Happy BIrthday Olive

Olive, 

Who would you have looked more like? Your daddy and Abuelita like your big sister still does? Would you have had lighter eyes like me? You’d be over a year now, and I can’t help but think that you would have been transitioning from crawling to walking and babbling away. I hear your baby cousin giggle and my heart tugs at the thought that I don’t know what your smirk looks like. I don’t know if you’d have dimples and how your nose would crinkle when you laugh.

These are the thoughts that I have to fight still on a daily basis after almost 2 years since I birthed you too soon. Some well-meaning people told me that it gets easier. I’m not sure what they meant by that. Sure there are some days that I do not allow myself to dwell on what our lives would look like with you earthside, but that doesn’t mean that it’s still not a daily thought or feeling of emptiness. 

I know there is a piece of our family missing. Even as we are trying to conceive your younger sibling, we know that they will not replace you - our cherished secondborn. There are some that will never understand how I feel because I never got to meet you face to face, and that’s ok. There are some that will not understand how this still is a part of my daily life when your time growing inside me was cut so short, and that’s ok. 

I hope you know that you have changed my life for the better. The short 9 weeks that I spent with you growing inside me made me a more compassionate person. You helped me to gain a deeper understanding, respect, and appreciation for life and death. 

I love you my precious baby Olive. 

-Mommy xoxo

(written 3 weeks before we found out we were pregnant with your baby sibling)