The worst first birthday
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This guest post is by Danielle, who, by way of introduction says: Pia was born still a few days after doctors sent her and her mom Danielle home in preterm labor at 35 weeks. They said "the worst case is she goes to the NICU for a few days.” We were prepared to spend our first few nights with our first child in the hospital, not a lifetime without her.
Yesterday was her first birthday, and, like all days, it was absolutely devastating. (I guess on her birthday you're just allowed to make more gut-wrenching sounds while crying into her urn.)
I am in disbelief.
Do we really have to do this, every year, for the rest of our lives? And then do it all over again, with each holiday that comes up, with each milestone she was robbed of, with each breath she didn't get to take? And again and again, every day, for all of eternity...? (Except on the other days I have to try to hide it inside and act like a semi-functional human being.)
I am so angry.
My head could explode thinking of all the scenarios in which she would have been here yesterday, smiling like a clam watching her big doggy sister swim for the first time in Lake Michigan. (Instead, that life that was stolen from us because of negligence.)
I am also just exhausted.
In one year I have been through three pregnancies, one labor, two D&C's, and now a first round of IVF. Our only option is to try what science has to offer, even though every doctor has said it is a waste of our money. (It probably is. But at this point we are so incredibly desperate, we don't know what else to do.)
I am done.
TEN people I know gave birth to living children this week. TEN. Some their first, some the second, some the third. How is it we don’t even get one?
I don’t know how this will ever get better. I don't know how the void of her won’t consume everything. I don't know how I will ever have a good life. (Or any life at all.)
No one’s first birthday party should look like this.
No one's first birthday party should look like this, but this is all we've got.
Birthdays and anniversaries are hard, and the first may be the hardest. Anger, exhaustion, loneliness - not the typical birthday feelings and often just ‘too much’ for those around us. How do you get through?