You Were There

Dear Weston,
Your life was too short. I never got to hear you cry or laugh, make eye contact with you, or see you smile. I never heard your voice, comforted you when you cried, or helped you walk. There are thousands of things I will miss about not being able to watch you grow up. Dr. Seuss wrote a classic book called "Oh, the Places You'll Go." I had planned to buy you that book and have your NICU family sign it; I was going to give it to you when you graduated high school or college. It breaks my heart that I will never have a chance to give you that book.

I have lived on this earth for almost 35 years and spent many years in school, but you already know so much more than me. Although the Big Bang Theory is widely recognized as the probable origin of the universe, you have the inside scoop on what really happened back then when none of us were around to see it. You know what the bottom of the ocean and all of the other planets look like. You might know why God lets bad things happen to good people. You know what heaven looks like, and you know what God looks like. You have seen Jesus in the flesh. You have met some wonderful people there whom I never had the pleasure of knowing. You might even know why God chose to take you now instead of leave you here with me. That is the biggest, most burning question that I will ask for the rest of my life.

You might know the following already, but I want to tell you about some places you went and things you experienced while you were here on earth. First, before I even knew you were there, you went to trial with me. That might sound a little boring, but it was part of my career, which was very important to me. I might have even encouraged you to follow in my footsteps and be a trial lawyer. If you had ears yet, you probably heard way too much of my voice for those few days.

You were there when I celebrated with my colleagues and said goodbye to them after five wonderful years working for and with them. Sorry about that martini, by the way. I still didn't know you were there yet.

You were there in that joyful moment when I found out you were going to be a part of our family. Your daddy was sleeping, but I woke him up to tell him the wonderful news. At that time, you were about the size of a poppyseed.

I wasn't "supposed" to say anything yet, but you were there during my hushed whispers to family and friends of your joining our family. You were supposed to come around Halloween. I was already scheming about how I was going to squirrel you away in the house and keep you away from all the germs the trick-or-treating kids would bring.

You grew from the size of a poppyseed, to a blueberry, to an olive, to a lime. During that time, you spent a lot of time with your big sister. She talked about you a lot and said hi to you sometimes. You were there when she fed the ducks at the park, when we went to the zoo, to the Children's Museum, to the fountain at the Biltmore, to cheer on your daddy at the end of a multi-day race, and on bike rides.

When you were about the size of an olive, you and I went to New York to see your aunt Natalie, your uncle Aaron, and your cousin Jude. They had just found out that Jude was going to be a big brother, and his little brother or sister is going to arrive just a couple of weeks after you were supposed to get here. Your aunt and I were quite a pair, with our exhaustion and nausea, but we still had so much fun (you and her little peanut are worth it!). We celebrated Jude's second birthday, went to a Broadway show called Godspell, and visited the Cloisters. I hope you felt the celebration of the birthday party, the inspiration of the music, and the serenity of the Cloisters along with me. Family, music, and serenity: we don't need much more than that to be happy!

When you were the size of a plum, we went to Flagstaff, where it was unseasonably cold. You experienced your first and only snow then...in April! You spent some time in Oma's chapel. Your daddy and I had a long conversation up there where we talked about you a lot: we confirmed that your name would be Weston Max Yoder if you were a boy and decided on a name if you were going to be a girl.

You were there at my appointment a few days later, when I got to hear your heart beat for the first time. That was such a happy day for me. It was confirmation that you were there and that you were healthy.

You were there when things turned scary for me at the park. By then you were almost the size of a peach. I was so afraid I was going to lose you that day. You had no idea things were going to become so precarious, and I am grateful for that.

After that day, you and I spent a lot of quiet time alone at home. We read books to your sister and watched her dance to music. You were there when I read a lot of books myself too. I was still hoping you would come into this world at home, so I read some books and watched some documentaries about that. I started planning what your nursery would look like. You grew to the size of an avocado, a mango, a banana. Your daddy's birthday passed, Mother's Day, your daddy and my eighth wedding anniversary. We didn't do much for those occasions because we were trying to keep you safe and healthy.

During that time, I started feeling you move. Because of the location of my placenta (the horrible, cursed thing that failed us four months too early), I could not feel you move very often, even as you got bigger. We moved to the hospital's antenatal unit. We took two trips there, the second beginning on Father's Day. You never left the hospital after that.

You were there, and I could see you, during countless ultrasounds. I loved seeing you, but you weren't too fond of being looked at. Another thing I could see, and feel, was my belly finally starting to grow, even though I wasn't gaining any weight. To me, that was confirmation that you were healthy.

You didn't really like it when my nurses tried to listen to you twice a day either. You would always try to move away. In one sense, I wanted those moments to pass quickly for your sake, to give you peace. But on the other hand, hearing you swish around and hearing your strong, beautiful heartbeat assured me that you were doing fine in there. When everyone was giving up hope for your survival, those sounds gave me hope.

I talked to you so much during the awful hours leading up to your birth. We had had a hard day, and I wanted so badly for you to stay inside me longer. Even now, almost one month after your death, you should still be inside me. I should not have even met you yet.

You don't need me to describe your three weeks living in the NICU; you were there. Those were the best and worst weeks of my life. Actually, in retrospect, the weeks I am living through now are far worse. But they were the best weeks because you were with us; we were a visible family of four. Sweet baby, I know those three weeks were really tough for you. I am so sorry I couldn't do more to comfort you, as mommies are supposed to do.

Tomorrow is your big sister's third birthday. She is so excited, and I am trying to be (she sings Happy Birthday to you almost every day, by the way). I made cupcakes for her party, and they look and taste like hockey pucks, so now I am going to have to make an emergency order of cupcakes from a bakery. I am wondering how in the world I thought I could pull off even a simple little birthday party less than a month after you left us. You should be celebrating her birthday with us; you will never have that chance.

I am in so much pain right now. But, if I could go back in time and make the pain go away, I wouldn't do it, because that would mean that you would have never existed. I have been reading a lot of grief literature lately, and one person said that we grieve because we love. We are in pain because we love. That is so true: my immense pain comes from my even more immense love for you. And I would rather love you forever accompanied by pain than never have loved you at all. You are worth it, and you will always be here with me in my heart and soul.

With immeasurable love forever,
Mommy