A letter to my sweet Baby D

Dear Grant,
This morning, as I sit in the quiet of my favorite part of the day, I'm thinking of you.  Today is your due date.  I know that doesn't mean that this is the day that we definitely would've met you, but it is the date I will forever associate with you.

We found out about you on Valentine's Day before church.  Your daddy and I could barely contain our smiles as we walked into church with our exciting secret.  I'm fairly certain that our feet didn't even touch the ground that day.  We were so excited to tell your grandparents about you and we tried to think of clever ways to let them know the big news.

A week later we found out the exciting news that you would be set to get a cousin due on October 24.  How incredible for you to be able to not only have a cousin close in age to you but only days older or younger.  The excitement built as your Aunt Sarah and I got to dream about our babies together.

The following weeks were filled with a flurry of emotion (and a lot of your dad bringing me ginger ale and saltines) we experienced extreme happiness and the normal worries than any new mom experiences, I just wanted everything to be ok.  On March 24, we heard the most incredible sound we had ever heard before, your little heartbeat.  It sounded like a little clock.  We recorded it on our phone so that we could share it with our family.  Ok, lets be honest I probably shared it with a lot of other people too, I'm not sure how amused random people in the grocery store were when I made them listen to it.  hehe

I loved dreaming about you, asking your dad over and over if he thought you'd be a boy or a girl (and let me tell you he humored me every time and answered even on the bajillionth time I asked), and going over names to find the perfect ones that fit.

April 14 we saw you on an ultrasound.  It was amazing.  We wanted to go to the hospital to have it done so we'd get the big pictures instead of the flimsy tissue paper-like ones.  Another day marked with excitement and anticipation for your fall arrival.

Not too long after that I became noticeably pregnant and I loved every minute of it.  I loved showing my bump off because I got to show you off.  Your dad would talk to you and make me laugh as he did.

We were so in love with you and the only things that we knew about you were that we had heard your heartbeat (the sweetest sound in the world) and that you were in there.  Such a strange thing to be in love with someone you know so little about.

Moving forward to the hard part.  After spending 20 weeks 6 days with you, we found out that something had happened and that you were no longer alive.  We could hardly believe the news and we were so sad.  There are so many times where I have had to give the guilty feeling of "how did I not know" back to God because he is better equipped to carry that than I am.

You were born on June 3, a Thursday, a very brave Thursday.  After a whirlwind of extreme sadness and labor there was relief.  I felt such peace when I got to see you.  We were surprised to learn you were a boy, though I think I would've been surprised either way.  We only had one boy name picked out and we knew it was for you, Grant David.  So much emotion wrapped up into just a few moments as we got to see you (your mother she is an emotional woman, she cries at peanut butter commercials).

At that time I think I really thought that was the end.  You had such a short life on this earth and I can truly say that I enjoyed every moment I had with you.  In the four months since June 3, I've come to realize that wasn't the end of your story, it was merely the beginning or just part of your story.  Grant you have touched so many lives through your story.  It was through our experience with you that your daddy and I came to a deeper, fuller, richer faith and a stronger more rooted relationship with each other.  Really Grant, you brought us closer in every relationship that we have.

As a mom, I dreamed about all the things we'd teach you, the things you'd learn, and I hoped for all of the ways that you'd touch people's lives.  I had hoped that your life on earth would've been long.  I never would've chosen this path for us, for you.  But, I never would've imagined the number of people who have been touched by your short little life, by your story, by the way you changed us, and by the way God has changed us (for the better) through these circumstances.  It is just like God to take a story that I thought was over and continue to use it.

 Today is a Brave Thursday and I'll be thinking of you.  It doesn't have to be a day marked with sadness, though I know it is ok to be sad too.

I love you, I always will.

Love,
Mommy