I'm okay.... mostly

I find that I am doing mostly okay.  Ashlyn keeps me moving during the day and Steve and I have been relaxing watching TV when she goes to bed.  Fear Factor is best and you can't really be sad when you are watching people eat scorpions or bob for cow hearts in a vat of blood, right!  When we go to bed is normally when the tears come.  I say a little prayer to my Quinney every night and that is normally when the tears come.  I ask her to help heal the whole in my heart and make it a little more bearable.  I ask her to be with me help me accept that she is gone.  I sleep with the mini-hippo pillow pet that my mom got Quinn to match her big sister's and the receiving blanket that Quinn had the night she died.  Last night Steve was reading when we went up to bed so I had a picture of my Quinn-Bean propped up right in front of my face while I was sleeping.  As I was dozing off I could open my eyes and she was right there.  It was almost like I was sitting in the NICU holding her in my arms again getting sleeping just like I would do when she was alive.  It was peaceful and the nurses would laugh at me when I said that it was so peaceful to sit and hold her and nearly fall asleep myself.  They of course never thought it was peaceful but while she was in my arms all was right in the world. 
I am of course mourning the loss of Quinn but I think that I am also mourning what should be.  I knew from 20 weeks gestation that what "should be" never would be but I find that I am still having a hard time letting go of it.  I want my healthy happy baby that I should have been blessed with!!  When I rock Ashlyn at night and think that I should have my Quinn-Bean home with me to rock her to sleep too but I don't.  When we are sitting down to dinner I think that I should be holding Quinn and trying to eat at the same time.  When I wake up from a full night sleep I think that I should be delirious from sleep deprivation from being up all night nursing my baby.  I am having a hard time letting go of all of this. 

Decorating for Christmas was hard.  I procrastinated a long time but I knew that it was something I had to do for Ashlyn.  She deserves a normal (well, as normal as possible) Christmas and she couldn't have that with out a Christmas tree.  I think the hardest part of decorating was unpacking a Christmas picture frame I got last year.  Just a simple frame that says "HO HO HO" and  I think again of what "should be" in it.  It should be a family picture of all four of us and it won't be.  My heart is broken.  I miss my daughter and hurt in a way I never thought possible.  There will forever be a whole in my heart.  I know that I need to somehow let go of the "should be" but right now, that is really hard to do....