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There are still a ton of emotions that go into having more children after a loss. I certainly didn’t think I’d have another. I sure didn’t want to experience that loss again. I thought I was supposed to adopt actually. Yup, that’s right, at about the time we lost our angel baby another friend of mine was beginning the process of adopting a little girl with Down Syndrome from the Ukraine. I thought I was supposed to do that. I picked out a little boy I wanted to adopt and everything.
Ultimately that didn’t come to fruition. I doubt it ever will happen, but you never know. But when I got pregnant with my youngest I spent my entire pregnancy being terrified of what would happen to her. And now she’s here and has been for the past two years, but there has been something I have had to come to grips with.
She Wouldn’t Be Here If Her Sister Had Lived
As I was sitting and snuggling with my youngest and just stopping to smell the roses the other day it suddenly dawned on me I wouldn’t have been doing that if things had happened differently. Well, it didn’t suddenly dawn on me because this thought pops into my head on a regular basis. If her sister had made it though she would be four years old. We wouldn’t have gone on to have a 5th, but if we did I don’t know that SHE would have been the one I got. And I couldn’t imagine my life without my little cuddle bug. And yet losing a baby was the hardest thing I have ever had to deal with in my life.
But I Miss My Angel Baby Terribly
Not a day goes by that I don’t think about the one that I lost. Wondering who she would look most like or who she would act most like. What would her favorite bed time story be? Would she like dolls or cars? Would she like school? Would she be good at it?
I don’t dwell on this a lot. Just random thoughts throughout the day. When something happens or I hear about a child who would be around her age. She’s a part of us still even though she’s not with us, but going on to have more children after a loss can be complicated.
I treat my youngest differently than I did the others. Not bad different, but I’m different. I’m a different mother because of the loss. I use to take things for granted, but now I don’t because I know every day is a blessing. So that has come out in my parenting I think. It’s a strange feeling though thinking that if the worst, hardest, most depressing thing of my life hadn’t happened then I wouldn’t have this amazing, beautiful, smart little girl wrapping me in hugs that feel like heaven.
Sometimes I just don’t know what to do with these thoughts. As much as I wish I didn’t lose my child and I wish she were here I also know that taking that away would not make me better. It truly is better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all.
While the sentiment that you’re young you can have more is mostly meant to make us feel better, it’s just so much more complicated than that. Every child you have after the loss you then struggle with, would you even be here if I hadn’t lost one before you? And that’s life. Choices, mixed with bits of fate to lead us on a path where the ending is always the same. So I guess we have just got to live the best life we know how with what we’ve been given. I’ve been given so many gifts and I count my angel baby amongst my gifts. And my four children here with me mean that much more to me know because of her. And that’s why my angel baby is with me always because I wouldn’t be the mother I am today without her.
What are your gifts in life?
