Sweet baby,
I miss you today.
As we turned the corner into a new year, I realized it has been almost 4 years since I saw you last. Four years ago on my (our) birthday, I woke up knowing I wouldn’t ever hold you in my arms. Instead I stroked your delicate body with my index finger when I saw you on my maxi pad. You were beautiful, formed exactly as you should have been at 6 1/2 weeks gestation. But your heart had stopped its tiny beating, and your cells had stopped their rapid splitting, and my heart was cut deeply when your life was cut short.
I just miss you today.
Today, four years later, I’m sitting on a new couch in a new house watching Daniel Tiger with your baby brother. I imagined moving to this house with you. Our Bonus Baby just had a bath after drawing on his face with markers, a funny little habit your big brother, my Sweet Prince, had when he was a toddler. He always loved wearing costumes and insisted on drawing on his “mask” to be more authentic. I wonder if you would have liked costumes like your brothers do? Of course he taught Little Carrot to draw on his face too, because Carrot did everything just like our Prince. They have always been built-in best friends, and I’m so glad they still are.
I wish Bonus had you.
You would have been born in October, and I conceived our Bonus in December. I have never felt like our rainbow baby was a replacement baby, because you had a place in our family. You could have been born, and so could he, and then there would be 5 of you, and my heart would grow all the more to make room. You and Bonus would have been built-in best friends. You would be in the bathtub together after drawing all over each other with marker, and instead of watching Daniel Tiger you would be playing dress up. Maybe you would be teaching him about lipstick or fighting over the orange football. You would get the pink cup and he would get the green one, but as a 3-year-old, you might decide you only want your milk in a blue cup today, because that’s what 3-year-olds do. That’s what you would do, if you were here.
I just miss you today.
If you were here, the days would be louder. I would spend an hour trying to get you and Bonus to nap at the same time in your shared room, or maybe I would put you in my bed to keep you from playing. At lunch time I could cut your sandwich into the shape of a hippo and Bonus’ in the shape of a dinosaur, and you would each pretend to be your animal while you ate. I would still be cutting your grapes when you’re 3 because you two giggle so much when you’re chomping on snacks. You would dance in tutus and make Bonus play the prince to your princess. “I so pretty, brubber?” you would say. I can hear you two jabbering in your little toddler language as you snuggle under a blanket fort to watch Mickey Mouse Clubhouse on the iPad.
Because every time I look at Bonus, I see you. I see what could have been, the life I expected and not the one I’m living. Don’t get me wrong, the life you are living right now is perfect, and I can’t wait to live it with you one day. But sometimes it hurts, and today is one of those days. Whenever I look at your little brother,
Unthank You Very Much 