When we were 13 weeks pregnant with Kenley, my neighbor asked if she could bring over some gifts she bought us. I was so excited- Kenley’s first gifts! I couldn’t wait. One of the gifts was a baby book; the kind that I would have chosen myself which made it that much better. I remember flipping through and thinking about all the entries I couldn’t wait to make. First teeth to come in, first steps, favorite cartoons, or books. Except, I only filled in the first two or three pages; I was denied the opportunity to complete the other entries. 

Secondary Losses. 

When we got pregnant with Alden, things were extremely different- how could they not be? I didn’t want gifts for her; I didn’t want to make plans for her future because I was all too sure she would be ripped away from me too. A week or so before she came, I received a surprise gift in the mail from a dear friend. 

A baby book. 

I had put off buying one intentionally because I just couldn’t even think about filling in the beginning again. 

 “Mommy and Daddy were _________ when they found out you were coming!” 

Scared. Guilty. Mad. Excited. Happy. Sad. Anxious. Depressed. 

How do you fill in that answer? 

I took her book to the hospital to make sure her foot prints found the proper home inside, but I haven’t opened it yet to look at them. I know she deserves me to fill out her book just like I started to fill out Kenley’s, or how I’ve filled out Landon’s. I know that. I’m sure that some day I will fill it out because I want her to be able to look back at it after she’s had a child of her own to see when she started walking, or when she got her first tooth and to see which one it was. 

She deserves that.

 I owe it to her. 

I want to make her life as “shadowless” as possible and I know that having a baby book for her will be a step in that direction. I don’t want to ever imagine how she would feel if she asked me to see her book, and I told her I couldn’t make her one because after her sister died I would rather have sawed off my arm than write in another baby book. 

I’m finding out each day that there are new mountains to climb in my new life with Alden. 

One foot in front of the other, right? One step at a time.