Half Year Birthday in Heaven!

To my beautiful son in Heaven,

March 16, 2018
Day 1/120 of life

Today would've made you 6 months old! The NICU mom in me is chiming in saying,
"2 months adjusted". I wonder about you so often, Ronen. You are on my mind all day everyday to no avail. I wonder who you're up there with and what you're doing. I'm sorry every day that I couldn't have held you in my body under my heart longer, instead now I have to carry you in it and baby boy the weight of you makes my heart so heavy.
I’m more of the suffer in silence type, but my grief is very loud. I can’t block it out, I can’t ignore it and I can’t always bear it.
The memories of you are torturous and inescapable yet I long for them because they've become the only proof that you were really here. You're not a dream, you're my baby, regardless of how long time feels or how my mind has already made details fuzzy. Sometimes I look back and my memories seem so hard to reach, details of our time come up blurry but other times everything is so vivid and I'm right back there with you. I always feel lightheaded from those flashbacks but they're appreciated none the less. They're you in a way, as painful as they are, and I don't want them to go away.

I think of you first thing in the morning when I open my eyes from failed attempts at sleep and see where your bassinet should lay with you in it.
I think of you when I can't eat, anxiety turned tapeworm in my hallow stomach.
I think of you when I can't sleep, flashbacks of our last day feel like hungry sharks and my brain in floating in their open ocean.
I like to think of you best in the shower where no one can hear me cry for you.

I never could have imagined such love before you.
I never could have imagined such agony after you.

120 days seem so minuscule now when you've already been gone for half the time you were here. The 14th made 2 months without you, then the 16th comes like a cruel joke to remind me of how old you won't be.

I'm angry because I feel robbed. I watch all the other woman at work, on social media, out on the street, beautiful and carefree with their precious signs of life lifting their blouse or the little neck rolls I sneak a peek at in the stroller and they have no clue the luxury they're taking for granted. The many hour long strolls through the Target baby isle - shopping for a nursery their full term babies will coo in - remind me of the 10 minute every other day showers I was allowed during my pregnancy. The beautiful soft pinks and blues remind me of the baby shower thrown for me by close family that I sat through with a frog in my throat the entire time, thinking of how empty my womb is in the maternity dress, not for a second forgetting my 2 week old son, septic for his first but not last time in the NICU, sitting on a bloody pad with leaky achy breasts I would never feed my child with.
.

I missed out on watching him grow up. I missed out on hearing his full cry. I missed out on his first tooth, first day of school, his senior prom, his first car, his first girlfriend, birthday parties, everything.

I'm full of regrets and questions lately. I question all my decisions and those last few months replay over and over in my head. I wish I hadn't went to work after Ronen was born. I needed to, I couldn't afford not to but those night I did work, I missed time with him, especially after he was transferred to St. Petersburg and I couldn't be with him as often. I will never not regret that. I should've been more financially prepared for him but nursing school and then bedrest made that impossible for me

Death is so final. I can't go back to him and he can't come back to me. This is where I'm stuck and this is what scares me. I'm so desperate to see him just one last time. I wish so badly that this didn't happen to me. When I remind myself that there is absolutely nothing I can do now I become hysterical. I would do anything to go back to the beginning of this entire journey just to be heartbroken all over again if that meant I could be with you on this earth. Sometimes I think I might be more afraid of my pain than anything. It seems never ending and I don't know how to go on with this type of weight on my soul.

I'm so depressed but I am grateful still. I'm happy Ronen won't need anymore surgeries. His last one was his fifth and that's too much for anyone. I'm happy he's in heaven and all pain has escaped him. No more needle sticks, surgeries, procedures, tubes, noise, cold. No more tears for you. Just tears for me but I can cry for the both of us so you can rest. You were such a fighter, you deserve your peace.

I love you my little bean.
I'll carry you with me in my heart until I can carry you again in heaven.