One Month of Missing You

I was given a beautiful box from the hospital that I fill with his mementos. The larger things like his feet molds don’t fit, but a lot of my favorite things like his lock of hair are in there.

My baby boy would have been a month old today. We should be posing him on his milestone blanket bragging about what he loves and what he’s trying to learn. Calvin should be snuggled sleeping on my chest while I rock him. We should be changing stinky diapers and getting peed on. I should be nursing him. He should be here. Instead, I spent today looking at the few tangible things I have of him. My six-year-old has a house full of things proving she’s here, and she exists. We all have a lifetime of memories and stored junk. Yet, I can fit everything that touched him into a box. It doesn’t feel right because the number of items doesn’t begin to represent our love for him or the impact his life has had. It might be easier to ignore the pain I’m in but that doesn’t honor him. So instead, I spent time with each item while I talked to him in Heaven. I snuggled his name blanket he was wrapped in and listened to his heart-beat bear. I told him how much I cherish the memory of when he was first laid on my chest. I looked at his lock of dark hair and his little footprints, telling him about all the people he reminded me of. I held the little molds of his feet and talked to him about what a firecracker he was in my belly. Those little feet loved to jam themselves into my ribs or anywhere uncomfortable. If he were getting an ultrasound, he would kick so hard against the transducer. He just wanted to be snuggled up and left alone. I cried, I laughed, and I mourned. I mourned what should have been and what will never be. I was honest with myself, Calvin, and God about how angry I am.

That’s the thing about grieving a baby. We celebrate milestones like every parent, but ours look very different. You’re annoyed because your partner didn’t get to see your baby kicking on the ultrasound. I’ve twice now been to an appointment alone where I was told my babies were gone, while my husband was waiting in the car. You are excited leaving the hospital and being a parent on your own at home. We leave the hospital with broken hearts. The hospital became like a home to us because it’s the only place we will ever hold our baby and leaving feels wrong. You show off your baby to all your friends and family and we are trying to decide if it’s appropriate to show off pictures or if it’s too sad for people. You show off your home to your new baby. We’re terrified to enter our home empty handed. Your childless friends tell you they don’t know how you‘re surviving, while our friends with children tell us the same thing. You endure postpartum and know it was worth it for the lifetime ahead of you. We endure postpartum and tell ourselves it was worth it for the five hours we got to hold his body. It was worth it to see his face for just a little while. You’ll be sad as you pack away too small clothes or toys they’re too old for. We pack away the nursery, toys, and clothes they’ll never get to use. You celebrate each month they get older and excitedly talk about what they’ll be like in the future. We spend each month fantasizing about what they would’ve been doing by now and what they’d be like. No matter the differences, we are all parents who spend the rest of our lives loving our children and missing them when they’re not around.