Caroline, our rainbow baby after losing our first child, Melanie, a little over a year ago, is almost 3 and a half months old. I have no idea how 3 months have already passed with her being here with us. It's been a blur of car trips, doctors appts, naps on the couch, and sweet sweet cuddles with a baby that smells of lavender. She is perfect in every way, her little button nose and the way she stares into my eyes during the last feed of the night before bedtime. I sing "you are my sunshine" and "lullaby" by the dixie chicks softly to her while she smiles around the nipple in her mouth.
All the moments I have with my little rainbow are so bittersweet. I will be watching her lower lip tremble or light up in a sudden, bright smile during sleep and it will hurt how much I love her and how much I miss her sister. I frequently carry Melly bear around with me when I am feeling like I need to be closer to her. All of these things I see Caroline doing and learning, Melanie will never be here to do those things. People ask me if she has any siblings or how many kids we have and I always say 2. It hurts my heart that no one will be able to see my beautiful first born with her dark hair and the same button nose that Caroline sports.
In the mornings we bring Caroline into bed with us and watch her coo and smile and kick her legs and I love those moments where it is just us relaxing and enjoying the moments we have together. Something is always missing, someone. There should be another little girl laying in bed with us watching her little sister and being upset we aren't paying attention to her instead. It just feels so fundamentally wrong for her to not be here. There is this huge gaping whole in my family that I can never fill. I can't do anything about it and it's tearing me up. I can calm my 3 month old even when she is at her grouchiest and put her to sleep in her crib and juggle housework and a fussy baby, but I cannot make my other daughter come back.
Her tiny fingers and sausage toes. Her perfectly formed lips. Over a year later, I still ask myself everyday, how can she be dead? How could it be so easy to have Caroline and everything go so well, and my other baby be dead?
I guess this is nothing I haven't already said before many times here at glow. I just wish and hope everytime I post that maybe this time it will make me feel better, maybe this time it will provide some modicum of peace to my heart.
I wish I had the words to make my loss beautiful and meaningful and something interesting and gravity defying. It just feels like a lump of fucking rock in my heart. It's all jaggedy and sharp no matter where you try to grab it. It's heavy as shit and it's black as black can be. My loss doesn't feel beautiful or something to be honored. It hasn't changed me to be a more understanding person or a better mother, friend, spouse. There has been no benefit to anyone, losing Melanie. She is gone and it fucking sucks. I hate it every day, every time I think of her. I hate watching my husband when he comes home from a long day at work and I ask him how it was and he said it sucked. I ask what was so bad and more times than not he says he missed Melanie all day. My mother and mother in law are always telling me how much they miss Melanie. I come here and I see more and more moms joining this "club", telling their heartbreaking stories of loss and terrible pain. I hate it for them as much as I hate it for myself.
We just keep trudging through the mud and shit of other people who say insensitive things and keep having babies with natural births and nary a blip on their pregnancy journey. It's as if we haven't been through enough without watching everyone else get along fantastically.
Ok I think my rant is over. My brain has just wandered off into a place where shit just sucks with a vague sense of sadness.

Oh MellyBelly,
I feel everything you wrote is a reflection of how I feel. I know that our stories are different and I thank God that I got the time I did with Janice but what you said about something... someone always missing. It isn't fair. Why were we selected to have to have the missing smiles in our pictures,in our lives? I know how difficult it is to tell people you have 2 children when they will never be able to meet the other. How it hurts wanting to see what they would look like and be doing now.
Be gentle with yourself.
My heart goes out to you Melanie, Caroline and your husband. I am glad that you have Caroline and she is doing well at 3 months.

I appreciate this post, MellyBelly. As one of the newer members of this horrible club, I find it oddly soothing when others share honest thoughts such as "it fucking sucks." I hate that there is a club to begin with but having others along the path, being heartbreakingly honest, somehow provides an ounce of comfort. Baby-loss is horrible. It fucking sucks. There is no magical meaning to it. I am not a better person because of it. Thank you for saying it...