9

Nine years ago, we lost our first baby.

We were young. I was 20. Peter was 22. He was unemployed (although would get a job days later) and I was working part time at a library doing acquisitions, making $7/hr. We were barely making ends meet, eating cheap frozen pizza for most meals of the day, surviving... But that baby... He made our world. We were afraid of how we'd make it, but the baby... He gave us hope. Joy. Peace. The end of that dream crushed me. The comments people made (one person actually told us that God "took" our baby because we were Catholic and "worshiped statues") and just the loss of innocence were like weights on my shoulder. I think I stayed in bed, crying for days. I remember leaving on the 14th because I had to go to work and, when I got home, Peter was back from one of his first days of work and had made a special Valentine's Day dinner. Oh, how I cried. How my heart hurt. I still look back on that sweet baby and the joy he brought us in, what otherwise could have been, a very dark time.

I was a different person then. A person who couldnt stand to look back and see the reminders. A person I know I could never be today. The baby book that I had bought, I burned. I gave away any physical reminder of the pregnancy. I just couldnt stand to hold onto those things in my heartache. I deeply regret that now. I have journals for all the babies, but not for our first little one... Back then, I had no idea of the days to come and how, even though it was only for a short time, how I would have loved to have poured over those thoughts and remember.

Today is also the day we conceived the baby that we lost only 2 weeks later, one year ago.

Sweet little one... The little boy we called Peter, after your daddy... Even though it has been nine years since I found out that you werent with us, I still think about you every day. Thank you for your short visit. One day, I'll hold you in my arms and tell you, in person, how much I love you.