?". I've found the perfect answer for when I'm not in the mood to go into detail. I can honestly say I have one daughter. And now with this one coming along, I can say I have two daughters. The question that might cause me to punch people will be, "Are you going to try for a boy?" What to say... I won't hesitate to say I have a boy. He's in heaven. I just know people will regret asking. Why do people feel it's okay to ask these things? Even if we hadn't lost you, our family is our business.
Back on track. You would be 10 months old now, which means your birthday is in 2 months. That is shockingly soon. Your adjusted age would be a little over 7 months. That's when your sister began crawling. That's when we were trying new foods with her. That's when we learned she LOVED bluegrass music. I wonder what you'd be doing now. I bet you'd love avocado. You'd probably like bluegrass too but you wouldn't get to hear it because your sister sings Frozen songs all day long. You'd probably prefer her singing :) I know she'd love playing with you. She's very excited about another baby; she's just as excited as she was about you. We think about you all the time and still talk about you quite a bit. Thanks for watching over us, little guy. We all love you very much,
Love, mommy
