6 months

I've wondered about how adamantly baby loss mommas mark the month birthdays.  Then again, don't all parents?  Isn't it just a way to measure how time is passing, how our babies or our grief is developing?

For one thing, it seems impossible that time can go on without your baby.  Time is a dimension that has always been difficult for me to understand but has fascinated me since I read Einstein's Dreams.  The fact that time seems to be moving in a linear fashion away from V is unbelievable.  She was JUST here, but she's been gone forever like a dream.  If I think about it too much, I get lost.

Another idea that boggles the mind is looking at children that were born around the same time or even after (!) your baby.  Seeing how they've grown, changed, and met milestones while your baby stays a newborn is a paradox.  How can V be 6 months old and 2 days old, perpetually?

Then there is marveling at the fact that you've arrived here, on the other side, SIX months to the other side and you're still surviving.  Breathing.  Eating.  Laughing.  Sleeping.  Loving.  Mothering.  Any parent understands that the mere thought of losing your child makes your breath clench in your chest in thoughts that you couldn't possibly go on.  I still think that about losing E.  Yet, you do keep living, with any luck, living well and happily and that's astonishing.

The added bonus that her six month birthday falls on the same day of the week that she was born on is not lost on me.  Wednesday to Friday, every week, for 26 weeks, I've measured of her life span.

Happy 1/2 birthday, baby girl.