On This Day

Nine years ago today I gave birth to a baby boy, who probably would have weighed about nine pounds if he had not lost so much blood. He looked alot like Iain and he looked alot like me. He lived about 36 hours. The purpose of this post is not to re-hash his death and how horrific that was. It is too painful of a process and I rarely do it anymore.

The purpose of this post, however, is to talk about what this day does to me now. Nine years later.

On this day, I have him on my mind all day long. It is a heavy weight but I relish it in a way...it is a time that I feel like I can devote to that, and I don't have much time for that anymore.

On this day, no matter how ill-behaved our living breathing children are, I seem to be able to renew my patience, my gratitude and my ability to put things in perspective. That is a real gift. I know horrific and terrible, and nothing that I experience in my day to day life at this point is either! Temper tantrums pass (and I had some doozies today), crayon can be washed off, messes can be cleaned up. My dad had a philosophy that if it wont matter in two weeks, don't waste too much time worrying about it today. I take that one step further. If nobody is dying, you can fight through it, work it out, clean it up, make it better or sleep it off.

So, on this day, hug and kiss your kids and give yourself a break. Keep it in perspective. And pray for those who have lost a child to miscarriage, still birth or infant death.

~Christie