Acceptance?

I think it's fair to say that I'm doing okay. "Acceptance", "Integration" ... whatever the correct turn of phrase might be, I see it happening in my life. Not always - the black can still get me in a stranglehold sometimes - but mostly. I am happy. I can count my blessings. I laugh. I am able to enjoy my life again. A friend shared recently how, two years on, she is able to think of her son not only with love (which was there from the start) but with affection too. That's how I feel about Emma too. I don't always cry when I think about her - sometimes I smile with pleasure at the simple idea of her having been. Now, after a little while on this lifelong journey, I can separate her from her death and just enjoy the knowledge that she's my little girl eternally.

Sometimes, I even pull myself up, "Did I really have a baby who died before she was born?". Even after the hard evidence of the trauma and the pain and the hardship of the past eighteen months, I still can't quite believe it. It feels like a hazy, half-remembered nightmare. But then I pick up Toby and hold him in front of the photographs on the mantelpiece and point to Emma and tell him, "That's your big sister." and it feels very real all over again.