The Month of March

The last few nights, I've fallen asleep listening to the Jewel Lullaby CD. I usually don't even allow myself to go there because I know how it makes me miss her. When I was pregnant, I would turn it up so loud and sing at the top of my lungs to my wild child squirming around happily in my belly. Listening to it now evokes such deep emotion in me. Into the pillow, I cry my eyes out, the kind of crying that comes from your very core.

I didn't need to hear those bittersweet lullabies to be reminded of what month it is. What this month meant to me last year. What this month will always mean to me. And I wonder, will the entire month of March always have this fog over it?...this fog that I can't escape. This fog that brings me to deep belly sobs and feeling a deep ache in my heart that I thought was reserved for the first days and weeks after saying goodbye to her.

Yet, here I am again. Here I am feeling all those same things that I thought I left behind in March, April, May of 2010. My arms are aching and my heart is yearning for a little girl that whispered goodbye an entire year ago. How could it possibly already be a year? A year since I last felt her kick. A year since I was blissfully pregnant, my dreams for her life safe and secure. A year since that monitor was put up to my swollen belly and those dreadful words filled by ears: "I'm so sorry. Her heart is no longer beating." And suddenly those dreams and plans were snatched away from me forever. Stolen.

It started in February...leading up to March. Knowing it was right around the corner and I'd have to face the month that I like the least, the month that I haven't lived in since I've been so utterly heartbroken, more so than I ever dreamed possible.

Then came the beginning of March and how my heart literally hurt and suddenly it was hard to breathe all over again. And the memories come rushing back and my mind wonders to the beginning of last March and how we all wondered who had guessed the correct date that she'd arrive in this world. And every day that passed, we'd say so and so wasn't right. I bet it'll be the date I picked.

And then March 11th came and I remembered how March 11th last year was the last appointment I had. The last ultrasound I had. The last time I heard her precious heart beating. And then I begin to wonder if there is something I should have done different. Something I didn't catch and somehow it's my fault.

And I blink my eyes and it's March 12th. March 12th - the day I guessed she'd be born. But, now I believe, that's the day she was born into Heaven. That's the day my sciatica pain started and it felt like her body was floating to one side or the other. People are always asking how I didn't realize she had stopped kicking. But, I was never pregnant before. I didn't know what was normal and what wasn't normal. I thought she ran out of room and that's why I didn't feel her kicks. Was it my fault?

Then March 13th...the day this picture was taken at my friend's baby shower. She was already gone in this picture, yet there I was smiling, proud thinking she would be arriving any day. Proud to say I was 39 weeks, 6 days pregnant. We went to eat at Pizza Hut that night. I loved those personal pan cheese pizzas throughout my pregnancy. My sister even gave me a gift card to use there at Christmas!

Here I am...facing "March 14th." Those words slipped out of my mouth more times than I could ever remember whenever I was asked when are you due? And then I'd giggle a little and tell whoever was asking that March 14th is National Potato Chip Day, so we call her Spud.

Two days away from her birthday. It feels as if I should be able to push the pause button so I can focus on all these emotions and feelings that I don't know what to do with. This raw pain that's coursing through me. But, time moves on with no regard for who it leaves behind. It's approaching so quickly and I still haven't even decided what to do special for her birthday.

Before I know it, all the days in between March 16th and March 26th will be here and I'll remember how deeply my heart grieved. The shock I was in. How my body felt so weak. The phantom kicks. The longing, aching, yearning that could never be put to words, so I won't even try. How my milk came in, like a slap in the face that my own body would hurt me like that. Then March 26th...her memorial service. And the 27th, the day she was put in the earth and showered with tears, rose and lily petals, and dirt. The day I left a piece of me in the ground in Virginia.

So you see, it's not just March 16th that hurts. It's the entire month of March. It's every day that I live without her. Every day that reminds me of her. Every day that should have been a day with her by my side.

My mind tells me that March 16th shouldn't be just another day for anyone. And it most certainly shouldn't be a happy day. Shouldn't everyone be pausing and reflecting on what March 16th was to me, is to me, and will always be to me?

It feels almost wrong to celebrate without her, yet I will celebrate her life. I will rejoice that she was. I will trust that God has a plan and that nothing I could have, should have done might have saved her. I won't replay all the what ifs? Instead, I will trust, trust, trust that He loves.

And I will go on loving her forever and a day...

Tweet