Two Months ....

We're here ....

We've made it two months ...

On this path we never choose ....

The path of grief ....

Does anyone ever expect this? 

I mean really ?

I didn't .... I didn't expect this pain to touch me until much later ...

Until I was older ...

Right ?

Isn't that what we all choose to think. Yes, we know death could come. We don't know the year, the day, the hour or the minute , but it could touch us or a loved one at any second. 

It's human instinct I think to believe it won't happen anytime soon ...

So I have had to learn to give grace ...

 Learning that sometimes people just don't know what to say .

So there are those who say nothing ...

Which hurts the heart of a Mama who wants everyone to acknowledge her child ...

I 'm trying to understand that they just don't get it, they never met Samuel , so to them he probaly wasn't real 

If only they knew ...

If only they just closed their eyes and imagined ...

What it would have been like in the moment their baby was placed in their arms, and they felt that unconditional love .....

If they had had only hours to hold and love on their baby ....

and then said goodbye ....

Because a mother's love doesn't come after years ...

It comes the moment you find out your pregnant 

 and in that first moment after you make the final push with your body 

 and you hold your baby ...

 You are lost in a love that you know will never fade away ....

That love doesn't fade if your baby passes away ....

Instead your stuck in a world of love and deep sadness ....

So when the results came back :

My placenta, my fluid and the cord that joined me to Samuel ..

 Full of infection. 

Started from my body, made it's way through after I had labored ..

Was there even before the surgery to try to keep him put ...

Which meant the infection was in my Samuel, 

My sweet doctor looked and me and said " Shannon, even if you could have held on a few more weeks, it was too late, He would have suffered trying so hard to live, fighting off an infection he would have not been strong enough to fight outside of your body. 

Some of the weight came off my shoulders in that moment, but not the pain ...

It was too late ...

Could this have been prevented ? 

I have no doubt.

If everything had been caught early enough ....

If only the doctor that I had tried to tell I was having contractions just two weeks before it became an emergency, had listened and not brushed me off ...

Then Maybe ...

If the infection had been caught early enough and treated ...

Then Maybe ...

If the surgery had been weeks before instead of a desperate last resort ...

Then no doubt my Samuel would still be here ....

but :

For some reason It was not meant to be ...

Otherwise those steps would have fallen into place ...

Does that help ?

Not really ..

I still wish Samuel

 was here ...

I'm human ..

I feel loss, pain, hurt and sadness ...

Just as easy as I feel happiness and joy ..

So I wish :

That I didn't have to walk into the doctors waiting room and see pregnant bellies everywhere ...

Not making eye contact, praying none of them would ask me when my baby is due ..

Holding it in until my throat hurt, only to break down when I got put in a room...

I wish I didn't tear up every time someone says " I'm so sorry about your baby "

I wish the sight of you with your baby , or with your baby still tucked safely inside your womb ...

Didn't make me feel like I was being kicked while I was already down ...

I'm happy for your joy ...

 but it's a reminder ...

Of what we lost ...

I really wish I had spent two hours last night washing baby clothes , but instead I spent it trying to pick out the perfect flower arrangement for the top of my son's headstone ....

I really wish I wasn't in the category of one of the six women last year whose babies died at the hospital I delivered in ....

That is my reality though ...

That's the path I have been given ...

and now :

I have empty arms ....

Arms that were ready for Samuel ..

So this is where we are right now ....

It's not getting easier but we are figuring out how to live without him ...

The other night John and I started to list the things we were thankful for:

We had to...

If we didn't we will never get out of the deep pit ....

We take Joy and we are Thankful :

~ That Samuel never suffered , never knew pain ...

~ That we will never have to see him hurt ...

~ That we will never have to see him sad or cry ... 

~ That we will never have to watch him suffer with an illness ...

~ We will never feel anger or frustration with him ... 

~ We will never have to watch him struggle with anything life would have dished out at him ..

~ We will never wait up late at night for him to get home, praying he is kept safe ...

and it goes on .......

Of course there's the other side of that ....

Which is everything we will miss ...

but 

We try not to go there ....

That would just make all this so much worse ...

 We take comfort that Samuel is safe. He is Heaven, He is home ....

So when we close our eyes at night, We don't worry about Sam ...

We just miss him .....

 We are only 2 months into a lifetime of missing him ...

Which also means we are 2 months closer to holding him again ....

That's the silver lining folks !

We live on Faith and Hope ...