Dear Addison

Today was the day we were supposed to be saying hello.  Instead, we have said goodbye one more time.  Today is the day we so looked forward to, and recently, it has become the day that I dreaded.  To know that it was time for you to come home.  Time for you to become part of our family.  You will forever be part of my heart, never be forgotten by me, your daddy or your family.

This is the first time that I have written in the blog since your diagnosis.  I started the other blog in hopes that you would make it, that it wouldn't be so bad and that we could take you home and you would be healthy.  I was hoping that I would keep that blog to update our family on your progress, your surgeries and your health.  I haven't been back to that blog since.  I want to, though...maybe I'll read it later.  It's not like I have to be reminded, though.  I remember everything about that day...when we found out that your little heart would hold so much pain...crying for hours that afternoon.  Daddy and I laid on the couch and cried and cried that day.  I remember going to the ultrasound, hearing what the doctor had to say, meeting in the room with her.  Memere was there too.  She cried along with us.  We did the amniocentisis and we found out several days later that chromosomally, you were perfect.  But your heart was broken.  Too broken for us to fix it.  We couldn't put you through that pain.

The day that you became an angel and the days leading up to it were horrible.  They marked our paperwork at the hospital as "Unwanted Pregnancy."  Which couldn't have been farther from the truth.  We wanted you so badly.  We still do.  We wish that you were arriving (or already have arrived!) soon.  We just couldn't let you feel the pain of the short life you were bound to live.  The night before you became an angel, I could feel you kicking me.  All night.  I apologized to you all night long.  I'm sorry, I'm so so sorry is all I kept telling you.  I tried to tell you that we were doing what we thought was best for you, even if it meant that you would never be an "outside baby," that would you only ever be an angel.  It meant that we would never hold you in our arms, but forever hold you in our hearts.

I want you to know that I think of you every day.  There is never a day that goes by that I don't think of you.  I think about what it was like when you were in my tummy.  What it felt like when we found out I was pregnant and the ultrasounds we saw of you.  When we found out that we were having a daughter.  We only ever saw you in the pictures.  We never saw you on the outside.  We couldn't bear to deliver you and hold you, knowing that you would never be alive, it would just hurt too much.  You were a beautiful baby in the pictures.  I often wonder what you would have been like if your heart didn't need to be fixed.  Would you have been like me?  Or like Daddy?  Would you have liked sports or been artsy?  Would you have been both? 

I hope you are safe, where ever you are.  I hope that you are with Grampa, and that he is holding you tight.  I hope that you got to meet your brother or sister, who was with us for just 7 weeks.  It's your job to take care of him or her...since you're a big sister now.  I hope that you understand what we did and why we did it.  It wasn't for us, it was for you.  To keep you safe and free from pain.  We love you more than anything in the world and we wish you were here with us.

Maybe someday we'll get to meet you.  I hope that when we do, you'll forgive us and still love us, knowing that our intentions were pure.  We needed you to be safe.  It was our first big decision as parents and it was a completely unfair decision for us to have to make.  We did the best we could with the information we had.  I hope that you will someday understand.  I will never, ever, ever stop loving you and wishing you were here.  You will always be my first born child, born on September 29, 2011.

I love you always and forever.

Love,
Mommy