Strong?

I should be 23 weeks pregnant today. I can't believe that I'm not.

Today someone at work said that I am a strong lady. Am I strong Jacob? I have tried to be. I tried to be strong throughout the labour. I didn’t want your Dad and everyone else to be even more worried about me, so I acted stronger than I felt most of the time. I still cried a lot though, more than I have ever let anyone see me cry before. I didn’t take much pain medication because I wanted to feel you in my body, whether it was painful or not, for as long as I could. I have tried not to be a total mess, but I haven’t always been able to win that battle. I never won that battle the first week after we lost you. I couldn’t think straight. I could put one foot in front of the other, but my mind was never there. I talked to people, but I was always thinking about you. Of course, I pretty much only talked about you and everything that happened. Somehow I get through each day at work. I feel sad all the time, but some minutes/hours are harder than others and I cry. My concentration isn’t what it was. Things that I once would have found easy take longer because I know that I’m not concentrating enough.

Am I strong when I can’t stand to see a pregnant woman is who is at the same stage that I should be? I actually hold my breath around them. I don’t know why, I just do. I feel like I am cornered, about to be attacked. I just want to run away from them, from everything that has happened, but I keep trying to act normal.

Today Julie said that she never saw my belly at its biggest because she was on vacation for the last month of my pregnancy. She sounded sad that she didn’t get to see it and the tears welled up in my eyes. My belly. How I loved knowing that you were in there. I am so empty now. I can bend over while sitting down and comfortably fix my shoes or pick something up. I hate that I can do that, that my belly doesn’t get in the way anymore.


I also found out how Alina and Ken realized I had lost you. At the meeting on Tuesday I saw them looking at me a lot.I figured they already knew and were looking at me with pity. Later that day, Ken called Ted and I guess confirmed that we lost you. It turns out that when I walked in, Alina said/asked Ken whether or not I was pregnant anymore. I guess Ken couldn’t tell and they argued back and forth about whether I was or not. Little did I know they were talking about that, it makes so much sense now since they were looking at me everytime I looked at them. Ken did say to Ted that I looked so sad in that meeting. That day was really hard since it marked 2 weeks since you were born. I so wish I was still pregnant. I can’t even tell you how much my heart aches because you aren’t inside me anymore.

Tomorrow is your memorial service. I am terrified of it. I don’t even have your ashes back from the funeral home yet. They said they would be there today or tomorrow morning. I hope they are. I don’t know if I could deal with anything else going wrong at this point.


All day I have been trying to figure out what to say at the service and I still haven’t come up with the perfect thing. I am scared to do it but you deserve for the person who loves you the most to say something. I am just dreading tomorrow.

I don’t know what the worst day of my life is. The day I found out that you died, the day I delivered you and had to say goodbye, or will the memorial service be the hardest? Right now I think it is the day I had you and had to leave the hospital without you, never to see you again except in my mind and in pictures. But probably the minute that Dr. A gave up after trying to find your heartbeat was the absolutely worst minute of my life. I don’t see how anything can ever be worse than that.

I miss you a lot. I hate that we have to bury you tomorrow. It just isn't fair.

Love you forever,
Mommy