Milestones

What were you doing so long in there? He wondered as I came into the bedroom.  Didn’t she go to sleep right away? 

Sitting on the Dora puzzle mat next to Gracie’s bed I watched her sleep.  Snuggled into Monkey jammies, her blanket buddies all around, a binky glowing in her mouth, she slept and I thought.  She slept, and my tears fell in splashes on Dora.  In the dark I listened to Gracie sleep and cried for her beauty, and cried for her loss.  She’ll never know or understand what she could have had.  So sweetly she slept, I cried.  They’d have looked so pretty together, my Grace and my angel Gabraella, surrounded by my Sky.  They’d have been the best of sisters and now they’ll never know her.  They will go days and weeks and years without thinking about the sister that they have but never had. 

Today Gabraella would have been one month old.  You can’t mark the days with milestones baby.  It’ll kill you to think of her that way.  She is still with you, you just can’t see her or hold her.  Derek’s voice.

How do I not mark them?  I’ve counted each day with a milestone in me.  I counted by months and weeks and days until she’d be here.  And then… PAUSE… shift in the world.  Birth her, hold her, cry for her, cremate her, say good-bye to her.  So many milestones.  So many dreams she’ll never be.  Maybe it’s not that she’d be a month old, but a month has gone by without her.  At first there were moments in a day when I didn’t cry for her. Milestone.  There have been moments that I haven’t thought about her.  Milestone.  I’ll pass the day when she would sleep through the night.  A milestone I’ll never celebrate.  So many firsts that will never be.  First smile, and tooth, first night in her own crib, first steps and birthday, how do I not count the milestones of what she could have been unless I mark them by what she’ll never be? 

Friends had their baby yesterday.  Healthy.  Girl.  I’m happy for them.  It hurts to see others with happy sweet babies, who are good people, who deserve them when I feel like we deserve them too.   Our babies would have played together.  No one ever told me you could lose a baby who’d been healthy your whole pregnancy at the very end.  I guess it wouldn’t  have made a difference if they had. 

I saw a story in the newspaper about a man who pummeled his 8 week old.  How does he have a baby and we don’t? 

There are no answers.  I don’t expect there to be.  I expected to be a mother of three.  I expected to count milestones with gummy baby smiles not with tears. 

Happy one-month still-birthday Gabbie.  Mommy misses you every day.