To love hard, is to grieve hard.

Eleven.

Today two of our three, would be eleven.

For the first time in this journey, I had the thought, 𝘸𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘐 𝘴𝘩𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺 𝘺𝘦𝘢𝘳?

It didn’t take long for my heart to beat into my throat with a resounding yes.

Is it weird to still feel a hole that something is missing even though they weren’t ever even really here?

Is it weird to still feel the longing yearn and wonder of who they would have been?

Is it weird to still feel the reorienting of my womanhood, my motherhood, our marriage, my life, and my legacy?

…eleven years later?

To love hard, is to grieve hard.

And when you dream of becoming parents (not to mention plan, pay, and poke your way to it through infertility treatments), you dream of entire lifetimes.

Which means you grieve a lifetime of could have beens, never will bes, and wonders.

When you live a life of grief and joy in every moment, you find ways to honor them.

And so, I share every year.

They’d be eleven.

I also share every time I teach.

Because the gift of them, and the loss of them, brought you me.

And because every single time I bring them with me, I have someone who stops me or messages me with a thank you because they struggled to conceive too or they lost a baby too. In the space of 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘺 𝘦𝘹𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘥, 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘺 𝘢𝘳𝘦𝘯’𝘵 𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦, 𝘪𝘵 𝘪𝘴 𝘩𝘢𝘳𝘥, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘐 𝘢𝘮 𝘰𝘬𝘢𝘺 I am met with a 𝘮𝘦 𝘵𝘰𝘰 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘬 𝘺𝘰𝘶. Every single time.

Every. Single. Time.

I share them with you because it honors them and me.

I share them with you because you aren’t alone.

I share them with you because you know someone with a story of loss similar to mine.

I share them with you because they’re my babies, and they count too.