January 25th

Today would be your 4th birthday.

You were very real to me and to your big brother, he still talks about our baby in heaven and wants to name you. I don't have the heart to tell him you were never really there physically because you were very there emotionally.

Laying on the table looking for you on the ultra sound I was certain I would find you, you were my second baby - I knew just what to look for. We hadn't been able to find your heart beat at the doctor's office but that wasn't a huge concern. I found you quickly. I found the sac, it was nice and round and explained my slowly pertruding belly. She measured it and the measurements were accurate, 11 weeks. I looked closer, straining my eyes. Where in the world was that heart beat? Where was the little white splotches explaining your presence? She wiggled the paddle all over and took more notes. Silence. She left to get someone else and came back to explain that my baby was nothing more then a "blithed ovum". I asked her to repeat it two or three times. I looked over at your daddy hoping he would have some kind of answer for me. Silence.

I sobbed uncontrollably when they told me the doctor was on the phone and wanted to explain the next steps, the D&C. I cried and cried as he slowly explained to me that you were never there. My body had tricked me.

I don't remember a lot about the days that follow, just that I carried you for another 4 days until the procedure. I cried some more when I woke up from the anesthesia, asking over and over if there was really no baby. The nurse answered with another dose of Morphin.

I remember going to Target on my way home to pick up the antibiotics, a friend came with me. We picked out some stools for the kitchen. When I look at them, I think of you.

Maybe you weren't real to some, maybe it was a nasty trick my body played on me, but you are very real in my heart and soul. And when Reece asks to name you, I let him because you are very real to him too.