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Nine Months

Gestation is nine months. Most full-term, healthy babies are held in their mother's womb for nine months. For me those nine months were blissful. I took such caution with my body, my mind, my soul. From the moment the little wand showed a + sign, no caffeine passed my lips, no cigarette smoke was in the room, alcohol may as well of been pure unadulterated sin; exercise, rest, water…we were making a person and he had to have the best beginning of any child ever. This child we knew was a boy, not because anyone told us, we just knew. From the time of conception I knew my child was a boy. I didn't even ask the doctor when he was born, there was no need, he was a boy. His name...we had narrowed the list down to a few, but this son of ours, he needed a strong name to match his strong character, we needed to see him, hold him, know him before we dressed him with something so special as his name. This choice was personal, private, ours to give. Together we chose his name, Wyatt. It means "little warrior." We knew our little man would be full of personality, love, ambition, life and that his life would bring fulfillment to ours, he would be our little warrior boy.

Our little warrior, such a person from the first breath of air breathed into his lungs. I knew his cry as I heard him screaming for me as the nurses pushed him down the hall in his little crib. He was my gift from God and my love knew no boundaries. I didn't understand how the body could contain the love I had for this gift of a child, a son, my son, my child. It was difficult to fathom or understand all my feelings of love, caring, compassion, gratitude, joy, fear, trepidation…each so intense, so present, each independent yet all the same. How could there be fear without gratitude; how could I know joy without trepidation, how could I be a mother, why did God trust me with this glorious gift of a son, how could He believe that I could possibly be a mother…oh I would need help with all of this.

God knew I needed help, that’s why he provided me with lots of it. Family and friends who loved and supported us….we had everything we needed to make it all work. I had all the tools in the toolkit, but most of all, love. Love rained upon us from every direction. I was so completely filled with love; I needed nothing else…truly.

Those nine months of gestation, November to August, I cared so diligently for my son. I celebrated each time he would kick or move in my belly. Life lived inside me…how spectacular. My purpose was made, my life focused, my world altered. I would be Wyatt’s mom.

Today, my little warrior has been gone for nine months. My son, my joy, my warrior, taken, stripped from my arms, wrenched from my life, ripped away like a piece of paper. The pain, this loss, this death annihilates the joy I felt on the day of his birth, it’s as if every joy I had was sent to slaughter and I watched life drain from being, I watched death defeat life, I watched death devour life, I watched death take my son. I watched the joy of my life breathe his last breath just as I watched him breathe his first. Life would change me, this time by death.

Gestation is nine months…My grief has begun.

MWL 9.1.10

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