Sharing the sad news

This is the saddest post I hope to ever have to write.  I know I don’t have to write it, but it helps me cope and sort out my feelings.  I’ve started this post three times on the computer and about 100 times in my head, so today you get what you get.  It will be brief and will lack eloquence, so forgive me.

And you know I’m a strong believer of not just putting a happy face to the world when people are dealing with real issues.  This is one of those situations that affect more people than we know and yet, we still seem not to talk about it.  So here I go with as much sensitivity as I possibly can, and written only from my view point because I still am not able to wrap my head around it four days later.

Thursday it was snowing and I was pleased as you could tell from my post.  I got a call from my mother who small talks about the snow for about a minute.  It was like she was cherishing some bit of innocence I had remaining before she broke down in tears.   “I have some bad news.  Leo didn’t make it,” she said.  Leo is my sister’s son who was due today.  Apparently she had a cold and woke up Thursday knowing something was wrong.  The doctors could not find a heart beat.

Long story short, they induced labor and she delivered Leo around 11:00 pm on Thursday evening.  They will never know the cause, and that happens I guess.

It’s tough out here in our world.  If Leo couldn’t make it inside one of the warmest, most protected places on earth, I’m not sure how he would have done in our cold world.   So many of my friends are having babies and will be having babies…each really is a gift.  I guess I never understood the miracle of childbirth before now.  Since Thursday, so many people have told me about their miscarriage or a friend or family member who had one.  It really is one of the saddest things to talk about, and I understand why we don’t.  But we should, and we shouldn’t wait until things like this happen to support each other.

There are so many things to say and I have a ton of ideas and snippets in my head.  I won’t be able to capture them all now.  But, the hardest thing is telling people, so I write this post to let everyone know.  There were still a few people I wanted to tell personally, but not able to reach yet.  If you know Melissa or Jacob and want to reach out to them, please do.  It really does help to get a text, voicemail or email.  When I cry, it’s for them.

That’s all I’ll say today.  In the meantime, I’m very thankful that my sister and Jacob are doing as well as can be expected.  I am also very happy to be seeing them in a few days.  I think it will help to have everyone together to celebrate the holidays.  Our families are very fortunate to have few reasons in the past to grieve like this.  We’re learning how to cope now, and we’ll work our way through it together.

Thanks to all of my friends and friends of my family who have been so supportive and helpful.  I love you all.