Another Friday Without My Big Girl

The Fridays come and the Fridays go.....I can't believe Rachel would be almost 10 months old.  Oh, I bet she would be the cutest thing ever.

Today as I pulled up to her grave, I felt at a loss for what to do.  I usually have something to tidy up or make look pretty... flowers to bring, flowers to water... something to do for her.  Today there was nothing.  It looked perfect.  Her stone is beautiful.  It sparkles.  It shines.  It's prominent... and if I can be so bold as to say, I think it's the nicest one in there.  for all the worrying I did....wow, it's nice.  And the fake flowers I brought last week were just as I had left them.  The flower pot hole we had carved into her stone protects them from the wind.  I didn't bring anything new or have anything to set up.

So I just stood there.  I noticed her grass is still in the shape of a heart.  I just studied the ground and thought about all the ways God has continued to show me that heaven is for real....  and then it was like a ton of bricks on my heart...  my baby's dead body is just below the surface of this ground.   I stood there crying like I haven't cried there in months.  It felt so fresh and so raw.  I can still picture her perfect little face and would love to kiss her little nose one more time.  I picked a dandelion nearby and placed it on her stone and walked away, doing my usual "I love you" sign as I got back in the van.

This afternoon, my nurse from Rachel's birth, Kim, came and spent the afternoon here with me.  It was awesome.  She brought me some daisies too. ♥  I know it sounds silly to care about, but one of my struggles is that when people ask how big she was and I say Rachel was 3lbs 7oz, people get a picture of this tiny little preemie.  Today I mentioned that to Kim and she said with complete assurance, "oh no, she was the size of a 6 1/2 pound baby" and it felt so good.... to know that she knew her and I didn't have to convince her or try to explain how much a baby's head weighs or what it adds to her length or tell her how her preemie clothes didn't fit her and I had to have someone go get a bigger size at the store.  She knew that my girl was chubby and for her gestational age, pretty good sized.  She wasn't the preemie that people think of when they hear her stats.  In the same way that most people long to be known and understood by others,  I long for people to know and understand Rachel and the details about her.  It made my day to hear someone who sees tons of babies of all sizes confirm what I have been trying to tell people.  I guess my desire for people to get this stems from the desire for everyone to know that she was a strong growing baby and I think that if she was that small at 37 weeks that would say otherwise.  But there you have it.... Kim says she was the size of a 6 1/2 pound baby and at 37 weeks, that makes her big! :o)