Bittersweet

     It's been four years since Larissa's birth.  It's surreal.  It's still raw.  It seems so long ago but still hurts like it was yesterday.  Four years ago my heart was shattered into a trillion little pieces.  Four years ago I never thought I would smile again or feel any joy.
     Four years after losing Larissa I frantically work to prepare a monster bash for Austin's first  birthday.  It's bittersweet...cupcakes, balloons, banners and tears.  Happiness and gratefulness for my precious one year old son and my almost three year old daughter.  However, sadness lingers.  A sadness and a longing for my precious firstborn whom would have been four.  It's incomprehensible that I should have a four year old.  She would have been four.  She should be here and she should be four.
     She gave us two little blessings that restored that love and joy that our shattered lives needed.  Is it coincidence that Austin's birthday is the day before Larissa's?  Or did she want to stop seeing us so sad on her birthday that she gave us Austin to bring us joy again?  It's another question without an answer.  That's what makes infant loss so devastating.  We lost a lifetime with Larissa and are left with so much wonder.
     Last year, I remembered Larissa in the same hospital on the same day we met her as I cuddled and nurtured our new bundle.  I remember the pain I was in from my second C-section.  It was an intense pain but was no comparison to the emotional pain we had endured three years prior.  That pain is still there and it never goes away and we will never forget our precious newborn.  However, on Larissa's fourth birthday I was sad and grateful.  My heart, once again, feels a love so strong it hurts, but in a good way.  I spent Austin's first birthday transforming our house into a monster bash so spectacular that there wasn't a monster detail forgotten.  In between frosting cupcakes, cooking food and decorating, I remember our precious Larissa and the gifts she gave to us.  I reviewed and revised her packets and we, as a family, delivered them to the hospital.  We took Ambree to pick out balloons that we left at her grave.  We put a cake balloon in the ground that Ambree very excitedly sang Happy Birthday to her big sister.  Ironically, there were four candles on that cake balloon that Ambree proudly counted out loud.  So yes, tears streamed down my face as Ambree sang to her big sister but I also smiled.  I smile for what we have and I long for what we have lost.
     Larissa's with us though.  She watches over her sister and brother.  I know they are the gifts she gave us.  Every year on Larissa and Austin's birthday I celebrate all three of my  children.  However, even with the challenges parenting brings, I celebrate my kids daily.  I recognize I have two little miracles at home and I certainly don't need a birthday to have a celebration.  Each and every day with my babies is a gift and a celebration in and of itself.
   

Continues to Sting...

    It will be four years in November that we lost our precious first born, Larissa, to full-term stillbirth.  The loss of a child is a loss so deep that only another parent whom has lost a child can truly relate to that pain.  Time doesn't lessen the pain, rather one builds a hard exterior to it.  But that pain is carried by me daily.  I experience that pain whenever my two living children hit a milestone, celebrate a birthday, make me smile or even when they frustrate me.  But sadly, and more irritating than anything, I feel that pain and re-live my own loss with the birth of every newborn around me. It's certainly not because I feel resentment or jealousy toward any of the proud new parents, but because it's different for me. 

     When a new baby enters this world, I have flashbacks to the night I was scheduled to be induced with Larissa. Visions of the nurse frantically searching for the familiar 'swish, swish, swish' of life inside me as we heard the dreaded words 'there's no heartbeat.' Words and a night I put in a 'safe' place. A place created by me where I tucked that horrific, life changing night, for it to somehow rear it's ugly head every time a new parent welcomes their screaming bundle. 

     It's almost four years and I've had two more children since then, so people no longer protect me. I'm subjected to the excitement one would naturally feel as a friend, acquaintance and/or family member gives birth and everyone excitedly discusses the details of the birth and admires the new photos. I look and I discuss.  Dare I say I'm even happy for the new parents? I am happy for them, but I'm so very sad. With every discussion regarding a new birth and every photo shared, I flashback to the first night I gave birth and what a different scenario panned out.  I try to suppress the salty tears I feel flooding my eyes as I get away from the excitement, but those tears I shed for what I have lost.  The greatest loss of all losses.  We lost our firstborn.  We lost the excitement of being a new parent.  We lost the joy of bringing baby home, hearing her first cry, giving the first bottle, bath, her first steps...we lost a lifetime with our little girl. 

     So, when another couple welcomes their baby, I sadly recount all that I have lost. I'm the mom to three children, one which I was robbed of every opportunity to parent.  I don't want to feel sad, but it's in me. It bubbles up to a point I'm unable to control and it overflows with those tears that I try so hard to suppress. Tears that represent the sting of losing a child. A sting that never fully heals and is always with us.  A sting that may be duller on some days than others but a sting that reminds us of what should have been.