Four Days and Counting

Our scheduled c-section is Friday and I can officially say I'm freaking out. Tears are constantly one blink away and my emotions are barely beneath the surface. I am very excited to meet this little one. To hopefully hear his/her little voice, get a peek at the eyes and touch his or her skin. I can't wait to see the color of baby's hair, whether it will be dark brown like Wyatt's or red or blonde like our other daughters'. I am curious to see what size of baby I've been toting around and whether this little one will continue my tradition of big babies. He or she has had two sisters that weighed over 8 1/2 pounds at 39 weeks, the youngest was just two ounces shy of nine pounds! We have almost positively settled on names and I am eager to bestow that name to a beautiful face. I am also extremely touched that almost every single member of our immediate family is planning on being present for this baby's birth. It is very important for me to be able to share this baby with them. I feel that seeing, holding and hopefully hearing our little one will create a more special place in their hearts for this child. He/she won't just be "something" that happened to Mandy. I also hope that their presence and witness to the extreme joy and heartbreak of the day will impact their lives in a positive way, one which I could not foresee. I also selfishly hope that this will help me in the future, that perhaps they will be patient for me as long as I need, that their memories of that day will linger.

Those are the good things. The not so good things are worries. Things which I know that I can't do anything about, just a fear of the unknown. I worry how I will be after the baby is born. How I will handle this, how our family will come through it. I know that even though I have lived through it once, there is no amount of preparation that can be done when experiencing the death of a child. Right now I am just clinging to hope.