May 9th - 8 months old

It's been 8 months since Liam died. The reality of him being gone has been my reality now for almost as long as the reality of him being alive and preparing for life with him.

It's weird to think that he has been gone now for almost as long as he was with us (me being pregnant with him). Soon he will have been gone longer than the time that he was here and that breaks my heart.

When I think about Liam now, I picture Brad sitting on the hospital bed next to me and holding Liam. My mom and brother were standing at my bedside and we were all looking at Liam for the first time. Examining every part of his body and commenting on what he looked like. That is what I think of right now when I think of Liam. I don't think about my pregnancy, or what he looked like on the ultrasound, or feeling him move inside me. That to me isn't reality, because he was alive then and he isn't anymore. Reality to me is seeing him in his perfection, yet lifeless.

Talking about Liam in past tense has been my reality for almost as long as talking about him in present and future tense was. In some ways I have gotten use to this new reality and accept it to be the new norm for me. The new norm in the sense that this is what, and how, it is and always will be for me. I have gotten to the point where I don't close my eyes and imagine that I am still pregnant and ready for him to be born any day. Or think I will wake up and it will have all been a bad dream. I am not in denial about it even though there are days I still can't believe it all went the way it did.

I don't have as many "I can't believe he is really gone" moments, mostly because I have lived through 8 months of him being gone. Time has a way of showing us reality, and squashing all our hopes of how things could have, should have, and maybe will turn out different. I know this, because for the past 8 months I have woken up to the same reality, my son is dead.

This has been my reality for the past 8 months, and always will be my reality for days, years, and a lifetime to come. It will change slightly as time goes on, but yet, will stay the same. Even when I become pregnant and have another baby, Liam will still be gone. Nothing is ever going to change the fact that Liam is dead, and I am never going to hold him or see him again here on this earth. I will go through more pregnancies excited yet petrified, happy yet sad. I will (God willing) one day celebrate the birth of another baby and live out all the joys that that precious life will bring. But that doesn't change the fact that every time I think about Liam, and picture him in my mind, the reality will stay the same. I will see Liam's beautiful characteristics of both Brad and I, my precious baby boy. I will see him in all his perfection, yet lifeless.