Milestones

Although life is getting a little brighter and our demeanour a little happier, there are certain events that come around that leave you feeling broken and back at square one again.

My birthday was the first of these milestones.
I was an emotional wreck.
I felt like I was getting a year further away from my Jesse and that this time was creating more distance between us.
In the end, I believe that the anticipation of the event was actually worse than it was. I had a lovely birthday. Caz gifted me a heart necklace with an infinity symbol wrapped around it. We also went out for tapas and it was a really nice and relaxed event. Yes, there were tears but we are strongly bonded and I don't think anything can break that.

Christmas was another big hurdle.
Everyone is super happy and we felt we had to have that smiling mask plastered on our face the whole time.
We had a little more sedate Christmas than previous years, we wanted to mainly keep to ourselves and keep gatherings to a bare minimum. We just didn't feel ready or able to cope with anything more.
One heartbreaking thing I realised, is that Jesse was soon forgotten by everyone else - even some members of the family. Out of the tens of cards, we received only 2 mentioned Jesse. I felt so upset and angered by this. You wouldn't omit someone's child or spouse from a card and even if they had lost a loved one during the year a simple "thinking of you at this time" would have been all we needed. But wishing us a brilliant Christmas just cut us deep and a happy New Year when we don't know what the future holds and each day is further away from our baby.
But here is our little family - Caz, Me, Walter our rescue cat (who I believe soothed our souls and saved us at just the right time) and a J in the background to represent Jesse.

At Christmas, there was also a family announcement. Caz's cousin is expecting their second child.
We are happy for them, really we are. They have an 8-year-old little boy who is cute and funny and I understand they have long wanted a sibling for him. It is their miracle baby. But I felt my body physically respond. It was like a punch to the uterus! The realisation of what we don't have.

Our friends and family have a good feeling for us in the coming year. I hope they are right and that 2018 will be our year.