January 12, 2024 | Dear Azalea
Dear Azalea,
I regret that I didn’t cherish you more when I had you. It pains me to admit that your pregnancy had become another set of complaints. The nausea, the hip and back pain, the jabs from within, the acid reflux, the constant trouble sleeping and fatigue—I spent more time complaining than I did getting excited for you. You were my fourth pregnancy, and so when I first felt you move, I was mostly unphased. In your ultrasounds, you looked like just another baby.
But it’s all colored so differently now.
I want you to know that even though I wasn’t as excited as I should have been, I was still excited for you…especially at the end, which makes the timing of your loss all the more heartbreaking. I was excited to know what you would look like and if you would resemble any of your sisters. And I couldn’t wait to see if you’d grow up to act like them too. I was so ready to bring you home to them and watch them smother you with unrestrained, adorably aggressive toddler love. And I couldn’t wait, for many reasons, for your dad to have a chance to finally hold you…He never did get to hold you…
You’ve somehow managed to turn all of my previous complaints into the things I now hold on to with all my heart. Your moving around and brewing up a storm within me reminds me how alive and special you really were. You weren’t another number in a set of siblings, and I shouldn’t have been waiting until you were born to start seeing you for the wonderful person you would become. In hindsight, I look back now and see you for who you were in those moments, and I wish I would’ve acknowledged your uniqueness more during that time while I still had you. All I can say is that I’m sorry. I’m forever sorry. If I had to do it all over again, even if the outcome were to be the same—and I would do it again in a heartbeat—I’d be better.
And I will be better, if and when the next baby comes. And I will be better to your sisters (or at least I will try). I spent a good deal of your pregnancy irritated with your sisters, just trying to “get through it” until you were born and my life could “go back to normal” or I could “have my body back.” I wasn’t the mother I should’ve been to you or your sisters during that time, always just trying to do what was easiest for me and keeping them quiet and out of my hair. I’m yet again ashamed to admit that they became a nuisance, and your pregnancy had become a nuisance, and I grew harsher and harsher.
Maybe the Lord saw this in me and knew He had to bring me to my knees to soften my heart. Because losing you did soften my heart in a lot of ways. I’m not saying that I act perfectly now; I’m still acting out in different ways at times from what I assume is the grief. But overall, I felt something in me crumble. A rigidity in me broke and began oozing compassion and tears for things and circumstances that would have never previously moved me.
Maybe God didn’t want this to happen, but allowed it for the greater good of reforming me. And if that’s the case, then I’m sorry it was at the cost of your life, but I will be forever grateful and determined nonetheless to make sure that your death was not in vain. As tempting as it is, I will try my best not to let this experience harden my heart even more. I promise I will try to love better.
Please pray for me, my little Zelie, that I can grow into the person and mother God wants me to be, especially for the sake of your sisters who deserve better of me.
All My Love,
Mom
But it’s all colored so differently now.
I want you to know that even though I wasn’t as excited as I should have been, I was still excited for you…especially at the end, which makes the timing of your loss all the more heartbreaking. I was excited to know what you would look like and if you would resemble any of your sisters. And I couldn’t wait to see if you’d grow up to act like them too. I was so ready to bring you home to them and watch them smother you with unrestrained, adorably aggressive toddler love. And I couldn’t wait, for many reasons, for your dad to have a chance to finally hold you…He never did get to hold you…
You’ve somehow managed to turn all of my previous complaints into the things I now hold on to with all my heart. Your moving around and brewing up a storm within me reminds me how alive and special you really were. You weren’t another number in a set of siblings, and I shouldn’t have been waiting until you were born to start seeing you for the wonderful person you would become. In hindsight, I look back now and see you for who you were in those moments, and I wish I would’ve acknowledged your uniqueness more during that time while I still had you. All I can say is that I’m sorry. I’m forever sorry. If I had to do it all over again, even if the outcome were to be the same—and I would do it again in a heartbeat—I’d be better.
And I will be better, if and when the next baby comes. And I will be better to your sisters (or at least I will try). I spent a good deal of your pregnancy irritated with your sisters, just trying to “get through it” until you were born and my life could “go back to normal” or I could “have my body back.” I wasn’t the mother I should’ve been to you or your sisters during that time, always just trying to do what was easiest for me and keeping them quiet and out of my hair. I’m yet again ashamed to admit that they became a nuisance, and your pregnancy had become a nuisance, and I grew harsher and harsher.
Maybe the Lord saw this in me and knew He had to bring me to my knees to soften my heart. Because losing you did soften my heart in a lot of ways. I’m not saying that I act perfectly now; I’m still acting out in different ways at times from what I assume is the grief. But overall, I felt something in me crumble. A rigidity in me broke and began oozing compassion and tears for things and circumstances that would have never previously moved me.
Maybe God didn’t want this to happen, but allowed it for the greater good of reforming me. And if that’s the case, then I’m sorry it was at the cost of your life, but I will be forever grateful and determined nonetheless to make sure that your death was not in vain. As tempting as it is, I will try my best not to let this experience harden my heart even more. I promise I will try to love better.
Please pray for me, my little Zelie, that I can grow into the person and mother God wants me to be, especially for the sake of your sisters who deserve better of me.
All My Love,
Mom
