Usually I'm quite good at finding words, also at writing...
However, for this blog I haven't been able to find the right words.
I have been procrastinating for months to write this and send it in.
Now is the right time as Isabella's first birthday (or what would and should have been) is coming up on March 25th.
So to be honest I really don't have a plan for this blog.
Words never cover these emotions and I could go on about this, but it always feels empty in a way.
And maybe this will be the theme of this blog, to express the incapability of expressing the emotions of grief.
Like it doesn't matter what I say about it, because she's not coming back.
Those words hit me hard. She. Is. Not. Coming. Back.
Dear Isabella,
Your first birthday is coming up.
March 25th, 2021 was our due date, but we said goodbye on October 18th, 2020. You had been with us for only 4(+) months, and having to make this decision to end the pregnancy was absolutely soul-wrenching.
I had already planned to post a pregnancy announcement and I had already designed one as well.
A picture of Flopsy, Mopsy and Cottontail sleeping against lettuce saying 'baby Kaso, March 2021'.
Your last name.
We obviously didn't know if you'd be a boy or girl yet.
However, your daddy did know you'd be a girl from the moment we found out you existed.
He was over the moon when I told him I was pregnant.
You were and still are so loved, from the very first moment I saw those lines and told your daddy and your auntie, who was there when I did the pregnancy test. We found out at my in-law's when we were in Albania where my husband is from (and I'm Dutch).
Writing this gives me so many flashbacks. And the thing that scares me so much is that we will never be able to create new memories with you. I keep seeing the three of us walking at the beach, collecting seashells. I'm just making memories in my mind, call them fantasies...
My biggest question is what would you have looked like and be like now, would you have your daddy's hair and eyes, you definitely had his energy as we could see during the ultra sounds.
They were so perfect. You were so perfect. It was the most painful decision to let you go.
It was so heartwrenching to realise that what you had came from me, this syndrome, but my version is so mild and I barely notice it, however we didn't have the guarantee whatsoever that it would have been the same for you. We wanted to protect you from any harm and struggles, like surgeries. Life can be hard by itself already.
It's just haunting me.
Maybe it wouldn't have been that bad for you either.
But we couldn't take the risk... We didn't want you to go through surgeries, therapy, (emotional) pain...
Oh how we wanted to keep you. If love could have saved you...
I have realised how people just seem to move on and never or barely ask about it. Or how we are doing.
And then I'm thinking, well what would I say if anyone would ask. They wouldn't understand it anyway, probably. This is where we get to the point on procrastinating this blog, as I can never find the right words for these kind of emotions. How do people talk about something so immense? So overwhelming, so intense?
Sometimes I want to scream it to the world; HELLO, I'M A MUM TOO!
And then I realise I don't need validation from others. We will always be Isabella's parents. How wonderful would it be to be able to share pictures and buy new clothes or go to the farm like any other parent.
It's just cruel we won't get to do all of the things other parents are doing, and when they complain about it I even feel bad for thinking "be happy you have them around in the first place".
I'm grateful to be your mummy. I just wish you were still here.
There are never enough words and words are never enough, but I'd like to end this blog with a beautiful poem:
"Our time and space was beautiful,
even if it has ended,
even if it will never be the same;
The universe is a strange place.
In the end, I'm just thankful to have shared anything with you, for any time at all." - William C. Hannan.
