7 days

If I don't fall apart
Will my memory stay clear?
So you had to go
And I had to remain here
But the strangest thing to date
So far away and yet you feel so close
I'm not going to question it any other way
It must be an open door for you
To come back...

Here we are.  38 weeks.  I don't really know how it all came around so quickly, but I feel like the days are just hurtling me toward next Thursday.  Toward the day we meet your sister, Luke.

I will say that the first part of this pregnancy was long...and hard.  And confusing.  The middle was muddled by a lot of back pain and physical problems that I didn't have with you.  Sometimes I was thankful for that--for something being SO different about these two pregnancies.  It gave me hope that the ending would be different at the time.

But this last trimester has absolutely flown by.  It's been a blur of happenings and emotions.  In a way, I'm thankful for that. 

Over the weekend before Thanksgiving, Daddy and I went to two Pearl Jam concerts.  When we bought these tickets back in July, I was hesitant how I would feel about being 36 weeks pregnant and going to a rock concert.  But going to shows is what we do...so we went.

In some ways, I feel like you were there with us.  First, there was the show Thursday night, that I didn't go to because it was a work night, and all the way down in San Diego.  But your crazy Daddy went to that one too.  And he called me during the show.  Unfortunately, I couldn't make out what was happening or playing, but when he got home, he told me that they played your song.  Light Years.  The song we had printed in your funeral service card...Because it meant everything that we felt about what happened to you.  And you have to understand...they never play this song.  They've played it one time this tour--the show your Daddy was at.  It's not pulled out very often...and then there it was that night he was there. 

And then there was Saturday night at the first show I went to.  There are really three songs in their gigantic catalog of music that I think of whenever I think of you.  Light Years is one.  The other is a b-side called Other Side.  And the last is a song called Come Back.  I've written about it here on this blog before--How it kills me to listen to now because it only makes me think of losing you. 

And they played it that night too.  A song that's hardly ever pulled out as well.  Oddly, this is the same exact song that was playing the night your Daddy proposed to me at that PJ concert in San Diego in 2006.

Everything's connected.  It was like you were there, telling us you were there.

This week is already filled with anxiety, but relief.  Relief that this stage of grief will be ending somehow.  But it's filled with anxiety about everything. 

The 39th week. 

Ironically, I will be exactly 39 weeks--to the day, when we deliver your sister via c-section Thursday morning.  The same exact day of my pregnancy that we met you after it was too late.  I will give birth to each of you on the same exact day of my pregnancy, and yet I will have exact opposite experiences.  The same, yet different.

Every day this week, we'll get closer to the day we meet your sister...and closer to the same exact day in your pregnancy that we said goodbye to you. 

To say I'll be relieved next Friday is an understatement.

I won't miss having to compare the two of your pregnancies.  I won't miss having to tell complete strangers that no, this is not my first child.  I won't miss telling them that you're no longer with us when they ask me how old you are.  Now people will just see your sister and assume.  Which I'm OK with, because it doesn't require me to drag down their day with a horrifying reminder that full-term stillbirth still happens in modern-day first-world societies.  And I'm living proof.

But what I will miss is you being the only child.  From here on out, there are two of you.  And I know grief will probably get more complicated when we get to experience the joy that she will bring into our lives.  As we get farther away from that day with you.  

Just know that you'll always be number one.  Wherever you are. 

And the days they linger on, yeah
Every night I'm waiting for
The real possibility that I may meet you in my dreams
Sometimes you're there and you're talking back to me
Come the morning I could swear you're next to me
And it's OK

It's OK.  It's OK.