My family celebrated Thanksgiving early this year, on November 22nd, as my sister and her family will be out of town on the actual day.  The days leading up were typical of my "new normal" as in, I am always said, but not feeling it more or less.

Then "Thanksgiving" came...I believe I held it together during dinner, a few games with the kids and the annual tradition of giving them a new Christmas ornament.  Then I left, went home and lost it.

We should not have been having Thanksgiving today.  My sister and her family should not be going to the river.  I should be on maternity leave with a newborn, or a week old still in my tummy.  We should be getting ready to celebrate this new life that is in our family.  I was excited for Thanksgiving, the kids holding Lucy, feeding her, maybe even attempting to change a diaper.  And the realization truly hit me that it will never happen...and with that realization, any hope for joy this season has left me.

I will not be dressing Lucy up super warm, being the first one at the mall so Santa can hold her for our Christmas card picture...the first one, so he hasn't touched any germy kids yet.  I will not be putting her in reindeer antlers and a red diaper cover with tail to take pictures under our tree.  I will not be buying her a cute Christmas sleeper and taking tons of pictures of her with her cousins, grandparents, aunt and uncle on Christmas morning.  I will not be letting my nieces open her presents, because she is too little and needs help...and I will not see them oohing and aahing over every cute thing she does.

She won't be here and, you'd think after 5 months of her not being here, that would have hit me.  But it never will.  I have an entire lifetime to "get used" to her not being here.  There will never be a Thanksgiving or Christmas, never a birthday party, never an Easter egg hunt, never a Halloween costume....and that is just not ok.  Yet, I don't have a choice.  And so the only thing I can do is learn to live with nothing every being "ok" again.....and I don't have the slightest idea how to even begin that.

Today is Lucy's due date.  I am sad, as I am every day....but I also feel guilty for not feeling worse today.
I think that, as opposed to my 2 miscarriages, Lucy has a birthday...and that is the day that will be harder for me.  Today was just an estimate.  So, while I am letting the "shoulds" invade my mind, it's not a definite...like the day in June.