Rough Days

My darlings,

Your momma is struggling enormously of late.  I sit around and mope and eat.  I feel sad, but I'm not crying.  I start to cry, then stop.  I'm so lonely.  Your daddy I think is experiencing many of the same feelings.  You would have been 6 1/2 months old now based on your arrival date, or just about 3 months based on your estimated due date.  The MISS Foundation's International Random Acts of Kindness Day is this Friday, I have no idea what to do.  I think Chloe's momma Nikki is going to take some things to the NICU where Chloe was born.  Neither your father nor I can stomach the thought of walking in to the NICU where you spent your precious short lives.  Michelle teamed up with Circle K to give away free drinks at 1 location, in memory of Brandon.  I just don't know what to do.  I'm trying to be so conservative with our money, but I want to do something for you.

Today was an especially rough day.  I dropped Daddy off at the airport, he's off to North Texas for the week.  After that, I was going to go do the special promotion at the casino.  Stopped for gas along the way, used the wrong WEX card to fill up the POS company car (Daddy still had the old one from his previous car).  Finally figured it out.  Went to the casino, wound up locking myself out of the slot promotion as I was entering the wrong PIN.  Came home, stopped by the bank to withdraw my UI funds, found out there wasn't as much available as I thought.  There was just a series of wrong events all morning long.

The monsoon is upon us and as you probably know, your canine sister Abby is terribly frightened by thunderstorms.  We left her last Saturday to go to a birthday party.  When we came home, we found she had lost her mind because of what we can only imagine was a horrific storm with tons of thunder, and she tore up the house.  Your Daddy was so mad at her.  Luckily, she didn't touch any of your things that are irreplaceable, as I think Daddy might have lost HIS mind.  But, she dug a 4' x 6' hole in the drywall in the laundry room, doing the most extensive damage there, pulling out insulation, and even chewing on the studs, the molding and the door.  If she had only concentrated on that room, she would possibly have been able to chew her way in to the garage and may have either died from the heat, or gone through the outside wall and escaped our home.  Or, had she continued vertically on that wall, she may have attacked the wiring and either electrocuted herself or started a fire.  I don't know what I'd have done if we had gotten a phone call from the alarm company that our house was on fire.  The party we had to go to was about an hour away from our house.  Luckily, none of those things happened, but she also attacked the moldings on the left sides of the guest bedroom door and the guest bath door.  We can probably repair the guest bath door molding and door, but the mess in the laundry room and the molding on the guest bedroom and both sides of our master bedroom door will have to be fully replaced, along with some repairs to the drywall on the left side of our master bedroom door.  Of course, in addition to the physical damages Abby did to the house, I worry about the impact on her health from swallowing all that drywall and insulation.  I simply could not bear it if I lost either Abby or Ike this year.  SIGH.  Just one thing after another.

While we were at that party, I saw an expression of such fierce longing and emptiness cross your father's face as he watched the wife of a lifelong friend read a book to the youngest of her three children that I just started crying.  I was such a mess at that party, I couldn't wait to come home, but we had to put in an appearance.  And of course, the guest of honor was almost an hour late to his own surprise party.  Another reason your Daddy and I both detest surprise parties and agree to never give each other one.

That simple act of reading a storybook to a toddler, the joyfulness of which we may never experience with a child of our own.  Dalton, I'm sorry we didn't read to you.  We were just in such shock that I don't think we realized we should have spent every waking hour divided between your and your sister's rooms.  To hell with recovering from my c-section surgery, we should have spent every minute with you.  We were so optimistic that you both would have made it, you were ahead of the curve for your gestational age and you were moving around a lot and vocal when you first arrived, we thought we could beat the odds.  After we lost you, we did spend more time with your sister, and I apologize to you for not having more time with you.  Shelby, we read to you from the Bible and from the Oceania and Holland America cruise brochures that arrived in the mail.  We were going to take you on a Mediterranean cruise as soon as you were old enough and strong enough to travel internationally.

We took your grandpa to the Diamondbacks/Astros game yesterday for his birthday.  While we were there, your Daddy and I observed this precious young woman in an electric wheelchair, being pushed by her family as she had so many physical and mental challenges, she was unable to even complete the simple task of pushing the button to steer her wheelchair.  Your Daddy and I exchanged looks, both thinking what if that would have been your fate had you survived being born at only 24 weeks?  Would they have deemed you medically fragile?  Would we never have gotten to show you the Amalfi coast and other beautiful things in this world because you were medically fragile?  Would we have watched you grow and mature physically, but also had to endure knowing you were there physically but you would never speak a complete sentence or swim a lap in the pool or catch a baseball or tie your own shoes?

These and so many more questions haunt your Daddy and I on a daily basis and will probably continue to do so as long as there is breath in our bodies and our minds are capable of thought.

Your momma loves and misses you.