Today we are celebrating Karl's 29th birthday!
While he turns 29, we are also celebrating 28 weeks pregnant with Silas. It is a blessing to have made it this far!
This past Wednesday we had an appointment with the doctor. Everything is going as smoothly as possible at this point, but we did find out that I am measuring at 32 weeks due to an excess amount of amniotic fluid. We knew that this would happen and it was only a matter of time. Despite this knowledge, this news still makes us nervous. We desperately want to make it to term in order to increase our chance to meet Silas alive, but polyhydramnios can lead to preterm labor so the idea of measuring a month ahead of schedule is nerve wracking. We are trying to remain hopeful.
Last night Karl and I were up late discussing our birth plan and things to discuss during our meeting with the L&D staff at the hospital. We have been putting it off for some time because these conversations are difficult for us to get through. While it felt good to make decisions as a team, it ultimately led us to the dreaded conversation of planning for death. We discussed scheduling a time to go to the funeral home to do some advanced planning and we also talked about the ways we could best honor our son's life when we get to that point. It seems so morbidly unreal to plan for both of these things, but we have to. We don't want to... but we have to.
On a sweeter note, Ezra has really taken his big brother role seriously. At night before bed, he will read Silas a book or will sing "You are my Sunshine." Sometimes he shares cute stories about his day and other times he whispers quietly to tell him a secret. He hugs my belly and always says the same exact thing, "Good night, Silas. I love you. See you in the morning." Then he gives my belly a big kiss. I love that he is capable of loving his brother so much, but it pains me to see that he shares moments of heartache with us. Just the other day he hugged my belly and confessed, "Mommy, I am going to miss Silas when he leaves. Will I still get to hold him?" Random moments like this break through the numbness I have been feeling and pull me into a new, very raw form of heartache. Despite the pain, my love and appreciation for both of my sons and my husband continues to grow deeper and I didn't think that was possible.
“In this life we will encounter hurts and trials that we will not be able to change; we are just going to have to allow them to change us.” -R. L. Davis
