Remembering Our Daughter

As we await the results of this latest egg retrieval, we mourn the loss of our unborn daughter, who we said goodbye to a year ago this week.

She was dealt a brutally unfair, unfortunate hand — a lethal genetic abnormality that took her from us during the 20th week of pregnancy. This rare mutation, which was the result of something going wrong at conception, occurs in 1 in 35,000 pregnancies. And sadly this time, she was the 1.

Such a kind, gentle, innocent soul — as I like to think of her — did not deserve such a cruel fate. And though we didn’t get to hold her hand, or kiss her forehead, or look into her eyes, she is never far from our thoughts.

TIPS FOR REMAINING HOPEFUL IN THE FACE OF PREGNANCY LOSS

We are reminded of her every time we water the plants at our front door, which we planted in her (and our other lost unborn children’s) memory.

We laugh about the absurd nickname we still call her, which I have no idea how we came up with.

We’re convinced she had a hand in sending us our twin boys, as a way to make up for what had happened to her. And when they strolled into the afterlife after just 14.5 weeks of pregnancy, we joke that her reaction to seeing them was equal parts disbelief and disgust: “Oh, you have GOT to be kidding me!”

And when we hear Joshua Radin’s song, “High and Low,” with its lyrics that speak to an eternal love, we dream of the day when we will hopefully be reunited with her.

No, we will never get to meet her. Not in this life, at least.

But we love her, and miss her, and cherish her. And we can think of no better way to honor her than to do everything we can to one day meet her sibling.