2.

Another year has gone by without our first baby. Navigating what bringing a living child into this world feels like with a previous loss is so complex. It’s been a complete year of loving another child who we found out about on this week last year but also another complete year of grieving the first child we had hoped for.

I guess I feel bad saying it, Rowan has taken up a lot of my mental space these last few months and I had hardly thought about Benjamin until recently. The more personality she gets the more and more I wonder what Benny would have been like.

Who would he have looked like? Would he be as big a diva as his sister? What would his sleeping habits have been like? How would everyone treat him? Would he have loved me the same as Rowan does? What would our daily routine and dynamic look like? What would it have been like raising a baby without knowing the pain of child loss?

I also wonder if Benjamin had lived would we even have our little Rowan.

As his birth day has been approaching it has all been swirling through my head. Rowan surely has patched up our broken hearts in ways we could never have imagined. But as the holidays and milestones go by it’s hard to think that we get all these special moments with Rowie but never with Benjamin. We made it through the first Thanksgiving and all I could think about was how thankful I was to get to start our traditions with her, but also on the back of my mind I was a little bit sad that we never got that special moment with Ben. Christmas is coming through like a train and getting to set up the tree and decorations for Rowan is so magical and special. We get to wrap her little gifts to put under the tree and put her in Christmas jammies. It’s all the things a mother dreams of when she finally has children. Yet, I think of Benjamin and all that he missed out on.

I am trying to be fair to Rowan and her firsts but I can’t help but wish we were celebrating all these moments as a family of 4.

This week is sad and special at the same time. These moments are both joyous but often trying on the heart. We spend the time to remember Benjamin and all that we lost but also remembering this time last year we found out we would be having another baby, which would later be Rowan. We finally got out second chance. Life has a way of mostly balancing out. Giving us a yin and a yang.

365 more days gone by of knowing what the universe can give and take in a instant.

Without a Benjamin would there ever even have been a Rowan. I wonder.