Bringing home baby

Shannon is home. Finally. After 10 of the hardest days of my life, my hopes and dreams for my entire pregnancy and my beautiful little girl are contained in a small heart shaped box adorned with her first name and the date on which she was born. The box was so much smaller than I expected it would be, and holding her again as we drove home from the funeral home left me feeling quite empty inside. At the moment, she is residing in my purse, until I bring her upstairs to my room, where she will stay. I am glad that she is here but, at the same time, this is not the way I want to remember my child. Walking into and out of the funeral home brought out a bunch of questions from my son, ranging from "why did the baby die?" to "are the baby's bones here and can I see them?" and ended with "when are we going to have another baby?" All of these are good questions, and I don't really have the answers to any of them. How do you explain life and death to a 4 year old who wishes that his baby sister didn't die? I cried in the parking lot over the unfairness of it all, then we got in the car and drove home.

I went back to work today. It was tiring, but not terrible. I was left alone for the most part, but the pity faces were a little hard to take at times. I have found, over the past week, that telling people that you haven't returned their call or done something they wanted you to do because you were busy dealing with your child's death and birth really shuts most people up pretty quickly. At first, I was worried that I was tarnishing my beautiful child's memory by using her as an excuse, but I'm not worried anymore. It is my reality. I am just telling you the truth. My child died a little over 10 days ago and I am trying to deal as best I can. If you don't like it, sorry.

People have been saying that I am strong. I am not strong. I am just trying to move on from this tragedy and trying to imagine a future that doesn't have my Shannon in it. I am trying to look toward a future that has a successful pregnancy and another baby in it, but I don't think I am all that strong. I am just doing what I need to do to get by. I think that we all have two choices when something terrible happens to us, we either move on or we just shut down. It's a choice we all have to make at some point. Some people make their decision quicker than others. But we all have to decide. Today my journey took me as far as my bedroom, where my little baby Shannon now resides in a little heart shaped box. I guess that it's a start.