8 months... Do they look alike?

Last Thursday night, I laid in bed, unable to sleep.  While most nights, these days, I'm up for a couple of hours, this night it was worse.  My mind felt occupied, so many thoughts racing through my mind and no matter what I tried I couldn't quiet my thoughts.  And then it hit me why my I felt so unsettled.

All day long I knew it was the 25th but that night, like most around our house, life got crazy and then it was time for bed.  I fell asleep quickly but awoke an hour and 15 minutes, (bathroom break number 1 of many each night) and couldn't get back to sleep.

Fast forward several hours later, 6 episodes into The Office binge watch I'm on each night, I still couldn't fall back asleep.  I kept thinking about Noah and about this baby girl.  As always I wondered what Noah would have been doing if he were still with us, if my up-all-night routine would be because I'd be feeding him, or if he'd be a good sleeper like his daddy.  I wondered how he would have grown and changed looks and what his baby babble would sound like.  It is in those moments I find such happiness in day (or night) dreaming... the what if's, the I wish so much.

And soon thereafter, the reality sits in that I'll never know, never experience or get to find out what it was supposed to be like according to my life plan. It’s the heartache that floods my insides.  Oh how I miss him so much.

Laying there in the dim lite room, as The Office played on mute in the background, images of Noah, played actively in my mind.  At the same time baby girl awoke, and made her presence inside my belly known.  She rolled around and stretched, pushing her hand and foot out each side of my stomach.  I love feeling her move.  With each movement I’m reminded of the miracle happening inside of me and can't help but smile as I know, in this moment, she's okay.  Such peace I find through this still scary experience.

I started rubbing my stomach as if to say, "I feel you baby girl, Mommy loves you and hopes you are safe in there."  She'd respond back by stretching a bit farther, moving her hand across my belly.

I reached across the bed to my phone on the nightstand.  I started flipping through my pictures from the most recent ultrasound.  I wanted to see her face again. I stared at the picture, mesmerized with her features. Dad and I have been guessing whose features of whose she has.  In the middle of staring at her, I thought of Noah.  I flipped to my pictures of him, of those great times we had in the NICU and of how peaceful he looked in some of the pictures.  It reminded me of baby girl in her ultrasound photo... peaceful.

I went to the app on my phone that allowed me to compare pictures side by side.  Big brother and little sister next to one another...

Looking at both of them I realized they looked so much alike.  And looking at them I realized how much my heart loves both of them.  While I'll never get to hold Noah in this life and I haven't yet gotten to hold baby girl, my heart knows love for them in ways I've never felt before. Loving Gabriel, Michael and Isabelle came the moment I met them and has grown leaps and bounds in the time we've been a family.  With Noah and baby girl, my love came from the moment I learned of them, when they were just forming, before I "met" them.  The love I have for my children is both different and all the same.  I’ve realized that love spans beyond genetics, it can start at any moment, it grows beyond this world and it’s a feeling that grows for all of them with each passing day.

Losing Noah has been the hardest thing I’ve ever experienced and I’ve learned whether it’s been 1 hour since he left us or 8 months, the hurt doesn’t go away.  It changes, it morphs and adapts, just like we have in these past 8 months.  We are learning how to live in a life with sadness is missing him, gratefulness for what we have and hope for what’s to come.

Until next time,
Angie