Writing this post means reliving the most unimaginable event of my life. Am I ready for it? I don’t even know. It’s been 14 days since ‘the appointment’ where we found out she had no heartbeat and 13 days since she was born. But it’s been 269 days since I told Carlos we were pregnant. So for 255 days we dreamed, planned, celebrated, anticipated, cried, laughed and rightfully obsessed about our baby, our family and our future. On December 30th we had our first ultrasound were she was just a little jelly bean. That was 239 days ago. On March 5th I felt her move for the first time. That was 173 days ago. On March 23rd we had another ultrasound where we saw she had Carlos’ nose and was measuring perfectly in the 50th percentile. That was 155 days ago. On May 31st we had a third ultrasound where she was so soundly sleeping curled up in a little ball that we could barely get a good picture of her face. We laughed because we knew in excitement that the next time we saw her, it wouldn’t be in an ultrasound, it would be in person. That was 86 days ago. On August 8th, the day before our due date, we had an appointment where her heartbeat was 140 beats per minute and I still had zero cervical change and no signs of contractions. That was 17 days ago. For all 282 days of our pregnancy I was medically perfect on paper. I had typical pregnancy complaints, sure, but nothing I ever voiced much more than a complaint here or there to anyone other than Carlos. I couldn’t find it in myself to make my pregnancy known as anything less than the most wonderful thing that had ever happened to us. We were over the moon, why would I complain about what my body, seemingly magically, was creating? My appointments were simple and easy. I stayed active, ate healthy, managed my stress and nurtured a loving relationship with my husband, family and friends. She measured consistently in the 50th percentile, heart beat always 140-160 and was very active. She was everything to us. Our daughter, our hopes, our dreams, our future…our entire world in one little girl. I know all first time parents are excited, I know that, but Carlos…Carlos was more. I can barely begin to recap our thousands of conversations of plans and dreams we had for when she was here before it literally becomes too painful. I can still see Carlos’ face with a huge smile, his adorable cheeks, and the sparkle in his eyes, looking off over my shoulder lost in his own imagination of what it will be like when she is here. Carlos was more than excited. Her and I, we were his everything.

It’s been 13 days since we said goodbye to her. 

Carlos and I will never recover from loosing our daughter. You do not heal, it does not get better with time, we will never be the same, there are no words to make it better, there is nothing we can do…there is nothing worse than this. Unless someone has lost a child, they can not imagine, much less understand, this pain. Not even us, as we move confused from each wave of grief to the next, can understand. These things are not supposed to happen. It is not natural. And that is why nothing anyone can do, even us, can make it any better. Even those we have talked to who have been through this or something similar, it still some other horrible version of the most unimaginable event. This is worse than a nightmare; nightmares you wake up from. It is our reality and still, we can not believe it. We do keep moving forward though, slowly and at times, scared.

What are my intentions with this blog? I don’t even really know fully. I need to process a lot. I hope to do some of that through writing. I hope to have a platform for myself, Carlos and Sylvia that we can continue with forward momentum. I imagine much of my posts will be quite raw. I imagine many of them will seem chaotic, rushed and panicked. I imagine a lot of them will also be hard to read, depressing and potentially hopeless sounding. But I hope a portion of them you can see that we are doing more than surviving; we are living.  I know her life has impacted more people than we even realize and I think its our responsibility to carry on with the inspiration that she has started. I know Carlos and I want to be ‘more’ for her, we don’t even know the details of what that ‘more’ means quite yet…and that’s okay.

Sylvia Paloma Mendoza
8/12/2016
7 pounds 6.5 ounces
21 1/4 inches

Fly high our little dove