How long?

How long will the flashbacks last?

How much time will pass before the events of that day and everything surrounding it doesn't hurt so much?

Will there ever be a time I don't think about it as much? I don't want to forget. She was my daughter and remembering her and the brief life she had is my great honor, but sometimes it is so exhausting to always think about it, and knowing I can't go back and change a thing.

It's been 19 and a half months since we heard the words no parents ever want to hear. We had to sit there in the exam room, full of hopes and dreams of the future, just to have them crushed with hearing "There's no heart beat."

How long will I replay those words over and over in my head? How long will I replay the words the nurses and hospital staff said to me as they were preparing my body to delivery my child - my child that had no life in her heart?

The first words I said after hearing those words were to my Husband. The Doctor left the room for a few minutes to give me time to compose myself before going to the hospital. Adam stood at the end of the exam table and helped me sit up and held me close to his chest. I buried my head into his shirt and started sobbing and yelling "They're going to make me deliver this baby. I can't. I can't. I can't."

I knew what stillbirth was and I knew what was about to happen. We had close friends while we lived in Oklahoma who suffered through the exact same thing at almost the exact same time in their pregnancy as mine. I knew what they went through and I saw glimpses of the pain they experienced. I just never thought that would be me. No one ever expects it to be them.... and then it was me. 

I was praying for a miracle. I was praying the whole time that the Doctor was wrong. I had a second ultrasound within minutes of his initial exam. He sent me to the hospital to confirm what he found and I was praying the whole time I was lying on the table, again, that he was wrong. He just missed her heart beat. She was okay and I was going to have a baby in a few months. When the tech helped me sit up and gathered my things and she said the words "I'm sorry," it was very obvious the Doctor was right. My baby was gone and I was powerless to stop it.

I've spent so much time praying, wishing, hoping that I'd wake up from what has felt like the longest and most horrific nightmare anyone could experience.

I spent so much time in the hours, days, weeks and months after asking "What did I do wrong? What did I do to deserve this?" I know I didn't do anything wrong and I know I didn't do anything to deserve this but my mind and my heart were in battle with each other.

So many friends, family and various people I've met throughout this journey have commented to me how strong I am, how proud they are at how well I've done since everything. I wish I could convey the words to them of what I really feel and what I really think. I don't feel strong at all. I feel like I've been on auto pilot since May 5th, 2009. 

I struggle so often with the unanswered questions. I struggle with the reality that I'll never have the answers to what caused her to die, why this happened, why me. No one sees or hears the inner struggle in my head and in my heart. It's a torture that only a parent who has lost a child can imagine.

I've accepted as much as one can accept that I'll never have the answers I want, the answers my heart aches for. I'll never say I'm moving on. There is no moving on from losing a child, but there is moving forward. I moved forward in a way I never thought I could. I had another child after my devastating loss. I have the world's most handsome and beautiful boy. He'll be three months old tomorrow and I guess what has brought this on, what has flooded my heart and my head with these feelings, is knowing his sister would be 15 months old right now if she had lived. She'd be celebrating her second Christmas and probably terrified at the idea of Santa, much like her big sister was at that age. These moments with my son are very bittersweet because I never expected to experience them after she died and they're very bittersweet because they're probably the last. My heart just can't go through another pregnancy again. I can't live with the fear and anxiety that ate at me every day until he was born. 

I've experienced true joy and happiness with my children and I've also experienced the worst heartache and darkness. 

I'm a very blessed but also very broken person.