The one I never got to meet xx

I don't talk about this much, so debated with myself whether to write a post on this, but the point of this blog was to be open and honest about my journey of becoming and being a mum, so here I am, being open and honest about the baby I never got to meet, on the day he/she would have turned one....

The one I never got to meet....how can it be that I loved someone so much, even though I never met them? I've never understood that, but it's how it was. How it is. When you lose someone who you know, the loss is about memories, an empty space that they used to fill, the thought of how you go on without them in your life. When you lose someone you never knew, how can it be just as hard? Well, it's not about the memories, but the loss of the memories you had already imagined yourself creating. It's not about the empty space they used to fill, but the space in your family that you were waiting for them to fill and already imagined them filling. The thought of how you go on without them in your life? Well that's just the same. How do you go on, knowing that you will never get to meet this little person, to see them grow, to watch them play, to see them smile? The list goes on. The pain that you feel is immense. One moment all your dreams are coming true and you are imagining your whole life ahead of you with this new addition to your family - you can't help but imagine - and the next, it's all gone, just like that. The problem is, that by this point, though it's all imagining, it just seems so real, so why? Why couldn't it just become real? That's the question I asked myself for weeks after we lost our baby at 3 months.

The weeks went by and I had no choice but to pull myself together. Did I fall apart along the way? Yes. Did I feel like it was the end of the world? Yes. Did I wonder if that was going to be my one and only chance of having a baby? Yes. There was something though, and I'm not quite sure what it was, that gave me strength and got me through. Maybe it was my husband holding it together for both of us, maybe it was my mum praying for me from across the miles, maybe it was God giving me the courage to keep going. Who knows, but here I am with my rainbow baby, Mia, and I couldn't be happier to have somehow kept going.

There was a time when I thought of losing our baby every single day, multiple times a day. Everything would remind of him/her, and I seemed to be surrounding by pregnant women - at work, in the street, on TV - everywhere! Now? Well I haven't forgotten by any means, but I just have a different way of coping. I have my moments when I go back to that time, and what could have been, but I'm fortunate enough to be able to hold on to my Mia now and that gives me comfort. Not that Mia is a replacement for the one I never got to meet - not at all - but the comfort comes from the fact that I consider myself so very fortunate that Mia arrived safe and healthy, following our first loss.

Today would have been his/her first birthday, going by our due date. The time has flown by and it's been a whirlwind of emotions along the way. The heartache we felt still runs deep, but we have come to terms with the fact that there was nothing we could have done to change the situation. I can't help but wonder, what would he/she be like now? Would they be walking? What would they be like in nature? What would they look like? Just a lot of questions, and none that can be answered. 

Wherever you are my angel baby, I hope you know I think of you often. I miss you. My heart still aches for you and what could have been, but it was not meant to be. 

It's hard. Really hard.

Happy birthday my darling angel. I love you x