Here is the first journal entry I wrote following our whole ordeal. It may contain some raw, uncomfortable & emotional substance, but with the good comes the bad. Our story isn’t the same unless you know it all.

1/13/12

Tomorrow is the memorial for Robert William. The sadness and pain I feel tonight is debilitating; I’m crushed, heartbroken, depressed, mad, sad, and hurt beyond words. I am so worried about Jake tomorrow, I saw the look in his eyes several times today that he is hurting just as much. I know that I’ve been crying and grieving for a month now, but this is my first time facing part of this situation head-on. I didn’t have to go through what Jake did in the emergency room when I was in surgery; it was like a magician came and one minute I was pregnant and fine, the next I was out of surgery and my child was gone. I can’t believe this all really happened, I can’t understand any of it. I’ve never felt depression before, but those commercials that describe it as “physically exhausting” don’t do it justice. It will completely take you down, cripple you, and make you not even care if you’re alive. I don’t want to do this tomorrow as much as I know we need to. What really bothers me the most is coming face to face with the urn. Dad took care of handling all of that for us, all of the arrangements so that we didn’t have to.

So we haven’t held his ashes yet, which is the only way we get to hold him at all. It’s important to me to have private time with Jake and the urn tomorrow for us to …I don’t even know what. Not “get used to” it, how do you get use to the idea of your child’s remains being in a box? The whole thing is so unnatural. We aren’t suppose to be this young saying goodbye to the only child I will ever carry inside myself. I feel so lost and empty constantly; whatever sparkle I ever had is gone now.

I also cut my hospital ID band off tonight, Jake gave me a beautiful footprint-diamond necklace today to replace my attachment to the band. I guess I was clinging to the only thing that made me who I was when I was pregnant.