Lived

I haven't been sleeping well since our news on Wednesday.  I spend long hours thinking about the baby, picturing what he or she might have looked like, sounded like, what kind of little personality he or she might have had.  I think I'm afraid that if I don't spend so much time thinking about the baby, it will be as if he/she never lived, was never a part of our lives.

I feel as though I need some sort of memorial, some momento or keepsake to mark this tiny little life, so I have some closure and some tangible memory.  It wasn't all a dream.

I just...I need acknowledgement that this child LIVED.  Not for long, not outside my body - but I heard the strong heartbeat and felt the tiny butterfly flutterings of a baby.  Of OUR baby.

I need to see some proof somehow, of how incredibly loved our child was, if only for 15 weeks.  How much joy and anticipation he/she brought to us all, our family and our friends.

I don't ever want to forget that, for a short period of time, we were an almost-family of four.