11 April 2011

Well these past 9 months have been the hardest months of my life! But you know what, they were also some of the best! Yes they have been filled with an intense pain that no one should ever have to feel... but more importantly they were filled with such extreme joy and love! So much happiness! And not just from us and not just for Lily! There was a lot of love from many, many people! And many people loved Lily (she was pretty loveable) but the love Luke and I have been shown over this time has been amazing! We both come from amazing families, but other families have popped up too like church family and work family... and others!

I remember when I first took the pregnancy test... I was home alone as Luke was at work, and I wasn't getting my hopes up, we had been trying for what seemed like a very long time (a year - I know others have tried for longer, but each month is very long when your in it!) and every month that it didn't happen was really hard, but this time, this extra line showed up on the test! I was so shocked I started to cry in happiness, but then couldn't quite believe it so did another 2 tests! Each one came back positive (it's amazing how quickly you can go toilet again if you want to!)! I literally fell to my knees and cried! It was an amazing feeling, my heart grew and I INSTANTLY fell in love with my baby! I was only 4 weeks 3 days pregnant at that stage... and I read that my baby would be the size of a poppy seed, so we nicknamed our growing baby Poppy. Every day my love for my baby grew! As did my hopes and dreams for my baby. Even when we thought we may have lost her early on, we continued to celebrate our baby and my love just kept on growing. For those first 16 weeks after we found out, until our 20 week scan I spent days wondering what our baby would be (girl or boy), what it would look like, who it would look like, what we would name it, what would it grow up to be... we started to get to know our baby's personality, by listening to the heartbeat and movements with a doppler, watching the first scans and then the movements started! They were so much fun for me... unfortunately Luke couldn't feel them yet.

Then our 20 week scan showed clearly that we were having a little girl and I fell even more in love with my baby! Now I was having a girl... I bought a lot of pink things for her! But I started to wonder... when she was old enough to choose, would she even like pink? would she want her hair long or short? Would she let me do her hair or scream every time like I know other little girls do? Would she love to sing and dance like I did when I was little? Or would she be sporty? Would she love books? Would she be a little drama queen like her daddy (by that I mean being into drama things... not that Luke's a drama queen...)? Or would she be musical (I don't know what we would do with a musical child! Neither of us are musically gifted!). They threw a lot of information at us that day... half a heart, holes, extra toes (yeah right!), but all I heard... GIRL! Not that a boy wouldn't have been just as exciting! It was just so cool to know! They told us a lot of stuff that day... yes I understood they were telling us there were massive complications... but when they asked if we had any questions... do you know the only one question I asked "how sure are you it's a girl?" hahaha

The next 16 or so weeks were filled with MANY scans and a lot of bad news... but each scan was so exciting for me, because no matter what they were going to tell me, I was going to see my baby girl again! I'm sure the scan people thought we were in denial as we would watch the screen and laugh and talk about Lily like there was nothing wrong while all the while they were waiting to tell us that things were getting worse. But I LOVED watching her and I wasn't going to let what they were going to tell me ruin these times!

Yes there were complications, but that didn't stop my love for our beautiful Lily growing! I didn't stop loving her when we learned of her "imperfections", my love still continued to grow every day, I still wondered, I still dreamed big dreams for our baby girl!

If I could go back in time, would I change it? No, I wouldn't. Of course there is NOTHING I wouldn't have given for my baby girl to be born well and whole and still be with us... I would have given her my heart if I could... but even though there is an intense pain now, I wouldn't change it, I wouldn't do things differently... even though Lily isn't with us, it was all worth it! It was totally worth it! I would much rather have Lily as she was with all her 'imperfections' than not have her at all! She was, is, and always will by, my gorgeous, first born, daughter!

Yes I still grieve for my baby girl and I wish she was still with us, but I wouldn't change her for anything! I wouldn't give her up! She was worth the time we carried her, she was worth the heartburn, she was worth not being able to eat some foods, she was worth the tiredness, she was worth everything we put into that pregnancy!

So today I am thankful for...
~*~ Love! Amazing, incredible, love! ~*~

And my positive thing for today...
~*~ Going to see the Dr Seuss exhibit at the museum... fun! ~*~