Faith's Lodge is an amazing organization that helps grieving families after losing a child. Please consider donating time or even one single dollar to help someone navigating the throws of pain. In honor of my little girl, I'm sharing a letter I wrote to her years ago and update for her birthday every year.

To my dearest Adriana,

March 22, 2020 would be your 10th birthday. We should be planning a birthday party, but we plan a celebration of life instead. The night before your 20 week ultrasound, the Sunday before Christmas in 2009, your daddy and I held hands and prayed to God that you be a healthy baby. We fell asleep for the last time, taking for granted all of the mundane parts of our lives. The next day our lives  would change forever. Laying on the ultrasound bed, I anxiously awaited to hear the news of your gender, but the technician grew quiet. She wanded my belly, for what seemed like an eternity. She looked at me with tearful eyes and told us she had some concerns about you.

What followed was a nightmare comprised of a stream of doctors and nurses who greeted us with hugs and compassionate sad half smiles. They all held my hands, lifted my chin, and said it was not my fault. Your life was being sustained inside me through your umbilical cord. Your lungs were not developing as they should due to a tiny hole in your diaphragm.This caused your heart to shift to the right side of your body. Your kidneys were distressed and your stomach was not functioning properly. The outcome was clear. You, our precious baby, wouldn’t be ours to keep.

For the following months, your daddy was my backbone. He became the cushion to the blow of eventually losing you. I had never felt such excruciating physical and emotional pain. Heartache was literally radiating through my body. This was true heart break. This was what it must feel like to want to die. The knots in my stomach, the constant lump in my throat, and the unstoppable stream of tears.

God had turned off the lights in the world. He had locked me in a dark room and thrown away the key.

You, our baby girl, would never live to dance, laugh hysterically with your younger brother and sister, never play dress up, never invite us for tea parties, play in the park, go for walks with the dog, never blow out a birthday candle, and never live to have your daddy walk you down the aisle. Even now, ten years later, I sometimes fantasize and daydream of how things could have been. 

Around week 21 of the pregnancy, we decided not to intervene medically. In other words, we decided to let nature take its course. This meant waiting for you to go in your own terms and have things end as God intended. The weeks passed and I returned to work with my growing belly. I was followed closely by my medical team. I kept one foot in front of the other, but it became increasingly difficulty for people to look at me in the eye without reciprocating heartbreak over the pain I felt  for you.

We had an outpouring of love and support. This was how I felt God around me in a time when I previously felt like he had abandoned me. I now realize God was with me, holding me up during those trying times. He manifested himself in my life through the love we felt from those who supported us. In the presence of strangers and those who didn't understand, I held my head up high with pride because I was proud to be your mom. I found it hard to smile without wanting to cry. It felt that life was so unfair. How could I have a baby but not actually end up getting to be a mom?

Due to your medical conditions, I didn’t feel you inside me move very often. But when I did, tears of joy came to my eyes because you were still here with me. I was not yet ready to let you go. I continued to read children’s books to you at night. In the car, I would sing love songs to you at the top of my lungs. Every chance that I could I would talk to you in my belly. I owed it to you because even though my body was keeping you alive, you and the love I had for you was what was keeping me alive in return.

The morning of my scheduled induction, I woke up in labor. This was our biggest miracle. God waited for both of us to be ready to let go. Your daddy drove me to the hospital and as he drove, I kept quiet. I was terrified to let you go. We didn’t know how you would look on the outside because of your medical condition; the doctors were unable to tell us if you’d have severe external anomalies. I begged family to stay away, so their image of you would not be tarnished. I was scared that the doctors would judge how you looked. Regardless of my pleas to stay away,, your extended family waited in the family room.  After 10 hours of labor, the doctors placed you in my arms... you were absolute perfection. Your daddy's eyes, button nose, and head full of hair just like mine... How could I have doubted God’s existence? How could I doubt God, when something so beautiful and so perfect, could be a product of love?

You lived for four minutes and your heart stopped beating while you were cradled in my arms. We kept you with us in the hospital room until all of your aunts, uncles, and grandparents had held you and kissed you. Everyone had the opportunity to say hello and goodbye. After everyone left, your dad and I kept you with us while we smelled you, kissed you, counted your toes, and caressed your hair with our fingers. We tried to memorize every single inch of you during those few hours we had alone with you. Sometimes now, I let myself cheat, and I go back to those last few moments with you... the feel of your soft skin, the feel of your lips on my cheek, and your hypnotizing baby smell... I will forever long for that moment to have lasted just a little while longer.

When it came time for us to say goodbye; it  was your daddy who had the strength and pride to hold his darling girl to the morgue. I was done being strong... I fell apart at that moment, in that room, alone with my broken heart. I fall in love with your father every time I remember that moment. He was so strong, so sad, so heartbroken yet so proud to be your father.

The next day he pushed my wheelchair as we left the maternity ward past the newborn nursery. All I could do was look down at my hands in my lap, wishing it was you I was holding on our way to the car. The time to come was extremely challenging and we missed you more than we could handle. Babies sprung up everywhere. Friends and families announced pregnancies, and our heart continued to break. Not out of jealousy because we wanted their baby. We simply wanted our own baby. We wanted you. We knew life would never be the same after your birth, and we had to struggle to find a new normal. I would burst into tears when I would pass a car with an infant seat in the backseat, because you were supposed to be safely snuggled in our backseat. Time will never erase your memory, nor do we want it to. You were and continue to be our very special firstborn baby.

With four minutes of life, you showed me all of the beauty in the world. You continue to teach me what true unconditional love is. On the day you were born, birds sang, and the sun came out for what seemed like the first time in my life. If I had to choose between a lifetime of not having to know loss and a lifetime of the love I endured because of you, I would choose you every time. You are our most precious creation. 

A couple of years passed before we worked up the courage to try for a baby again. We know you look down on your brother and sister with love and we hope you can see how big a part of our family you continue to be. We hope you look down on the love everyone in our family has for you. We hope we are making you proud. People say time heals all, but time doesn't replace what once was or what will always be. A love like the one I will always have for you, keeps me grounded. I continue to pray and thank God for the time we had with you. We are all better people because of you. Your memory keeps my heart whole. Until we meet again, my beloved daughter.

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