Due Date take three

Dear Donna Rose,

Today marks the second anniversary of your due date, so you should have been turning two around this time. I wonder what you would have been like. I wonder if your hair would have been long and if you would have had curls like me or straight hair. I wonder what words you would be saying now. I wonder what you would think of your baby brother and what tricks you would be teaching him. Dad and I miss you terribly.

I wonder what life would have been like if we had not lost you. Maybe Dad and I would have stayed in Colorado. Maybe you would have gotten to meet your Grandpa Tim down here. I hope you are having a good time with him in heaven and showing him all your favorite spots. Someday you will show your daddy and me what we need to know about heaven.

I love you very much my dear.

Love,

Mommy

Dear Donna Rose

My dearest Donna Rose,

Oh how I miss you. It hardly seems possible that it has been more than a year since I carried you inside me. Now, with your little brother or sister living there, I am reminded of what it was like to have you inside me, to feel you move.

I picked up my copy of "Oh Baby, the places you'll go!" yesterday to read to your sibling. I remember reading it to you with so much love. I had no idea the place you would go included heaven and that the wonderful friends you would meet would not include your daddy and me. I wept through the last pages.

I find that I can't sing to your sibling without a tremor in my voice because I remember the songs I sang to you. Your song was "Lida Rose" from The Music Man, but I always sang it as Donna Rose. That used to be one of my favorite movies, but now I can't watch it without crying.

My life is very different from what it was before you came. There are some very good changes, but also some things that I wish weren't so. I'm so glad I have your daddy. He's the very best part of my life. Your grandpa and grandma (my mommy and daddy) are so good to us too and you have lots of loving aunts and uncles who are sad they never got to meet you.

I'm a lot more fearful than I used to be. When I carried you, I didn't worry very much about the aches and pains. My body was changing for the first time. It was stretching to fit you inside. I worried about school, I worried about the future, but I never worried about you until the day we lost you. With your brother/sister, every ache scares me. Every pain screams "you could lose this baby too!" I am not so innocent anymore. It bothers me to see clueless, happy pregnant women. I want to warn them that you're never safe from losing your baby. Sometimes I really have to bite my tongue. I'm getting better at that, though. People get very offended if you suggest that pregnancy isn't just a walk in the park and a joyful thing.

I am hoping that I continue to grow this year. I hope it gets easier to be joyful and less easy to be terrified. I am hoping that your brother/sister will grow to full term and have a chance to live outside my womb. I still have so much growing to do.

I love you, Donna Rose. I wish I could watch you grow and live.

Love,

Mommy

Right Now

Today, you should be 6 months old.

You should be rolling all over the place.

You should be making your daddy run after you.

You should be smiling, giggling, and making cute sounds.

You should be eating soft foods, like cereal and 'nanas.

You should be playing on your back with toys hanging on a baby gym

But instead, you're spending the time in Heaven. You've been there a little more than 10 months, my dear. Perhaps you're starting to uncurl your baby wings. Maybe the angels sing you to sleep at night. And perhaps Jesus holds you and hugs you because Mommy can't just yet. It's so hard, my dear, to be left behind. There are days when I would give anything to change places with you because having you gone just hurts so much. Your daddy and I miss you and think about you every day. I wish we could see what you are like. How you grow and develop, if people do that kind of thing in Heaven. I love you, my little rose.