1.5.16

The best laid plans

Less than a year ago, I was complaining about my back, my huge belly preventing me from proper nights' sleep, about not being able to do much without feeling tired and out of breath. But it was all okay. Because I would tell myself that it'd be worth it, that soon I'd be way too busy taking care of our baby boy to find the time to complain, that I'd go back to my former weight and that my back would feel better.
I hadn't planned much I think. It was, in fact, surreal to picture our lives with Arthur as a baby no longer inside of me. We were excited and happy and nervous. Plans had gone as far as making sure we had everything we needed, that we were logistically (for want of a better word) prepared for him to be there. And the date was getting closer so fast. 3 weeks to go and I might be in labour. Only 3 weeks to go! How scary.

Less than a year ago, I didn't imagine that we would go to visit our son at the cemetery every Sunday morning. That we'd be taking care of his grave, of making sure it'd look tidy and loved and well maintained. That we'd be talking about how we'd celebrate his first birthday. Some balloons released in the air? Some on his grave? A picnic? A day spent thinking of him even more than we do every day? Special decorations to put with his flowers?
I hadn't made real plans about my life with my baby. It was all a blur but a blissful one. All I knew was that my baby would be in it. And even those tiny feeble little things that I can barely called 'plans' got shattered. It doesn't make any of it any less painful. If anything, it makes it all it even more real and painful and gut wrenching.
This is what our lives are now. With Arthur in it, of course, but in a way that doesn't allow what we thought we'd enjoy. We are parents and we are learning, only we're learning different things. Less common, conventional things.
How to care for a baby, a son we can't hold.
How to live without him.
How to make him a part of our family in every thing we do.


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