Hi Baby Girl,
It's a good job you had so many candles lit for you on your birthday last Saturday as I didn't light one on Friday like I normally do. I hope you know it isn't because I've forgotten you after your first birthday though! It's just that Friday was a big day with a lot going on, but I have lit lots of candles these last few weeks and added stories on here too.
I feel strange after your first birthday. I have spent so many months (12 of them in fact) dreading your first birthday arriving and worrying about how I would cope and how we would do you justice, and now that it has been and gone I feel lost.
I think it is because I have nothing left to work towards. I have spent the first year without you working towards the next big milestone, I have managed my grief one piece at a time just getting to, and through, the next 'first'.
Now I have no unknowns left to face, Mothers Day is the next milestone but I have already done one of those now, I have done the first one.
It is liberating to know that there is nothing unknown left to face in my grief for you, except maybe when I am lucky enough to give birth to a live baby one day, I guess that would be difficult as much as it would be wonderful. It is also very scary too though, because I don't know how to grieve from here if I'm no longer just working towards the next milestone that will be difficult. Yes the milestones are still there, they always will be, Mothers Day will be hard whether it's the first or the tenth, but I know what to expect now and they don't require the same level of self preparation.
So what do I work towards now??
I guess Daddy and I should start working towards new milestones in life instead of grief ones, but we're not in a position to be able to do that just yet. I guess when we are though, and we have a plan, we can then work towards new milestones whatever they may be. For the moment we are just standing still.
Friday was a milestone, and it went better than expected, I know you were with me and listening when I asked for your help, I can't thank you enough for that sweetheart.
Getting through the next two weeks and to the end of this month is my next I guess, after that, who knows what the future has in store.
One thing I do know Baby Girl, is that I'm a lot more positive about it just for having reached 2014 and gotten out of last year. It's not a year I will ever forget, and I am thankful because it gave me you, my darling firstborn, my Daughter, but it's not a year I ever wish to repeat.
I felt like my New Year started with your birthday sweetheart, I have a feeling it always will now.
Onwards and upwards Baby Girl, new year, new start, but whatever 2014 has in store for Daddy and me, we will never stop loving or missing you xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx