Halfway there.

It has been almost two months since I have blogged, but here I am… So let’s try this again…

In the midst of this blogging journey and living my day to day life, I deal with the grief and pain of the absence of our daughter… It is a struggle every single day… And with the passing of her due date, Mother’s Day and Father’s Day, I needed some time to focus on my emotional and spiritual health… I have thought and prayed over it and have decided that I will continue this journey… I will continue to tell our story, Brooklyn’s story. She was our greatest gift and she has changed our lives forever…. Our love for her runs deep. And though there is a struggle between keeping things private, I want the world to know that we have not forgotten our daughter…. We have not gone back to “normal”… So please bare with me as I blog, reflect back and continue on with our story…

20 week appointment.

November 11, 2016. 20 weeks. We were halfway there. We had our anatomy scan this day and everything checked out perfectly. Brooklyn was moving so much that the ultrasound tech had to pause and take a minute to gather herself to see where she was going to move next. We smiled and laughed at how active our girl was… Always moving and dancing around (just like her Dad). We were ecstatic that everything was fine and got the OK to travel. We were going to Maryland/Virginia in two weeks and I was so excited that I was finally going to be able to see some of my family.

This picture was taken November 19, 2016 at our friend’s wedding… We spent the evening having fun and celebrating… I watched as Marcus played with our friends’ children and smiled as I imagined him with Brooklyn, I felt her many kicks throughout the night (especially after eating cake – we loved sweets), and Marcus and I slow danced with my belly in between us… I could picture our future and could see our little girl standing on Marcus’ feet as they would dance together. We were at such a perfect time in our life and we were so happy… Never once thinking that anything could go wrong. How I wish we would have taken more pictures, soaked in every moment… And how I wish we would have gotten my belly in this last picture…

We would spend the next few days setting out our Christmas decorations, placing ornaments on the tree, hanging stockings over the fireplace and packing for our upcoming trip. My flight was set to leave Thanksgiving morning… But our worst nightmare would begin that day, and I would thankfully never get on that plane….