Brenna's EDD is here...

~ Brenna Emmile Ann ~
much loved...

Well, as they tend to do, days come and go, time rolls on regardless of anyone else's desire or intent. Children need taking to school and swimming lessons, lunches made, dishes washed... as I type, Zeke is with much fun, flinging Brooke's bather top up to all the high places he can, just to see if it will come down or not - see life is as it is... but apart from that, apart from the everyday practicalities, (and that I know I'll edit/change and add to this a billion times) Why doesn't today feel ... different like I thought it would/should? It's my Daughter's EDD... it should feel different, shouldn't it? Does it feel different? What is 'different'?

Well I know why it doesn't feel 'different' like one might imagine, I mean, it does, just not how I thought it would. It's because
I miss her today just as much as I do on any other day - everyday. I will always miss her every day, regardless, no matter what else the day holds.

Maybe it feels like it should feel more significant... maybe because today, and her Birthday, and maybe Mother's Day, are days where the rest of the world remembers her more, acknowledges... but even that's not so because so many people remember her and think of her, on any other given day... and for that you all, each and every one of you - I thank you, from all of us. If there's any luck at all to be had, it's that other people as well as us, love and remember Brenna too.

Maybe it's also partly because today is a day that never happened, really.
Brenna's actual brithday, the day I birthed her, will be something different to every other day - because I will know that one year ago to that date, the 21st September...I was birthing my Little Daughter, (see now the tears come) who I so desparately wanted...
but it's every day I think of this, or think of her in some other way, if not in thought at that moment, then always in my heart, and never far from my thoughts..

I watched today at swimming, a Dad tenderly cradle his tiny baby as he took her into the water, the excited and obviously (and rightfully) very proud Mum hovering with camera both video and digital, grinning from ear to ear, the dad visually taking in every inch of his precious baby...
and I know that today, in the perfect world, I should be holding, or close to holding, Brenna, alive, warm, with that delightful fuzzy newborn smell. She should be meeting her Dad, her brothers and big sister... her grandparents, her uncle, her Aunty... she should be here ready to meet everyone...
For Brooke and Jake and Zeke's actual birth date, was no more than two days either side of my EDD... but I'm not, I'm not holding her, or on the verge of birthing her now, in March. But I'm not. I think I've surrendered to that - I can't fight it - there's no real point is there.
Obviously patterns and history are interrupted, for Brenna was born several months too early. I often think, just a few more weeks, a few more weeks and even prem she would have had a chance, maybe. Anyway, what's new - maybes, what if's and all the rest.

I know I'm a little more down the track these days than I was, totally by choie of whatever it is that makes these things roll along. I suppose a way to say it is my grief has grown to 'mature' (?) a little... how bizarre. The ache will never go, will always be there, I'm just better at living with it, I think... most of the time.
I can hold someone else's baby, see someone else's belly or newborn, admire little tiny clothes, and.. do that separate now (most of the time) - holding someone elses' child is that 'top layer of card' I talked about before (entry 13th Nov 2007), the underneath layer of card is always there, just kind enough to allow the top layer to function in daily life, most of the time. That's the only way I can explain it - you never get 'over' it, you just grow your top layer back again, and people don't 'see' the underneath layer as much - but it's still there. Always.

Maybe reaching this point has been what's made is possible for me to have an instinctive response now, to my 'other' question - but that's another post saved in the drafts, for another day.

I guess days are what you make of them, and even today in the back of my mind doing everyday things, I know it's Brenna's 'EDD'. In the weeks and days leading up to today, and the days that come tomorrow and after, I'll know.
And ok, so today does feel different - despite my thinking as I drove home this afternoon, now that I'm typing and wiping away the tears, somehow today must be different...
And I wonder, as I've always done, endlessly, what I could have done, what the world/fate/the universe could have done, to have LET you be here with me, born, full term, alive... today.
And why.

Love and Miss you my Baby Girl, my Brenna - like nothing else on this earth I miss you.
Tears, sobs and hugs and heartfelt love...
please, if you can, come visit me tonight while I dream...
just a glimpse even
just for a little while...
xo Mummy