In Memory of Sebastian

***I'm posting this a couple of hours before the melt down tomorrow. The cheap pink champagne is leaving a bitter taste in my mouth. I probably won't be on here tomorrow... I have to work from 4pm until Midnight, thereby fucking up absorbing my entire day. Not intentional, I assure you. I actually wanted tomorrow off, but forgot to request it off. So, without further ado... my memorandum.***

January 3, 2009-
Sebastian,

You were due today, I thought you would have came early and that I'd be holding you by now. Did you know that 8 months ago tomorrow is when I lost you? I still think about you everyday. It took me all this time to realize that I had to let you go. I have to let you go; and I don't want to. You'll always be in my heart, and I will always love you. You were my first pregnancy, my first baby, and nothing will ever replace that niche in my heart that you now hold. I waited so long for you, I was so happy to discover you, so surprised that I had not only ovulated, but that I had conceived. It was so long in the making, who knew it would take me a year to ovulate?

It was a wonderful dream come true.

And then, 8 days later, the nightmare began. That nightmare still hasn't ended.

I miss you so deeply. You took something vital from me that day, a piece of me. When I lost you something in me died that day. I don't know if I'll ever get it back. I don't know if I want it back.

You can keep it for me.

Losing you grounded me, made me hyper aware of the fragility of all life. I still get scared when I think about what would happen to me if I lost your father. I have lost so much in this life. I get so sick of losing and never gaining. Scratch that, I do gain some beautiful things in this life at times; only I always seem to end up losing them too soon.

Of all the things I've lost, losing you hurt the most. You were this precious, miraculous, gift that I didn't deserve. I knew from the beginning that it was too good to be true. Yet, I tried so hard to enjoy it while you were here with me. I decided that whether you survived or not, I was going to enjoy every second of having you. I wasn't going to live ruled by fear, or by the negativity of assuming I would lose you. I was going to enjoy the moment, I would never get those first few moments of pregnancy back. I loved you more than I have ever loved anyone else in this world. For those 8 days you were so loved.

And then I found out, you really were too good to be true.

I still love you more than I have ever loved anyone else in this world. I hope you know that. Even if no one else mourns your passing, know that I love you. People kept telling me that it could have been worse. Oh, my sweet baby, how could anything ever be worse than losing you? Everyone carried on around me as if you had never even existed. The world revolved around me, and left me standing with my empty arms. I lost the most important thing in my life, and no one even noticed. No one saw you for what you were, my child.

I blamed myself, for failing you, for your genes failing you, for my piece of crap body that can't get pregnant or carry to term (yet) I can forgive myself today, because I know I did my very best. I gave you everything I had, I wanted so badly to meet you. I tried so hard, and it got me nowhere. Maybe you were never meant to be mine. You barely touched my life, but the impact of you bent me to the ground.

I would give anything to have you back. But I can't, and you're gone; so my yearning lingers beyond me going nowhere. It spans out the distance, a displaced emotion without foundation and without hope. It reaches into the nothingness around me, and floats aimlessly. It is an empty longing; hopelessness.

Sebastian, if you were ever able to know anything in this life... I hope my love touched you. I hope you felt how much you were wanted, desired, cherished, how much we loved you. I won't hold you back anymore, but I won't ever forget you either. You'll always be in my heart, but I have to take my heart from off my sleeve now. I have to learn to smile. I have to love you with that smile, instead of loving you with my tears.

I have to let you fly.

All my love,
Your Mother
_______________________________________________
(I posted this poem several Show and Tells ago... but I wrote it for Sebastian, so I'm re-posting it.)

In My Heart

I never met you in the flesh
but you were always on my mind.
I felt my soul tearing in two
as the nurse told me that unfortunately
we had lost you.

But you were never lost,
you were where you belonged all along,
in my heart.
And I hugged myself believing that one day
you'd come back to me,
even though I knew it'd be the other way around.

And I imagined a field of daisies
washing away the pain of infertility,
and their seeds growing up
as flowers obscured the pain
of pregnancy loss.

I dreamed of you tonight
curled in oblivion,
playing with your hair as you slept,
and the light kissed you as
I wished I could.

Softly crying through each night
I think of you,
and what should have been,
and what couldn't be.

And I hold on
to the memory of you
and what short time
we had.

And it's never enough.
One more day,
one more month,
I still wouldn't have had enough time
to say goodbye to you.

-SLHoward

Miscarried on May 4, 2008
EDD January 3, 2009