Fridays mean another week since Sylvia died. And the 12th of every month means another month. Today she would have been two months old. I woke up with a slightly heavier heart than  most days. I should be taking a picture of her creatively and artsy styled announcing her two months of life. I should be doing a million other things. There is nothing about my life right now that should be happening. It still doesn’t seem real, at all, that my daughter is dead. 

When I was pregnant it always seemed so crazy that someday she would be here, filling our days with laughter and joy, wearing all the clothing that were picked out for her by the people that couldn’t wait to meet her, growing and sleeping in her room that Carlos and I spent hours putting together and decorating and being this tiny little version of half of each of us. How amazing. How beautiful. How exciting. But it just seemed so crazy magical. I suppose this is because she was our first, and we had nothing to compare her arrival to, but I have struggled with her death from the aspect of during my pregnancy, her life, even then seemed surreal to me. Did I not enjoy her life growing inside of me enough? Did I know this was going to happen somehow? Did our future with her seem surreal because somehow, in some weird way, I was preparing myself for this? Saying it out loud makes me sound crazy, I know. Weird things happen in tragedy and crisis though. My brain has played very strange tricks on me in my tangled path forward. It brings up terrifying, shameful and bizarre thoughts. They race through my brain, welling anxiety up that I swear is a tangible knot in my throat, overflow out my eyes in rivers of tears until I finally tell Carlos about what weird, psychological game is going on in my head. He brings me back down to reality calmly and compassionately almost instantly. No, I could not have predicted this. No, I did not jinx her life because of my disbelief of her anticipated arrival. We couldn’t believe she would some day be here because we had never done this before. It was he and I, always, and now it would be he, I and her. Its an adjustment your mind doesn’t even know how to understand, so of course it seems unimaginable. You can’t believe it because you can’t believe it. Its that simple.

She would have been two months old today. I googled what milestones she would be hitting if she were alive. I am embarrassed and ashamed to say that I don’t think about what she would be doing right now if she were alive as often as I expected I would. I think about her and if she were alive every second of every minute of my day, but I can’t seem to imagine what she would be doing. I never saw her move, so she never seemed alive. My memories are of her limp, blue, and peaceful. I can’t create a vision in my head of her moving and making eye contact and hitting all these milestones. Not ever seeing her outside of me alive has taken away a big part of my ability to ever imagine her alive. Its horrible. I am embarrassed and I am ashamed. I am her mother…why can’t I create a story in my head where she is alive and cuddling here with me now, looking at me, smiling, waving her little arms, being my living, breathing, beautiful daughter? I would love to be able to imagine and fantasize about what the past two months would have been like, but I just can’t seem to. I have nothing to compare it to. Again, this is entirely separate from me thinking about her. My thoughts are consumed with her, but to visually imagine what she would look like today, tomorrow, two years from now, I just can’t seem to. Even nicknames, those usually form when you get an idea of their personalities or during an unexplainable time when suddenly a cute little pet name popped into your head that makes no sense. I don’t know what her nickname would have been. I could guess that it would have been a shortened version of her name, but a lot of nicknames seem to have nothing to do with a name. What would hers have been?  I hope that with subsequent children I will be able to have a better idea of Sylvia and imagine what her and her life would have been like. It haunts me that I don’t have that piece of her and can’t seem to create it with my head. We left the hospital with no baby and we came home with no baby. Everything is still is the same place. Even my hospital bag has yet to be unpacked. I constantly have to remind myself of the reality and that her life and death were real and not this strange make believe game Carlos and I were playing. Shameful, embarrassing thoughts.

Our grief is no less. Our pain is no less. Our love is no less. My beautiful little girl, we love and miss you so much. Keep flying high little dove. xo