January 4, 2015
The toy room was going to become the nursery. As soon as we found out Olivia was a girl, Lily was ready to start getting the nursery ready for her. It seemed too early (I was still having trouble believing that everything was working out this time) and I told Lily we would wait until after Christmas. I did however start pinning some ideas for an all-girl nursery. With Lily, I wanted to be practical, so everything was gender neutral. With Olivia, our last child, I could girlify things to my heart's delight.
I hadn't spent time in that room since Olivia's death. But over Christmas break we systematically cleaned each room. That meant the toy room, which in my absence could no longer even be entered due to toys everywhere, had to be faced. I cleaned it for quite a while before it dawned on me how different this was than we had planned. We should have been clearing it out to make the nursery after Christmas. Instead we were just putting toys away.
Over the last nine years, I've had eight pregnancies. Two ended in the births of my daughters, Lily (8) and Ella (5). Five have ended in losses between 5 and 16 weeks. Chemical pregnancy, miscarriage, missed miscarriage, ectopic pregnancy, and late miscarriage are all part of my history. Finally, my 8th and final pregnancy, brought us our baby boy, Will, who has Down syndrome. With the loss of Olivia at 16 weeks on October 5, 2014, I turned to writing as a way to work through the challenges.
No comments:
Post a Comment