Their birthdays are ironically close together. Perhaps this is why I rarely think of one without the other. One, carried beneath my heart for too short of a time. The other, the daughter of my heart. I think of them at random times, like this morning in the shower when the achingly few memories flooded over me. The email we received telling us about a little girl not yet born. The many congratulations from doctors and nurses as they canceled my unrelated surgery because I was pregnant. “Emily is a miracle and doing well”. A box of kleenex and a private waiting room from a sensitive receptionist while waiting for the final ultrasound. “I just wanted to let you know that baby Emily has gone home with her adoptive family”. The hopeful ultrasound tech. who then grieved with me as the screen revealed what I already knew. Tears on my sisters faces as they grieved with me. Many damp pillows in the night.
Memories. My daughters. I rarely go into the world of imagining life where Emily came home with us or if that little heart had kept beating. I don’t want to. I am thankful for the memories that I have, even if they hurt so much that I can hardly breath. I am blessed with the two little warm bodies that I got to snuggle in the wee hours of this morning. I am blessed to pray for a little girl who will soon turn three whom I will only ever know as “Emily”. She will never know me but I believe that her life will still be touched by mine. I am blessed because I experienced the incredible joy of a life within my womb. If I were in charge of the writing of my story, it would be different, but in a way that I can’t find the words to explain, I am richer for these memories.