How Are You?

That is a hard question to answer. Hmm, how are we? It is a question that we have heard a lot and the answer I give is mostly the same. Physically I am fine. Emotionally it has been two weeks of ups and downs.

But when I ask myself that question in my head over and over, the answer can change from minute to minute. It doesn't take much for my mind to go back to the moment our daughter was born. And I hope that I can always call that memory back. I am worried that there will come a time when I will forget about this experience. That I won't be able to remember what she looked like or what it felt like to hold her in our arms before we said good bye. And if I don't always remember then it will be like she never existed. That she wasn't important or a part of our lives.

This pregnancy was monitored pretty closely in the beginning. We were doing everything we could to make it to the end. She was important. She was everything I thought about day and night. And just because she was only 6 inches long and didn't make it past 17 weeks doesn't mean she wasn't our child and our daughter. That validation is so important to me right now.

That is why I really felt the strong desire to name her. We didn't name her in the hospital because they weren't able to tell if our baby was a boy or girl. That broke my heart. Then almost a week later the Dr called to tell us that the baby was a girl. And my heart broke again. It would have broke either way, boy or girl, it was just that important information that I had to know. And now we did. Again, this really did happen to us. And we had a daughter. Anna had a sister.

We labored over the name for a few days. And in the end decided on - Olivia Hope Carstens. Olivia was a name that we have always liked but has been so popular lately that we probably would not use it. And the middle name Hope, well Hope is what we have to have moving forward along with Faith. We picked Hope for the middle name but will be keeping our Faith close and strong.