When Life is Bittersweet

As we're just about a week away from meeting baby girl (or less should she decide to arrive on her own), I find that so many different emotions are coming to the surface. Overall, I am thrilled. I am excited. I am grateful. But it's also immensely bittersweet, and even that word does not really do justice to the vast emotional landscape that appears. There's a sense of guilt that comes with that, and I'm sure other angel moms can relate. You feel like all your heart and soul and energy should be poured into love and excitement for the arrival of your new little one. Yet, your heart and soul is torn because half of it is aching for the child that you will never bring home. It makes you question your ability to love another baby the way you love your angel. It's a struggle to find a balance when half your heart is tied to Earth and the other half tied to Heaven. I never want there to be any doubt about how much I love my rainbow. How thankful I am that God saw fit to send us another baby, that she is healthy and has stayed put long enough to grow and be born at a safe time. I have cherished this pregnancy in a way I never thought possible. I remember being pregnant with Hunter and being so sick and saying "It will be a LONG time before I do THIS again." I have been through much more physically and emotionally with this pregnancy, yet I somehow managed to find joy in the struggle. Every time I threw up, every time I had an injection, I had a whole new perspective on just how lucky I was to even be experiencing this. The flip side to that is wondering what it would have been like with Hunter. That is the bittersweet. And it will always be there. I feel sometimes like people who are outside of this little bubble, this group of people who understand because they have also lost a child, think "Get on with your life! You're having a new baby! Be happy, move on, let the past be the past!". I sometimes feel that way too. Why can't I just be in the moment and just look forward? Why does everything make me think of the child who is no longer here? Why can't I focus completely on the journey ahead, instead of the journey that "could have been"? Honestly, I have no answer. It's just the way it is. I have no doubt that as time moves on, I will find a better balance. But the saying "time heals all wounds"? It's a lie. There is some hurt that just doesn't go away. So instead of trying to force the past to stay in the past, instead of trying to block out certain emotions and feeling guilty for feeling what I feel, I'm going to continue to endeavor to embrace it all. If there was no bitter, how could I appreciate the sweet as much as I do? And I have so much "sweetness" coming, I can just feel it. I have no doubt I will struggle. I know there will be times when I will peak in on my sleeping daughter and just watch her breathe and wonder about her brother. But you know what? That's okay. I look forward to finally being able to mother my child, to have sleepless  nights WITH my baby instead of sleepless nights longing for my baby. It's been an almost 18 month journey to get here, from the time we found out we were pregnant with Hunter. I know there are so many others who have waited longer and fought harder to bring home a baby, and we have been luckier than most. At the end of it all, I just want the world to know when I or another parent of an angel describe something that is usually just considered joyful and happy, like the birth of a new baby, as bittersweet, please don't think we are ungrateful, or living in the past. We live in a different reality, where life is simply...bittersweet. It just is. But because we have had so much bitter, please know how much the sweet in life is appreciated.