Missing Henry

I am missing Henry so much. I don't even know if I can express in words the heartache and pain that I feel without him in my life right now. When I first lost him, I thought I would never miss him more than at that time, but I do. I miss him now every minute of every day as I have since I lost him. I think it is even harder with my due date approaching. Last Friday I would have been 36 weeks pregnant and I keep thinking, if I would have made it that far, I would still have Henry and most likely he would have survived and still been with us.

I am not looking forward to Thanksgiving as it will be the first of many holidays that I will spend without my little boy. I wish I could fast forward to the end of the year and be done with all the holidays. It seems as though everyone else has moved on with their lives and some friendships and relationships have changed in good and bad ways since this horrible thing happened to us. We have been to see a grief counselor who specializes in infant loss and it helps. I just get stuck on the fact that we still have friends who haven't even acknowledged what happened or call us less than before or just don't seem to care. Every day I realize how blessed I am to have such a wonderful spouse who is my best friend and counterpart and a fantastic son who brightens my day as much as anyone can.

A disproportionate amount of people I know are due on my due date or the day before or after- 3 people in my mom's group have my exact same due date, 2 mom's at Jack's parks class have the same due date, 2 of our friends have very close due dates and it just seems like too much. I hope that 2010 will be a fresh start for us and I can begin to move on from this better. The holidays are something I have always enjoyed and this year I just wish I could fast forward. Sorry this isn't more chipper, I am not feeling that way very often these days. I feel more like I wear a mask of how I act when I am certain places and then take it off when I am home alone with Carl after Jack goes to bed. Thank God for him and his support or I don't know where I would be.

Two Months

Our second month without Henry came and went with some improvements but still mostly just sad about missing him and his life. We think and talk about him often and just miss him so much. We had the opportunity to meet with a great counselor who specializes in infant loss and we both left the appointment feeling happy that we went. It was hard reliving those 24 weeks but we were able to talk about some feelings that resulted from it, some thoughts on how others reacted to everything that happened and the choices that we made. I look at Henry's pictures everyday and think about him. Everywhere I go, it seems like there are people due on my due date for Henry. In my mom's group there are three people I know of due within a couple of days when Henry should have been born. Carl has several friends (and they are my friends too) that are due in December. Two mom's in Jack's tumbling class are due then. It just seems like everyone I see or talk to is having a baby in December and I am not. We are doing what we can to get through this and sometimes it is an hour, a day or a week at a time and very little time passes that we don't think of and miss our sweet boy, Henry. This has been a very hard year for us and I am looking forward to 2010 to try and start (somewhat) anew.