36 Weeks

This whole experience with Libby evolves daily. At first it was a raw pain-a pain in my heart that seems to cut me open. I cried and sobbed with the sounds of a mother separated from her child. Now my experience is evolving. Going to see her, being away from her, sadly is becoming normal. But also, the pain and hurt and sadness is changing too. The past few days the sadness has almost always been present with me, just under the surface. It prevents me from fully enjoying whatever I'm doing, from being fully present with my kids and husband and friends. This sadness scares me because I wonder if it's going to want to stick around even after she's home...

Today was supposed to be a milestone day for us. Today I would have been 36 weeks. I knew a few weeks before she was born that she would be early. I just had that intuition. I assumed she'd come at 36 or 37 weeks (and who knows-I was induced so maybe I would have been right...). Today, July 6th was the day I turned 36 weeks and we could safely have a home birth. We counted these days down....can I make it 3 more weeks? Can I make it 2? When I checked into the hospital, we swiftly knew that, no, I couldn't make it that long. The past 2 days it seems I see babies and hear birth stories everywhere. I don't fault any of the moms or any of the babies but still, my heart aches when I hear of the normalcy of it all. Why did this happen to me? Why didn't I get to have a normal birth, a normal newborn, a normal experience? What makes it sadder for me is that I won't get it. Even after she comes home, she'll be nearly a month old. I can't recapture those newborn days as much as I want to. Sure she'll wake up every few hours to eat. Sure I'll be bleary eyed with lack of sleep. Sure she'll be tiny and I'll worry about her growing. Sure visitors will have to wash their hands...but I still can't get back those precious, precious first few days. Days where the high of the birth is so fresh it carries me through the day and the exhilaration of the memory makes me relive that amazing moment all over again. I can't get back the pride at showing off my baby, born just days ago, still so fresh she still smells like the womb. I can't get back those special moments in the middle of the night where I'm sore and tired and just want to sleep and yet holding and feeding my baby is so much more important than any of that. I feel robbed of the newborn experience. I feel cheated.

I know, I know...I'll still have the same experience from here on out that all moms have. But having those first few days, those days that are so very special, taken from me cannot be made up for. I know that God has a plan. I know that He has a reason. I know that even as this blockage in her intestines was being formed, God was knitting her together. I know all that and believe all that and bank everything on it being true. But I'm still sad. I still wish it had been different. I still feel cheated and want so very very desperately to get it all back. But I can't.