Missing Jesse

I'm new to blogging, but was inspired by a friend who has an amazing blog in honor of her angel baby (Thanks, Katy!). My name is Karen. I have the most wonderful husband, Billy, and an amazing stepdaughter named Sami who is five. It's been just over two months since we lost our baby at 19 weeks. Jesse would've been my firstborn.

The pregnancy had been uneventful, easy even. I had laughed when my doctor called me high risk because I'd have been 35 for a month when I delivered...if I'd made it to the due date of May 13. As it turned out, God had different plans for us. It was the first night of winter break...I'm a teacher...when Jesse was born, silently.

Some days I think I'm doing fine and then the grief hits me like a ton of bricks and I find myself right back there in that hospital room, holding this tiny, perfect, still and silent bundle, understanding but not understanding, that our baby was at once here, and gone. I was so sure he was a girl, but my husband wanted a boy in the worst way, so it was bittersweet when we learned that he was a he.

It has been a difficult journey, one which I know is only beginning and which will never end. And now I am mommy to a perfect angel in heaven, our Jesse Gabriel.