Dear Nora,

I took the test on a Tuesday. I assumed, like the months before, that it was going to be negative, but that song I’d heard the day before made me feel like this was our month. When I turned the test back over, I couldn’t believe my eyes! There it was, the faintest pink line I’d ever seen… or was it?! I held it up to the light, I used my phone’s flashlight for a better look, and I ran to the front window to look in natural light because I couldn’t believe it. When the line was still there in the sunshine I fell to the floor crying tears of joy. Then, dread and fear hit me like a bus. My heart started racing and every part of me began to panic. What if I miscarried again? What if we had to hear a doctor diagnose HLHS again? What if we had to hold another dead baby? How would I even survive that? I can still see Barnum standing bewildered in the hallway.

The weeks that followed brought only more fear and uncertainty as test after test showed good signs in terms of HCG, but bad signs in terms of everything else. My numbers were quadrupling, but there was nothing on ultrasound. “You’re not pregnant,” I can still hear the doctor say it. I’d never even met her before, but I’d explained my history to her before we entered the exam room. It sounded so cold and matter of fact. Case closed. No baby. She asked what my last levels were, did some quick mental math and said that actually, she didn’t expect to see anything yet. Get tested again she said. 

The new test showed levels far beyond where she said we should expect to see a gestational sac and my dates put me in the zone in which we should’ve even seen electrical activity. Was this an ectopic pregnancy? Come back for another ultrasound and get new labs she said. Skyrocketed HCG and a gestational sac on ultrasound… an empty gestational sac. Was this a blighted ovum? “Come back in and we will discuss your options.” I was heartbroken, but something in me felt calm. 

The doctor did one last scan just to check and in just a few days the gestational sac had gone from being empty to having an embryo with electrical activity measuring exact dates. It was some kind of magic and my eyes couldn’t contain my emotion. I had no words, but I thanked her repeatedly and left the office both elated and terrified. So began the long, painful journey that was my sixth and final pregnancy. 

I spent the first trimester completely miserable and utterly grateful for it. I kept telling your dad that it was okay because it meant the baby was doing well. It would all be worth it I’d say. Still, it wasn’t easy to wake up nauseous before I’d even opened my eyes. I would make your sisters breakfast and assume the fetal position on the couch while they ate. I forced myself to eat everyday because I needed to eat and tried to enjoy getting fresh air in the hopes I could feel a bit better. 

When the genetic testing results came back healthy, I was able to take a slightly bigger breath. Still, I worried because I knew that it didn’t mean I’d have a healthy baby, or even a living one. I wasn’t surprised when those results showed we’d be having another girl, but I was afraid. I was afraid it would feel too similar. That it would all be too painful. I worried how it would feel to have your sisters get to come to the hospital to meet her. I worried it would make it easier for others to feel as though we should be healed, having three girls. I was afraid I would picture you even more alongside her as she grew, ticking off each milestone with a shadow of sadness and comparison. 

Having care transferred to the doctor we saw with you helped me tremendously. She brought such kindness and care. She helped me feel calm, even when I was a ball of anxiety. I can’t explain how nice it was not to have to explain anything, for her to just know what we’d been through and what we were facing. She, like us, was cautiously optimistic and she scheduled our first echo as early as she could; just days before our scheduled move to Germany. I felt so sick going into that appointment, I was so incredibly nervous. Still, I felt that inexplicable calm, like everything was going to be fine. I had to go to the appointment by myself and that felt scarier and scarier the longer I sat in the waiting room. I was greeted by a nurse I knew and asked if it was okay to have someone observe. I can picture his face, but I can’t remember if he was a student or a resident no matter how hard I try. Not that that detail is important. I’d said it was fine and I fought back tears as I scrutinized every detail I could of that echo. Waiting for the cardiologist with the nurse felt like it took ages though I’m certain it was mere minutes. He came in to the room and asked how I was, “I’m doing okay, I think.” I’d said and he asked if he could make me even better. I began to cry before he even started telling me that the baby’s heart had all four appropriately-sized chambers. My doctor came in next with a giant grin and tears in her eyes. She asked if I would update her and I apologized that she couldn’t be there when the baby was born. We hugged and I left her with my gratitude and a promise to send a photo.

Once we were in Germany, I got another new doctor. She was nice enough, but it was tough with the language barrier and our lack of rapport. Even with a healthy first echo, I was constantly worried. I thought that I’d feel better as movements were more consistent, but that almost made it harder. Fewer or slower movements for even a normal period of time had me concerned. As we approached my due date and prodromal labor carried on, I was worried and fearful. I was afraid we wouldn’t make it to delivery with a healthy, living baby. I worried that the cord would prolapse. I was scared of a bad outcome. Still, I was ready to meet her. I tried to soak up those baby kicks and wiggles as I knew they’d be my last, but I found it difficult. 

Then the day came. Contractions had actually finally stopped for the first time in weeks, but I shot up from the couch exclaiming, “Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, OH MY GOSH!” as my water broke and Ellie chased after me asking what that meant. Did I mention I had just finished steam mopping the floors about 20 minutes earlier?! Ellie and Rose were such good helpers while we waited for your dad to get home from work so we could go to the hospital. Ellie instructed Rose to get her bunny into her backpack and make sure she used the potty. Rose made sure they both had toothbrushes and extra snacks. I finished packing and used my Doppler to check in on her heart rate. On the drive to the hospital that song came on again, the one that made me certain I was pregnant nine months earlier and we all sang along. 

I knew I wanted an epidural; if there was an emergency I wanted to be ready. Unfortunately, it wasn’t possible and I still remember sobbing, “this isn’t what I wanted!” as I listened to the low heart rate that accompanied yet another extremely painful contraction. I couldn’t focus, I was terrified and in pain and the midwife yelled at me to do what she said because the baby needed me to. I moaned that I was trying and I was sorry. I was after all, trying, I could hear her heart rate, I could see the monitor, I knew what it all meant, but I was paralyzed in fear and overcome with pain. I felt so out of control, but I was getting this baby out and I didn’t care that she’d just told me I was 8cm. I pushed with everything I had as I flashed back to your birth and begged the universe that your sister would be okay. When the midwife placed her on my abdomen, I looked at your dad with tears of joy and said, “She’s crying, she’s crying!” and I held her and cried as I told him we’d get to see the color of her eyes. The midwife apologized that she couldn’t bring the baby up closer, “the cord is quite too short to go too far.” she’d said, I couldn’t help but cry as I assured her that was okay. I like to think you had a hand in that, you helped to keep her safe. 

Your big sisters came to visit us and it was so special. They held her and marveled at her tiny-ness. Their beaming smiles brought me such joy and a touch of healing too. We had to stay an extra night and I was crushed, but as we finally left and the cold air hit me I was so grateful. Your dad took a photo of us all on our way to the car, I’m in the back, face red and eyes puffy; tears welling up as I thank the universe that we’re walking away with a car seat that isn’t empty.

Days later, In the shower, I cried as I felt and hugged my now foreign body. I explored the stomach that no longer held a baby and never would again. I longed for the kicks and the big belly I’d had only a few days prior. And I grieved. I grieved you and so many of the things we’ve lost by losing you. I mourned the joyful, carefree pregnancy I wanted but didn’t get to have. I felt sadness and anger knowing I was robbed of truly enjoying the last nine months. I’d wanted to soak it all in, to really enjoy it and commit the feeling to memory knowing it would be my last, but I couldn’t. Through the constant anxiety and terror, I just couldn’t and it made me so sad. For the first time in a postpartum period I didn’t dislike my body, I wasn’t afraid of how it had changed or uncomfortable in it but it did make me sad. I don’t know how long I stood there letting the hot water wash away my sobs, but I do know when I got out of the shower I could hear a baby crying and it wasn’t just in my head. How lucky I am to hear that cry. I love you Nora and I still miss you all the time.

Love,

Mommy

Dear Nora,

This week I wrote my name and number on a piece of paper to give to another mom. As is seemingly customary here in Germany I followed it with, “Mama von” I put your sisters’ names and their ages and I froze. It’s definitely not customary to put your dead baby’s name on a piece of paper and hand it over to a blissfully ignorant stranger with a “call me!” and a hair flip. How do I not write your name? I am, in fact, the Mama von Nora too. 

I still struggle with that a lot when meeting new people or trying to make friends. I feel like such an awkward fraud when someone doesn’t know about you. Like they don’t know who I really am because I’m not just Corrie, Mama von Ellie, Rose und Mia. I’m Corrie, broken, awkward and weird Mama von Ellie, Rose, Nora und Mia. It’s also not an easy thing to bring up, talk about, or to be received by others. So I get stuck in this strange place where I don’t write my dead baby’s name on the piece of paper and feel like somehow I’m lying or hiding something or at the very least leaving you out and leaving you behind. Which I could never do. Then when the mom doesn’t call or text like she said she would, I feel like it’s because she can tell I’m so awkward. There’s something off or missing about me, don’t want to make friends with that… even if I am the only other native English speaking parent at the school. 

It’s the same when people ask how many kids I have or if we want to try for number four to see if we’d have a boy. Do I say, “we have four, but one is dead… No it’s okay, it was three years ago and we knew she would die because she had a really bad heart defect. I mean it’s not okay, but you know what I mean!” Or do I say, “no, we have four already, our third died, she was girl too though. Pretty sure we can only make girls!” I’m pretty sure neither of those answers would be well received. Typically, I just say that we have three, confirm that they’re all girls and reassure them that, no we were never trying for a boy nor will we be. 

I guess the long and short of it is that grief is a long game and making new friends is hard. I love you and I miss you all the time.

Love,

Mommy

Originally written to Nora in October of 2024

Dear Nora,

Thank you for meeting me at the beach today, it was just what I needed.

After you died, I had this urge to run towards the sound and plunge in. It would come and go, but it was strong. I would imagine what it would be like. How cold would it be? Would it be loud or would it feel peacefully quiet? I’d think about myself surrounded by the dark, frigid water. Submerged in it. I longed for it, but I think I was also afraid of it. I don’t know what I was expecting to come of it. I still remember your aunt saying, “let’s get you to a beach!” when I’d told her. I thought about it, but ultimately declined. I think I wanted to feel something other than despair. I wanted to feel exactly how freezing that water was, but I was afraid that when I emerged everything would be the same. And I know it would’ve been. You’d still be dead and I would’ve been frozen. I can’t say if it would’ve helped.

When we walked down to the beach today, I knew I was getting in. No matter what. I didn’t care about the temperature, the tide, or what anyone else was going to do. Something in me needed to go in the water. It was beautiful out, though rather windy and there were very few clouds in the sky. I stepped on the nearly completely rock covered beach and at my foot there was a rock in the shape of a heart. A few steps later and there was another. Then another and another and I kept finding them without even looking. I headed to the water; it was a bit cold, but it felt good. I stood in it for a minute to adjust to the waves which were actually rather strong. I looked out at the water and the blue sky; I felt the wind all around me. Then I dove in. A wave kind of tumbled me around and I could feel you in that water. It was both quiet and loud, cold and warm. I felt like it was all moving slowly, but in an instant I was up and breathing the fresh sea air.

I spent some time in the water just standing and swimming. I even sat for a bit and let the waves rush around me. I talked to you and knew you were with me. After a bit I told you I was going to head to back to the beach, I thanked for you for coming to the beach with me and blew you a kiss. As I walked out of the water, something told me to look down. Tumbling toward my foot as I stepped was a bright white rock in a sea of brown and grey. I picked it up and couldn’t help but smile ear to ear (and maybe tear up) when I saw it was a wonky, broken heart. I carried it back with me, put it in my bag and it traveled home from Catalina with me. A souvenir from my day at the beach with my daughter.

Love,

Mommy

Originally written to Nora on October 8, 2022

Dear Nora,

It seems silly really, to hold a piece of fabric covered elastic so dearly in my heart. I do know it’s illogical, but my hair tie has felt somehow like a connection to you. I bought a pack of hair ties just after we moved back stateside because my last one had become too overstretched. Let’s be honest, at the time I was extremely pregnant and chasing your 2.5 year and 13 month old sisters all day so most of the time, my hair was tied up and out of the way. If we’re being entirely honest, it still usually is. None the less, somehow that pack of hair ties felt like a luxurious self care splurge. That’s probably a topic I should revisit on my own some other time. For now, I’ll focus on the special one.

It’s yellow with little flowers on it. I was surprised that it was my favorite because yellow is typically my least favorite color, but I loved it. I still remember how I could barely get it into my hair at first because the elastic was so strong and my hair so thick. But I made it work and I wore it often in our last weeks as a duo. I wore it during labor, as you were born and put my hair up in it after I got home from the hospital. It’s in the only photos we have of you. 

I’ve worn that hair tie in my hair or on my wrist every day since you were born. That’s 684 days that I’ve had it with me. The elastic has gotten quite worn now and I’ve started often wearing a different one in my hair, one that will actually hold it while wearing the yellow one on my wrist. It’s been coming off with my clothes when I change and has even come off with my coat a handful of times. I’ve had it on my mind that I should take it off and store it away so it doesn’t get lost, especially since I’ve panicked a few times thinking it was gone. Though I had yet to be able to do it until today. In the shower, I took it out of my hair and the elastic is so worn and over stretched that it made a perfectly imperfect heart in my palm. A heart with a small, wonky left side. So I took it as a nudge that I should transfer it to the keepsake box that holds your other things. 

It feels silly to cry over that piece of overstretched elastic covered with fabric that is starting to fray at its seam, but I did. It feels somehow like a little piece of you and it makes my heart so very sad to put it away. The little heart it now makes helps me be at peace with it and the sadness that’s caused by it. I still miss you all the time my girl.

Love,

Mommy

Originally written to Nora on January 23, 2023

Dear Nora,

It’s been over a year now since we sold our house and moved into our current home. I don’t think I realized at the time just how right that decision was for our family. We’d bought that house a few short days before we got your diagnosis. We were overseas and we only had an hour to look at the photos and make our decision to buy it or pass. It had enough rooms to bunk your sisters and give you your own space. We didn’t think it would be fair to put either of them with a baby that would certainly wake many times a night. The kitchen had ample storage, the floors were beautiful, and the master closet was like its own room. That last bit definitely put stars in my eyes coming from Germany where shranks, or free standing bureaus, reigned king. But what really sold us was the backyard. It had an incredible play set and a garden I’d only dreamed of. We couldn’t wait to see all our girls climbing, running and growing things in that back yard. Then came your diagnosis and the uncertainty that followed it.

We were still excited about our house, even though we couldn’t move into it until well after we’d arrive back in the states due to an agreement for rent back we’d made with the previous owners. The agreement made sense when we bought the house because we didn’t plan on moving until after they wanted to stay until, but being medically evacuated early to establish care for you changed our plans. We visited though, with your sisters, to see the house we hoped to bring you home to. As things progressed we were able to move in a bit earlier than expected and I worked tirelessly in hopes of making it ready for you. Your dad worked quite hard too. He tore out carpet and installed matching hardwoods (with help from family and friends) to get it just right. I painted rooms and unpacked boxes. He put together new chairs. We both had things to do and I think it was partially our way of trying to prepare for the unprepareable. Or at least a way to distract ourselves from it.

When you were stillborn it was so incredibly hard to go home without you. Living there felt off, it felt incomplete and empty. There were things I hated like the pile of clothes I’d set aside for you that you’d never get to wear or the spaces you should’ve taken up. There was something missing in that house and I couldn’t fix it because the something was you and you were gone.

We first started considering selling because of some neighborhood issues that had come up. We talked about it mostly jokingly and looked around a bit “just to see.” In the end we decided to list partially because I was pregnant again and your dad was set to deploy right after I’d be due. I didn’t think I could handle the entire house, a newborn, your sisters and the giant yard alone for the better part of a year. I miscarried that baby in the midst of our search. We even went to a showing the day it truly started. The market was absolutely crazy and we needed to either rule the place out or jump on it. It was not a contender in the end. Later that weekend I had to clean my own blood off a large portion of our bathroom floor and the memories of yet another loss in that space were a strong reason pushing us to go through with selling our home.

It was a rough time between then and finding a place, but we ended up renting a house that worked really well for us. It was a fresh start for our family and just what we needed. We miss the yard, but love our new view and our new location. The house has its quirks as they all do; still we’ve made lots of good memories here without having to walk past the painful ones every day. Living in a new space doesn’t take away the grief we’re moving through, but it does make it more bearable day to day.

I also think in some round about way that the other house was meant for the family that bought it from us all along. They accidentally came for a showing when we were home. I opened the door to a mother with two young girls at her feet and one strapped to her back waiting with a realtor, confused to see me there. We waited in the backyard while they looked through the house. She got tears in her eyes in the living room, knowing she felt at home. They wrote us a lovely letter that they’d included with their offer. I cried the morning we signed the papers knowing the house was going to be filled with the sounds of three sisters playing and growing together. That family got their happy ending in our house and we got to move forward away from the emptiness it held for us.

Love, Mommy

Originally written to Nora on 01.23.23

Dear Nora,

The first real grief I knew was the loss of my dad when I was 15. It was sudden and unexpected when he took his own life; not the way one usually likes to ring in the new year to say the least.

I’ve been thinking about this loss a lot recently. I have grown and changed so much since that day. I remember being angry at him for faking sick and afterwards feeling incredibly guilty for not seeing that he truly was sick, just not in the way he was acting. I remember the trickle of blood from his nose, quickly wiped away by a nurse and the paper bags on his hands that prevented me from holding them. I remember sliding down the wall as all the machines turned off, sinking to the floor and feeling like the world was crumbling. I was outraged at the nurses at the nearby station for laughing about something, didn’t they know my dad was dying? Couldn’t they see that I was on the grimy hospital floor crying?

Now I know my anger was just grief and it was malplaced. I was young and I’d never experienced anything like the loss of a parent before. I’d had grandparents die, but I was either too young to fully understand or didn’t have much of a relationship with them. This was very different. I didn’t want to go to school or see any of my friends. Some days I felt awful and others I felt fine which made me feel guilty.

Death is a hard thing to navigate, especially in a culture that still somehow finds it so off putting to ever discuss. When I returned to school, my first period teacher (I’ll keep their name to myself) joked in front of the entire class that I must’ve been faking sick to extend my holiday; I almost got sick right then and there on my desk. I fell down the stairs while taking the note my mother had written explaining my absence to the front office. The assistant didn’t know how to react and simply said, “Are you joking?!” To which I had to reply that I unfortunately was not making a joke before returning to class. I told a dear friend and naturally, as any 15 year old would react, he didn’t believe me. I think his disbelief was more out of astonishment and empathy than anything else. It was horrible. All of it. The only way I could remember his face was with the blood running from his nose and I couldn’t make it stop.

His funeral was closed casket due to the nature of his death. I was able to sneak in before the ceremony and say goodbye. My sister put quarters for safe passage in his casket. I feel like I left something too, but I can’t remember what. There was a point in which we were all asked if we’d like to say anything. I still remember my internal conversation. How stupid could I be to not have thought of that ahead of time? Of course there would be time for us to speak. What should I say? I have to say something. I can’t walk up there. Then the moment passed and my opportunity was lost forever. I carried guilt and shame for that for a long time. We rode in the hearse to the cemetery. It was raining, there were rifles and a wet, folded flag. It was a blur of sadness.

I watched as the grief took shape differently in each of his loved ones. I learned that there is no right way to experience grief. Though at the time I was taught that it always came in stages and I was ready to move through them as quickly as possible if it meant it wouldn’t hurt so badly anymore.

Now, after losing you I know that grief is more like a rollercoaster or waves in an ocean. There are ups and downs, twists and turns, and even undertows lurking in the calm of happiness. Grief isn’t linear and however we experience it is the right way for each individual. It can be hard to understand it or see it for what it is when someone else is grieving the same loss differently than ourselves. It’s important to give them and ourselves grace because the grief that follows such an incredible love for someone is lifelong and ever changing.

My grief for my dad is now made of much less anger and guilt. Instead it’s replaced by other losses, like the inability to call up his voice in my mind and the reality that he never met his granddaughters. Though I do smell him in clouds of nonexistent smoke and think of him very, very often. His face is now a happy one in my memory, sometimes pushing me on a tire swing or singing next to me in the car. Though photographs remind me that the picture in my head isn’t always a completely accurate representation of how he really looked. While it’s still there and I still miss him, I am glad the weight of that loss has lightened with time.

My grief for you is similar in that it has gotten a little lighter, but it is ever present. It differs in the ways one would expect the loss of a parent to differ from the loss of a child. The pain is always there, just hidden, sometimes much better than others. Most recently it hit me hard at the playground. Your sisters made a sweet little friend, she was older than you would have been now, but watching the three of them play and laugh together made me ache for the dreams I’d had of the three of you doing just that. I’m that moment it was like I’d lost you all over again, in the laughter of three little girls. I find that while I cannot always predict those moments, I am better and better prepared for them all the time.

I hope that whatever it is that comes after this has put you together with my dad so he can know one granddaughter for now. Perhaps you indulge in entenmann’s rich frosted donuts together, always two at a time of course. I love you Nora and I miss you all the time.

Love,

Mommy

Originally written to Nora on April 22, 2022.

Dear Nora,

For months I looked out over the water from three huge picture windows in the Air BnB. I held you, wiggling and stretching inside, from the outside of my overstretched belly. I rubbed and poked at you and I looked at the water. I watched beautiful sunrises and sets, storms blow in and out, and fighter jets circle for landing. I ate breakfast, lunch, and dinner looking out over that water. I made lists, drew up plans, and had dreams about the time we would get together. We made memories with you in the snow, danced in the kitchen, baked chocolate chip cookies together and cozied up near the fire. We celebrated you and mourned you at your wake in those same spaces. So many positive and painful memories alike all swirled up within one house. Still, I feel you when I look at the water. I’m sure it helps that we spread your ashes there too.

One year later and the happiness and the pain still can’t be separated from one another. Joy that you were ours and joy in seeing all the light you brought to a world you never took a breath in. Sadness that you’re gone and knowing that you had so much more light in the possibility of your life.

I miss you still, each and every day with a longing heart that only a mother without her baby knows. I hate that we missed out on everything. We missed seeing the color of your eyes, hearing the sound of your laughter, and watching as you took your first, brave steps. We lost the opportunity to see you smile, hold you while you slept and wipe away your crocodile tears. Sometimes it feels so cruel a world in which you don’t exist. Sometimes I feel cheated. Other times I see the blessings. The things none of us had to endure. The peace and love you existed in. The pain you didn’t ever experience. For those things I’m extremely grateful. Still, I wish you could be running around with your sisters who miss you so. I wish you could’ve blown out the candle on your first ever birthday cake. I wish we were just starting to get to know you.

It seems like a year has passed in a blur of secret agony. I don’t always understand how the movement of time feels so different in each situation and each stage we’re in. This last year has felt like that of any other baby’s first year. The days were often long while the year itself seemed short. There were tears, laughter, sleepless nights and early mornings. There were moments where I felt both joyful and bitter towards the happiness of others I love. Any time I felt that way, guilt very quickly followed. I saw you and your milestones in the children of our friends. I saw the ways your sisters would’ve loved you and the ways you would have pushed their buttons. I often felt inadequate to be your mother. I also often knew that there was no one better. As we now move beyond measuring time in days, weeks, and months and into years the only thing I know for certain is that you will be both always missing and always here.

I see you in robins and eagles and especially in the movements of the snow geese. I feel you near the water and in the chill of the night air. I still sleep with your blanket snuggled up against me and there are times I swear I smell you in the air.

I didn’t know what to expect as we approached your first birthday. The one I wanted to be pulling out the silly hat I made both your sisters wear, but instead was trying to decide how to best celebrate a birthday without a birthday girl. The one I would’ve inevitably made foods into the shape of a 1 all day for even though you wouldn’t have cared. The birthday that said, “We did it! We made it an entire year together!” How do you approach what should be such a beautiful end to one thing and start to another when it turns out to just be more of the same emptiness on the horizon instead? I wasn’t sure, but what I knew was that we weren’t letting the day just pass. We weren’t going to be simply crying the day away, nor were we going to be avoiding it. We were going to celebrate the perfect, beautiful, wonderful you. We ate cinnamon rolls and cheesy eggs for breakfast. We took a picnic to the water and ate in the freezing wind so we could all be together. We played and hiked and took deep breaths of fresh air. I made a toddler favorite, pasta, for dinner and served it in the polish pottery I bought while first dreaming of who you would be. We sang happy birthday, blew out one candle and all shared cake. We laughed, we were silly, we all took a nap and in many moments we cried. We missed you and we celebrated you. We felt love for you from everywhere. It was, as each day of the last year has been, perfectly beautiful and sad and complex. While my heart aches for you and will never truly be whole again, it’s so full knowing you’re ours. Even though my words aren’t perfect and feel incomplete, I know you were with us to witness all the ways we celebrated and loved you on your special day.

Happy First Birthday Nora.

Love,

Mommy

Dear Nora,

This holiday season has been anything but simple. Starting with Halloween, moving all the way through Christmas, and looking forward into the new year. Each new holiday has brought its own set of mental obstacles. It’s a really strange thing to be a bereaved parent during this time of year. It feels like for every high there is an equal and very present low. There’s always a reminder, a nudge, a feeling pulling me back to the reality that even though there is light we are still also living in a shadow. 

Halloween is always so much fun to plan and execute. I remember last year as Halloween neared, before your diagnosis, making a list (who would have thought right, me, make a list?!) of family costume ideas for this year. Last year for Halloween we had dear friends come to our house and celebrate with a themed breakfast-for-dinner feast and indoor trick-or-treating. We had just finally been able to have another family in our home again in Germany and we were excited to get together and have some modified Halloween fun. Still, while planning that, I was looking forward to this year and hoping we’d all get to experience door to door trick-or-treating together. Because Ellie had been so small for her first Halloween, we didn’t do it, we had only dressed up and handed out candy together in DC. Rose’s first Halloween, we went to a party at a friend’s house in Germany and Ellie did in home trick-or-treating there in between busting out her favorite moves for all her admirers and chasing their cat. Rose’s second and Ellie’s third was last year, so this would have been all three of your first times going trick or treating for real. Your dad had previously been scheduled to be gone during the fall and winter so I’d been trying to come up with fun ideas the four of us girls could do. So when Halloween rolled around and we were planning our costumes, there was the list. It was heartbreaking to think back to a time when we thought the dreams we had were guaranteed to become reality. We let your sisters choose the costume theme and they went with Peter Pan even though they’d never seen the movie or read the book. Ellie saw a picture of Wendy’s dress and couldn’t see herself dressing up as anything or anyone else. Rose was tinker bell and your dad and I were the raccoon lost boys. We did all the holiday things including heading to the pumpkin patch and carving jack-o-lanterns. For the big day, we went to Aunt Kim and Uncle Bob’s and did door to door trick-or-treating. It was so much fun watching your sisters as they got excited for each new house and every single piece of candy. Ellie was over the moon about her costume as was Rose about my tail. It was so lovely, even more so because your dad was home with us. Still, there were moments among the joy that were just pure sadness. Moments that reminded me that you were missing and our dream from last year was still shattered. 

Thanksgiving was different this year as well, but it was so nice to be with people again, to gather with family. We went to our cousin’s house and everyone had a great evening. Minus the part where your sisters refused to go to sleep for what felt like eternity because they were just having entirely too much fun. Yet there I was again, missing you. I cried at the dinner table when I tried to eloquently and simply explain what I was thankful for this year. I could barely finish and I felt so embarrassed. Just for the record, this year I was most thankful for the lessons we learned about what is truly important in this life, even though they were very difficult and painful lessons to learn. That and of course our family, which just so happens to be the most important thing in life. All of that learned or remembered because of loving and losing you.

Christmas is now fast approaching and you can still find me here in this strange bit of the universe where bliss and despair blend together to paint a painfully beautiful picture. The day we chose and cut down our tree was a really great day (aside from that part where your sisters both chased your dad down a rocky, muddy hill and required both bandages and a change of clothes). We got a late breakfast at one of our favorite places. Your sisters basically just ate sugar with a side of sugar and loved it. I mean, who wouldn’t?! Then we ran some errands and finally made our way to the tree farm. We went through three fields before deciding on the perfect tree. Your sisters, clever as they are, carried rather large stones with them through the entire experience to place at the stump of the tree in true Lorax fashion. Both fell asleep on the way home, Ellie with her candy cane still held tightly in her hand. We decorated what was unpacked of the house and put the tree up inside. Several days later when we finally made time to actually decorate the tree together, it was yet another bittersweet family moment. We were trying to soak it all up knowing your dad will be gone next year and overall it was a time filled with lots of joy, laughter and eyes full of wonder. Still I couldn’t help but tear up when I thought of you and probed the emptiness that follows us. The thought of the curiosity that would’ve been found in your eyes and the battles to keep you from pulling the tree down on yourself tugged at my heart. Watching your sisters squeal with delight over the train and imagining how you would’ve been trying to squeeze right in next to them broke it.

Traveling with two toddlers who are both in an “I only want Mommy” phase is a tough spot to be in. It was exciting to get on a plane again, now being a year after our return from Germany. Though the entire trip from home and through the airport I felt as though we were forgetting something, like something was missing. I ran through the checklist in my head- things for the girls to do, snacks, extra clothes, bunnies, clothes, toiletries, gifts, stockings… all of it. Somehow there was still an absence. Though you’re always with us, we’re still always without you. It’s an interesting feeling being stuck between joy and sadness. Such is the juxtaposition of the life of a bereaved parent any time of the year and to be honest, it sucks.

Moving into the new year I felt grumpy and irritable. It took years for the holiday to feel like something to celebrate again after my dad took his own life on New Years Day when I was 15. However, for at least the last 10 years, it had once again been something to celebrate. This year felt different. When I really explored my feelings, I was a little surprised. I was happy to be rid of 2021, there’s no question there. In this year alone, we’d lost you, lost another baby, made the stressful decision to move, family members fell ill with COVID, I began experiencing unexplainable neurological and muscular issues, both of your sisters got RSV, we were being sued over a ridiculous car accident, we had three total ED visits for the year, and Rose made it just under the wire to get the award for first family stitches on the 30th of December. I was done. I was ready for a fresh start. I was also afraid to leave it behind. When I really thought about it, dug deep and explored the complex feelings I was having and expressing… I was just sad. 2021 is the only year we will have ever truly had you and I wasn’t ready to move away from that. Maybe I’m still not ready to admit that the way things happened is reality, but the truth is that I can’t run or hide or wish it away and 2022 will bring just as many complex moments and emotions, the first full year without you, as well some sort fresh start.

No matter what year it is, you will always be with us and we will always be without you. Such is our new beautifully dejected juxtaposition.

Love,

Mommy

Originally written to Nora over a series of days through the holidays.

Dear Nora,

Today was not a good day, there really isn’t a better way to put it. Well, there are better ways, but they use some pretty foul language. It was unpleasant walking back into that hospital. Taking the same route I did each visit before your birth. I felt like I could see us, a different version of us. There we were, stepping off the elevator with heavy feet and heavier hearts, puffy eyed and carrying an empty car seat. I could still see the woman we had to pass on the way out. There she was, on her phone, mindlessly rocking her newborn’s car seat with her foot while she waited for something or someone. I remembered being angry with her, how could she not be looking at that beautiful, pink, living baby she had? I passed that empty version of us in the hallway and my stomach knotted.

I’d been worried and nervous leading up to our confirmation of pregnancy appointment. I kept flashing back to recording your heartbeat for your dad and feeling so blissful. I kept remembering how oblivious and naive I had been. I kept thinking about how that bliss turned into a beautiful love that lead to crushing heartbreak. I was worried it would happen again. I was worried I wouldn’t be able to fully breathe until we saw all four chambers, perfectly formed and functioning. Half breathing for five months seemed like a small price to pay for a beautiful sight like that.

I’d begun to let myself picture it. I pictured how we’d tell our families and how they’d celebrate (and probably cry) with us. I assumed the baby was a girl given our track record and began to dream up names. That was difficult; we’ve already used our favorite three. I started to look at things to replace those we’d sold or given away because the sight of them without you was too painful. I dreamt of your sisters putting their little hands on a big baby bump to feel kicks and hiccups again. I thought about curling up with them and a cup of hot tea reading books while it rained outside. I let myself dream and picture it all. There we were in one of the same typically decorated hospital rooms we’d been in just six months before with you. I was wearing one of those green gowns patterned with bluish lines and little colored geometric shapes over a swollen belly. You know the ones, a million untrustworthy snaps and two usually broken ties are the only things that would be keeping it on. One of those patterned curtains that always looks like they came straight out of the 80’s hung in front of the door on little chains to protect what little privacy I had as a laboring woman. I was holding your dad’s hand and the doctor that delivered you was there, gowned up and ready to go. I imagined how it would feel to hear the sweet sound of your sibling’s first cry and hold a baby that wiggled and looked around a bit. I imagined I’d cry so many tears of joy, relief and even grief. I imagined the little toes and the sweet baby smell. I dreamt about yet another moment we never got with you, one that still breaks my heart. I dreamt about your sisters meeting the baby, holding the baby and showering it with love and kisses. It was all so beautiful, so hopeful.

Today would’ve been the first step, almost ten weeks down (halfway!) until I could take a good deep breath again. Such a bittersweet thing becoming pregnant again after losing you. While no baby could ever replace you, I saw a flicker of the hope and healing one could bring. Until she put the ultrasound on my abdomen and there was no flicker. I knew something was off right away, it just didn’t look right. She mentioned measuring the yolk sac and I thought, “it shouldn’t still be that big this far along. Stop moving and let’s look at the baby.” Then came the internal ultrasound which confirmed what I suspected. She tried to zip by, there were other measurements needed and why prolong our agony. I didn’t care about the other measurements and said what I’d been fearing out loud, “no little heartbeat then is there?” A short impregnated silence and “no, no I don’t think I see one. I’m sorry.” Then came the tears, sobs really. She handed me washcloths and went to make sure the doctor could see us sooner rather than later. We took the behind the scenes walk of shame to another room where we waited to discuss the next steps. It’s better that way, not going out to the waiting room. It’s better for us and it’s better for them, the lucky ones, the happy ones. It’s too disconcerting for them to see the ones like us.

We held hands and cried while we waited. No baby was going to make our losing you better nor less torturous, but man did this feel like yet another level of hell. We had the requisite three options- wait and see then come back if nothing continues to happen, take the medication to induce the physical loss or go in for a D and C. The medication seemed like the lesser of the three evils and we decided the 80-90% success rate was worth a shot. I mean, we’ve hit the world’s worst lottery with odds much lower than that. So, there we were, taking the same path out of the hospital feeling empty and broken yet again. I’d just begun to tell myself that we couldn’t let this new baby live in the shadow of loss. I started thinking waiting to talk about it was unfair, the baby deserved to be celebrated even while we still held our breath.

Now I’m at home, snuggled with the blanket you were wrapped in, listening to the pouring rain and waiting for the first physical signs of our magnanimous loss. At this point the loss is really beginning to compound and I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t hard and awful and downright unfair. I want to do something and I don’t want to do anything all at once. I find myself filled with this feeling I had after we lost you, this feeling to run out into the ocean and let the frigid water swallow me for just a moment. Maybe I’d feel closer to you too, I don’t know. I was cautiously optimistic when I told you you were going to be a big sister. I suppose you’ve been together for some time now and that’s a lovely thought. My three little angels, together somewhere at peace. I think of you constantly and miss you with my every breath.

It was all such a beautiful, hopeful picture. Yet with one very still picture on a screen, it was all gone. I’d let that sweet baby in behind some carefully built walls and they crumbled from the inside much easier than I’d hoped. The things that happened after were much different than I’d begun to let myself imagine. They were much more clinical and much much more painful. I’ll never know why or how, but I hope someday the pain and the suffering that has come along with all of this makes sense. I already know at it’s core it’s really just love, but that alone doesn’t make it any easier. Honestly I don’t think anything has ever made it easier, but time has made it lighter in a way and I suppose now that clock begins again. Im sad this letter ends with another wave returning to the ocean.

Love, Mommy

Originally written to Nora September 17, 2021

Dear Nora,

The last five months have truly been a roller coaster. We’ve had ups, downs and loops in which I didn’t know which way was up or down. Two days ago I had a really bad day. I missed you intensely and I’m not sure what triggered it. I was surrounded by family, but all I could feel was your absence. Last night I went to bed thinking about that as I snuggled the blanket you were wrapped in, like I do every night. I love how that blanket still smells like you. I don’t how it does, but I’m grateful for it. Five months later I can sometimes still feel your weight.

Today was an emotionally complicated day. I remember once, while you were still safe in my womb, saying to your dad through sobs that I never wanted you to feel like we didn’t want you because your heart wasn’t “perfect.” To us you were absolutely perfect and we wanted you more than we can articulate. I said that because we’d been having a conversation about whether or not we thought we’d ever want to try to have another baby. We knew no baby could ever replace you. No baby would ever fill the hole you were going to leave in our hearts and I never wanted you to think that we felt as though someone could.

Part of me thinks that’s why things happened the way they did. Maybe you had somehow even had a hand in it all. We’d decided that we wanted you to know only love and comfort for your life. We were protecting you, or at least trying to. Yet, maybe you protected us too. Just maybe things worked out this way so that we couldn’t fear that you’d think we only let you go because of your perfectly imperfect heart or feel like we would ever be trying to replace you. In one, small way, it’s a beautiful gift.

When we continued the conversation long after you’d been born about whether we’d want to try for another baby and if so, when, we weren’t fearful of any of that. We were more fearful of experiencing this all over again, but in one of those conversations I remember telling your dad that, “I think Nora would love to be a big sister.” With that, we both cried and I think our decision was made. While our family will always have a hole that only you could fill, it still didn’t feel complete. I truly do think you’d like to be a big sister.

I don’t know what made me take a test this morning, but I did. The chances were extremely slim and honestly nearly non-existent that it would be positive. At the same time, something told me to take it. My heart started racing when the first line appeared. I wanted to cry, scream and laugh all at once. I was shaking and I had to come up with something quick because I couldn’t go all day without telling your dad.

He was downstairs making breakfast for your sisters and I came down the stairs as calmly as I could. In that moment I could feel my heart beat in my entire face. I took out these little polish pottery bowls and set them each on the counter. I bought them on a visit to Poland with a dear friend when I was pregnant with you. I’d wanted a set that we could use with guests, maybe for dessert, but there were only five bowls in the pattern I loved. I decided it was perfect, one for each of us. Maybe we could use them for sundaes the night before the first day of school or for yogurt on Saturday mornings. It was a sign that there were only five. I was so excited to use them. Then we got your diagnosis. I haven’t been able to use them since because the sight of them made this aching sadness bloom inside me. But here we possibly are again, so I pulled them all out and put them on the counter. I asked your dad if we were all having oatmeal for breakfast. He responded by confusingly explaining to me that he was planning on making eggs for he and I, something he’d already told me earlier. “Oh” I said, “well I just got out a bowl for everyone.” Silence followed the statement that he didn’t want oatmeal. “I just wasn’t sure so I took out one bowl for everyone in the family.” Your sisters’ heads were blocking them a bit, but once he could actually see them and process that there were five of them he asked if I was telling him something. We both got tearful as we hugged in our excitement and trepidation.

You’re going to be a big sister, Nora. Something puts me at peace in feeling that you’re happy too. While I’m scared and absolutely worried that I’m going to be a ball of stress until I can see this baby’s heart beating on an ultrasound, I am also hopeful. So far, I alternate between being terrified, feeling selfish, and feeling complete peace about this baby. I love you my Nora and I still miss you all the time.

Love Mommy,

Originally written to Nora August 09, 2021