The Story Goes On.....

Today is a day that I will never forget.  October 1, 2013.  I truly hope that I will never forget the moment the Doctor said, 'all looks great.  All is progressing and your baby looks healthy'.  Those of you that are aware of our painful journey to these words know I don't take these words for granted.  You may be reading this not knowing we are expecting. Today was our 20 week check up.  We have been silent because Sam and I have needed to take time to process going through this again and the fear, anxiety and large amounts of hope that creep in from day to day.  We needed to talk it out with God and each other and getting to a place where we could accept whatever may come our way.  It's been hard to not say anything, I love celebrating good news, but it's also allowed us such a sweet time to take this in as a couple and look for moments where we could move forward and connect through this miracle.  No outside voices to tell us what we should do or how to cope, just us.  I wouldn't change a thing about the last 20 weeks.

The moments that led me to the room where we received our 20 week anatomy scan were precious and marked with pieces of our sweet Juliette.  As I walked into the perinatal specialist office, I was overwhelmed with my first trace of tears.  All I could remember was being in this space before and the painful news we received that Juliette would not make it.   Her heart was in danger.  As we were called back to our room, the two nurses that settled us and did the initial ultrasound were both donning scrubs with butterflies all over them.  A reminder of our Juliette on the clothing of our nurses.  My heart suddenly felt at ease that she was with us in this precious moment and all would be okay.  The tears continued as we waited for our Doctor to come in and discus the ultrasound.  He was going through the organs development as a list you check off and kept saying, 'looks good'.  He ended with the heart and said, 'looks good, looks strong'.  Of course.  Again, my tears flowed.  Tears of  inexplicable joy.  Tears where my heart felt as if it might explode from my chest. Tears that dripped with the loss of Juliette and hope for this baby.  It's all so overwhelming in a truly amazing way.  Life from the very beginning is so very precious.

I can't stop looking at this picture. It is something I won't stop praying over as we continue this journey. We will not take one single moment of this for granted.  As we continue on this path to February 14th and beyond.