Kennedy's death certificate came in the mail today (Friday) - on her 3 month birthday. I cried for her the hardest I have in the past month. There's something about seeing it on paper that was heart wrenching.
Exactly 12 weeks ago I was getting to my hospital room after saying goodnight to Kennedy (still numb from my c-section just a few hours before) in the NICU on her first night of life.
Mommy and Daddy still miss you every second of every day, Kennedy ♥
Life Ain't Always Beautiful
Gary Allan
Life ain't always beautiful
Sometimes it's just plain hard
Life can knock you down, it can break your heart
Life ain't always beautiful
You think you're on your way
And it's just a dead end road at the end of the day
But the struggles make you stronger
And the changes make you wise
And happiness has its own way of takin it's sweet time
No, life ain't always beautiful
Tears will fall sometimes
Life ain't always beautiful
But it's a beautiful ride
Life ain't always beautiful
Some days I miss your smile
I get tired of walkin all these lonely miles
And I wish for just one minute
I could see your pretty face
Guess I can dream, but life don't work that way
But the struggles make you stronger
And the changes make you wise
And happiness has its own way of takin it's sweet time
No, life ain't always beautiful
But I know I'll be fine
Hey, life ain't always beautiful
But it's a beautiful ride
What a beautiful ride
Tomorrow will be 5 weeks since we said goodbye. 5 weeks since I last held Kennedy in my arms or heard her cry. 5 weeks since she opened her sweet eyes or smiled. It feels like forever.
And Monday I go back to work. To say I'm anxious would be an understatement. I no longer can pretend that life has just stopped. It's so much easier to hide out (not that any of it has been easy) and I won't have that luxury anymore. I won't be able to not get out of bed because it's too hard or burst into tears out of nowhere. No - I'll have to smile and put on a show. I'll have to hide the mess that I am.
I have to go back to "real" life and it scares the shit out of me. Mostly because it doesn't feel like real life anymore. It feels like a bad dream that I can never wake up from where everything I do (even if its absolutely nothing) is a complete struggle. It feels completely unnatural. And I'm sure that one day the struggle won't be as hard, but it will always be there. This is my life now and no matter how "easy" it gets, it will never change. Something will always be missing - a piece of me will always be missing here.
Wish me luck as I go back to "real" life.
Last week was rough.
My postpartum check up was last Monday. I didn't even make it out of the waiting room without crying. Sitting there watching all the big, cute pregnant women come in with their healthy pregnancies. All the new moms with their cute newborns getting their postpartum check ups too. And me. Alone.
I cried giving a urine sample (I know - TMI). I cried on the scale - though I would've cried there anyway! My nurse cried. My OBGYN cried.
It was just one more reminder of my empty arms.
To make the week even harder, I had the first stranger ask about Kennedy. Well, he asked when my baby was due (now you know why I would've cried on the scale no matter what). And instead of going imto detail or telling him I didn't have a daughter, I just smiled while I held back my tears to tell him, "Actually, I just gave birth". I told him all about my baby girl. Except that she was gone. It was hard enough to deal with the sting of be so caught of guard.
It's now been 4 weeks and 1 day since I last held Kennedy and it feels like the days since then have past so slowly.
Mommy misses you little angel ♥
Kennedy would be 2 months old today so my husband and I went to her grave to visit as I plan to do every month for this first year. We celebrated her first month "birthday" in the hospital so I want to keep it going.
It was hard. The ground is still fresh. It's been exactly 2 weeks since we burried her. And I realized I buried more than just our sweet baby and some of her belongings that day - some things I hope one day I'll get back and some things I know I never will.
Like my innocence. It's gone and buried forever. I'll never be able to be blissfully unaware of all that can go wrong during pregnancy or birth. I'll never again be oblivious to how lucky it is to have a healthy pregnancy, to have a healthy baby.
My hope. I held onto it until her last day. Maybe one day I'll be able to get my hope back, to be able to carry it with me wherever I go.
And most importantly, my meaning, my purpose, are buried deep under ground with Kennedy. Without her here, my purpose in life is gone. My meaning in life is gone. These are the things I desperately hope to have back one day. I hope one day these fill my heart again. But for now, they're gone.
I buried more than my baby that day and I'm not sure how much of it is gone forever.
