Four Years

It was this day, four years ago, that I woke up and knew something was not quite right.  I was in the second trimester of my pregnancy with our sweet little Brynn Collette.  I called my doctor and went in for a check-up (Dan met me there).  I knew when she showed up on the ultrasound machine, she had no heartbeat, I knew she had died.  My doctor then gave me more bad news (if possible), I would have to check into the hospital to deliver our baby - the baby I would never see grow up, never hear cry, never hold (or so I thought).  So, in a blur, we checked into the hospital and at around 2:30am on the 17th (it took a while to go into full labor), I delivered our daughter, Brynn Collette Walker. 

Four years ago, that day/night were and still are a bit of a blur to me.  I know I thought, how could God be so cruel?  How could he not only take my little girl from me, but then make me deliver her, knowing she had died.  How could he do this to ME?  I do remember this...I remember that they asked me if I wanted to hold her.  I think my family was against it (I know my brother was).  Dan told me months later that Skip and I argued about it while they were cleaning her.  I don't remember this at all.  But to this day, holding her tiny lifeless body is about all I remember from that night.  I don't really remember her whole body, but I do remember the size of her ears, her tiny fingers, her feet, her mouth.  I remember pulling the blanket off from around her and looking her over from head to toe.  She was perfect, VERY tiny, but perfect.

I did not think I was strong enough to handle such a loss - in fact I still wonder how I made it through it all.  Not that I am stronger than others, I just doubted my self.  People said stupid things to me - "God has a plan", "At least it was earlier in your pregnancy and not at the end"...It freaked people out that I talked so openly about our loss.  It made people uncomfortable, it still does. 

I still do not know exactly why this happened, I have rationalized this, as strange as it may sound, I would not have a COLE if I had a BRYNN.  I know that may sound harsh or even cruel, but I had to come to some "justification" in my heart and in my mind.  I got pregnant with Cole two months after we lost Brynn.  He would not be in our lives if she had gone full term.  AND I KNOW THAT I AM SUPPOSE TO HAVE A COLE IN MY LIFE.  He was made to be MY son.

So how do you move on, how do you make sense of things, how do you live your life with happiness and love? Well this is how...

I still mourn for Brynn, I still cry tears.  There are certain times of year, her birth day and what was to be her birthday.  I watch Private Practice and even though it is a show, it has a lot of triggers...last night was BAD, to say the least.  There are dips in the road, however the dips are not so far down I cannot recover.  It is easy to live a happy life (with a few sad moments) when you have those two faces to wake up to and go to bed to each and every day.