It's been a while between posts. I haven't really felt the need, or known what, to write. In the last few weeks there have been the usual ups and downs. I've cried about Kathryn, I've laughed with the kids as they feel the baby moving inside me, I've had a really bad doctors appointment that upset me a lot, I've been in a lot of physical discomfort (actually, forget discomfort, I've been in a lot of pain from my back) and I've had a few moments where the pain has reduced and I've really enjoyed the physicality of being pregnant. All of this is just my normal life now. I have a lot of emotions coexisting and some of them seem to contradict each other but they're all there. This is not a bad thing, it's not negative to feel dark emotions. This is just my new normal. I can not for one second feel guilty about wanting and loving our new baby as much as I do. I'm incredibly excited about meeting her and I adore feeling her move, wondering what she is experiencing inside me, thinking about what she will look like and be like. I love her. I know rationally and reasonably that if Kathryn had have survived I would in all likelihood never have had another child - and certainly not at this point in time. But I can never for one second stop missing Kathryn and wishing that there had have been some way we could have had both our girls stay here with us. I can accept that there was a reason I don't understand that Kathryn's spirit needed the experience of having a body, having parents and a family, but that she did not live outside of me. I believe she wanted to and intended to. I have nothing to base that belief on other than the conviction that Michael and I both feel incredibly strongly that she tried to live and wanted to live. The reasons she couldn't and didn't aren't for me to understand right now and I accept that. What I will never accept is the idea that her death was in some way for the best, or part of some grand design that included the birth of our new baby in Kathryn's place. I have four children - one of whom is with us only in spiritual form. Likewise, I don't need to understand the myriad emotions I feel. I don't need to process them or move past them or try not to feel the darker ones. I just accept that I have them.

One thing I am very sure of - this is our baby's time. The baby that is kicking me as I write this, that is. Of course I think about Kathryn. I get anxious about the progress of this pregnancy because I have had the experience of a baby dying inside me. It is not an irrational fear or anxiety - it is the memory of loss, the anxiety that it could happen again and the desperate hope that it doesn't. I also think about my other two children. And Michael, my dad, my parents-in-law, the rest of my family, my friends, the kids' school and activities, what to eat for dinner.... missing Kathryn is just one aspect of my daily life now. I don't think it's ever going to change. I will always miss her because she will always be physically missing from our family. But just as when she died I promised her and myself that it was her time and she would have it - the birth of our new baby is this baby's time. I do not see this baby as some kind of gift from Kathryn - even though I do believe that Kathryn was involved in leading this baby to us. I don't feel the need to 'remember' Kathryn in every activity involved with this baby. This baby was very deeply wanted by both of her parents for her own sake. She is not - and will not be - "Kathryn's sister". That would be too much of a burden to place on such small shoulders. My shoulders are more than broad enough to bear both grief and love at the same time.