Tis the Season

I can't believe its already the middle of October. This year has flown by. So much has happened. I keep telling myself to just hang in there, that 2010 will be a better year for us. Words can't even express how disappointed I am in how everything turned out. I was thinking back to January. I remember thinking "a new year, a fresh start." There were so many things we were looking forward to doing in 2009. Buy our first house together, start our family, living in peace. It all seemed so simple and easy to obtain. Just little dreams, nothing big. We didn't want to win the lottery or anything. It would have been nice if we did, but just the basic dreams were all we were seeking.

Everyone says, "You can never fully be ready for a family." I beg to differ. I don't know how much more "ready" we could have been. Not only did I feel we were ready for Luke but we were ready for a family. Rob and I wanted to have our children back to back. With only a year or so in between, God willing. I remember when we found out we were pregnant, everything changed. We went from doing fun, crazy spontaneous stuff together to putting our little family first. Looking for the newer, bigger house, searching the internet for the highest grade car seat, researching about organic diapers. We put all our eggs in one basket, our Luke basket.

Our eggs are broken, so now what?

The season is changing, and my heart is so heavy. I had envisioned the 2009 holiday season with me fat and happy. Waddling around in my HUGE maternity clothes. Luke's room all done, all his new clothes washed, his newborn diapers arranged perfectly in his dresser. Everything all ready for his arrival.

I was looking forward to buying him his first stocking this year. His due date was New Year's Day but I still wanted to have it all ready to go in case he decided to grace us a little early. Oh, the dreams I had for my little boy. I was hoping to have that stocking forever, one that would be hung up every year until he was a daddy. A stocking that I would keep until he had his first baby to pass it down to.

A year that start out with so much anticipation and excitement ended up being the hardest year of my life. I have had disappointment and heartache before, but never like this. Deep down I still have dreams for us, but sadly, they are so deep I can't even see them right now.

Many people have asked us if we will start trying again and the question always catches me off guard. It's a question that seems so foreign, so distant, but so close and familiar at the same time. Rob and I were totally in family mode and now its like the button just turned off. Not by choice obviously, but nonetheless, off.

I know that we will one day want to try again but right now the thought seems so inappropriate. I know it hasn't been that long since we lost Luke, but it almost seems like the pain is more real and intense then it has ever been. It's almost like the shock is gone and the realization has set in. The realization that our little boy is gone.

I think about being pregnant. I loved every moment of it. But I loved it because it was Luke I was carrying. When I envision a baby's face, its Luke's face I see. When I envision a nursery, it's Luke's nursery I see. When I envision myself holding my baby, it is Luke that I am holding.

I keep wishing that I could press rewind. That one day soon someone would come knocking on my door to say that this was all just a test to see how much I loved my son, and that the mean little game that they had played on me was over and that I would get to start at the beginning again. The beginning of my pregnancy with Luke, except this time his little brain is perfect. And he would live out his life till he was an old man himself, a well lived life. Then long after I am gone, he would die as a happy old man, with all the dreams his mommy had for him fulfilled.

But I know none of that will happen. So why do I keep wishing it were true? Maybe because I still believe in miracles, and that deep down I still have dreams too. I don't know what this season will bring, all I can do is hope and pray for a better year in 2010.