18 Days

Our friends on Facebook are already aware, as are friends from church, and our families, but I haven't yet posted here of our loss.

On Monday the 15th of February, just six hours or so after we met our child, saw her heart cells fluttering and gasped with joy, she was gone from us. We had 18 days to know that we had a child, that our love had created another soul.

Lots of consolation is offered and we appreciate it. It is hard, though, to hear story after story of "my sister had 1,2,3, some number of miscarriages and now she has 1,2,3, more healthy children." We are old enough to know that this hope isn't one we can hold, not one we can keep trying for (though, try we will, continuing to open our hearts and our bodies to the transmission of life). This may have been it, our only foray into parenthood.

I'm going to collect what we wrote and some of what was written to us to hold here.