I have been debating for quite a while about writing this and posting it here. I guess mostly because this has always been a happy, light-hearted blog and this is not really happy, light-hearted subject matter. But being as this is a blog about our family, and more specifically our children, I feel like I would be remiss in not even mentioning it and pretending like it never happened. Because he did happen.
Being as most of our readers here are family and close friends and most of you know the story, I'm going to spare you the gory details. Suffice it to say, I was pregnant, things didn't go well, and we lost our second son at 20 weeks. If you think it made it easier that we knew he had a birth defect, it didn't. If you think it was easier because we knew even if he made it to term, he would never come home from the hospital, it wasn't. And if you think things are "better" this way, you're wrong. Things aren't better this way. I'm not saying they're worse either. Things just....are.
Things just ARE going to be a little different than we hoped, and we're trying to wrap our heads around that. Sometimes we just can't help wishing that things were different, somehow.
You should know that we are really doing okay. Most days we don't even talk about it. Not because we don't want to...it just doesn't come up. We know we will have another child. Pregnancy won't be all fun and games this time around, we will be working closely with a perinatologist and I'm sure it will be pretty stressful until we know everything is okay. But we know in our hearts that someday Tyler will have a little brother or sister to play with and torment, just as we know that our family will always feel just the tiniest bit incomplete because our second son is missing.
At the end of the day, we return to something our priest told us, a message that is echoed everywhere from bereavement blogs to support groups to the Bible to Harry Potter, and what it lacks in originality it makes up for in being pretty darn profound. You must live life for the living. Period. And I agree. We are so thankful to have our precious Tyler and believe me when I say this experience has taught us how lucky we are to have him here with us, everyday. He is not quite three and has already taught us so much about how life should be lived, about letting go and about finding joy in everyday situations. He is our salvation, our bright spot, our reason for being. And today we are going to cherish him, and let the rest come as it will.
