Jan. 6

Three years ago, I woke up feeling happy and excited. We were toying around with the idea of making an announcement at "Water Spaghetti" to P's side of the family, but decided to wait until we could tell both sets of grandparents at the same time. In hindsight, this ended up being a really good decision.

As we gathered everything together and made sure were were wearing our Steeler best for the afternoon football game at Auntie C.'s, I began to have some cramps. They were mild and I didn't think much of them since I'd been feeling the weird twinges and cramps on and off since I had my only positive peestick. As the day progressed, they turned worse and I began to spot. Then the bleeding began while we were at the dinner opening presents. We finished the evening with forced joviality with me being thankful that I hadn't emptied my purse yet and still had something for the bleeding. We took the Young'un home, stopped at a store, and I took a test. It was negative. You were gone, only tissue expelled as the week went on.

That first July was difficult as I kept seeing people with newborns everywhere. I wanted to be one of them. The second one was worse because I wanted to be planning your first birthday and wondered why so many others were blessed and we weren't.

We miss you. We love you.

Why aren't you here?