Grateful

This is always my most conflicted time of the year. The searing pain has faded, but the general feeling of sadness is still there. Four years ago today, it was my last day of a seemingly normal pregnancy. I was visiting friends and wearing maternity pants (maybe even the same ones I am wearing today). I had no inkling that everything would end the next morning.

I feel guilty spending so much time dwelling on the baby that isn't here. I'm distracted by planning a birthday party and huge birthday surprise for W (a playset in the backyard!). But I also have had extra time to think. Every night this week, I've been sitting in the dirt clearing a garden around the area where the new playset will sit. It took a long time. I had time to think. Our lives would be completely different if we had that baby. The biggest difference would be that we wouldn't have W and I can't comprehend that. We'd still have a little boy, just older. Maybe we'd have a second kid by now. I try not to dwell on all of this. I don't want to wish away the life I have right now, the amazing kid that W is becoming and the tiny baby that always assures me that he or she is just fine whenever I need it. 

I wish I could send this post back in time to myself four years ago. I remember people trying to tell me about how they knew about some girl who had a miscarriage and then had a baby soon afterwards and she was happy now. Hooray for her, she's not me. What about the pain I was experiencing? What if I didn't have that success story? 

And now I am that girl. I am that story. I am so grateful.