I can’t believe it’s been over a month since I’ve written. Life is seemingly going by faster and faster and each month sort of just flies right now. Today is the 28th and as you know, Maddie was born on the 28th of March. This is the hardest day of the month for me.

Every month, this day never fails to hurt, it never fails to throw me off guard. The days before the 28th I typically turn into a wreck. I have my hard days and I cry and I can’t understand why I’m not moving forward and why it feels like I’m right back in the early days. Then, it hits me. It’s the 28th. She’d be a month older.

Today is the 28th. I was a mess all yesterday and essentially did nothing but stay in my PJs and cry. The weather isn’t helping either. My Maddie girl would be 7 months. She’d be babbling and crawling and laughing. She’d be wearing the 6-9 month clothing I had organized in a bin, ready for her. I have so many unanswered questions. Would she still have her stork bite? Would her hair have gotten darker, would it be longer? Then I wonder, what is she like in Heaven? Is she growing and changing? When I meet her one day, will she be older?

I prepared for these days with things like her clothes, a high chair, etc. because I was so sure they would come. We’re all so sure there will be a tomorrow, a next week, a next month. Now that the days are here and Maddie is not, it’s another blow. Every time. Every stage. Every month.

They said the first year is the hardest when you lose a baby. All the milestones. Every month is a milestone. You get to set them up on the cute mat and take a picture with whatever month it is. You don’t ever think that you’ll be folding that blanket up in a box in your basement after just 5 weeks because your baby has died. You take the pictures and you can’t wait to see how your baby will change and grow over the following months.

I don’t get to take the pictures. I don’t get to experience the milestones. I have angel wings and ashes and 1,001 photos that there will never be more of. It feels so unfair.

Today, I am sad. Today, I miss my baby, I hold her as close as I possibly can in my heart and I wonder who she’d be today. I know I will be OK and I know my family will be OK. I know the sun will come out again and there is so much hope, and so much good in our future. But on the 28th, at least for right now, I am allowed to be sad.

I will always wonder who you’d be today.