My little Delaney. My sweet little Delaney ... I have hesitated so much to vocalize these feelings because of fear of how it would be interpreted. I love my daughter more than words can even begin to explain. I treasure her and appreciate her presence in my life. I am grateful she was given to me. She is my joy. She's also my sadness...
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There is beauty in the storm, with the rainbow representing the end of the storm and brighter days.
So I have my rainbow baby. And, according to so many, her light shining on me should make my days all better. I read all about having the rainbow baby and heard from my friends how healing she would be.
But no one really talks about the flip side.
No one talks about looking at your rainbow and celebrating the shine but seeing reflected in it the shadow of what was lost. The darkness of the storm. The only reason the rainbow is referred to in such a way is because of the storm. They'd just be another child in the family. But they are the rainbow, the promise, blah blah blah.
My pregnancy was filled with dread. When would I stop feeling her? When would she die?
She failed her bio-physical profile ultrasound. I kept asking "but her heart is beating right?". She wasn't moving, she wasn't responding to stimulation. Something was wrong. And I just knew she was on her way to meet Colton too.
We induced immediately. When I delivered her she was blue, no cries. The cord was double wrapped around her neck. Very quickly my OB unwrapped the cord and she cried. I think. Maybe? I don't even remember. I do remember feeling guarded. Feeling a wall. A protective barrier. She was perfect, and beautiful, and ... alive.
But Colton was still dead.
See, the rainbow was there but she was shining through the cloud in the room. The thundering, deafening, pouring rain cloud. And this little rainbow, this little shining beacon in that cloud. Everyone else was celebrating, happy, and I was .... detached. Feeling the ache of the storm, the darkness, the memory of what was lost before. Seeing her held up and pink and alive in the doctors hands. And seeing the dark room, the lifeless body, the silence of when he held Colton just the same. Two wrinkles in time, paralleling in that moment. Torturing me and blessing me all at once.
Every milestone is so bittersweet. Would Colton have crawled at the same age? Would he have had a tooth sooner than Delaney's perpetual teething-with-no-results? Would he be so close to walking?
More painfully ... would he have her beautiful golden brown locks? Her piercing blue eyes? Would his laugh sound the same? What about that smile? Would he have a dimple too? Would his eyes dance with excitement and joy? Would he be as curious and adventurous and outspoken? Would he love making music and dancing at the slightest sound of a tune? Would he ......................
I rock Delaney in Colton's rocking chair every night. It's still Colton's rocking chair in my mind and heart. She's borrowing the space. She sleeps in his crib.
And the guilt I feel for this? Immense. Overwhelming. Crushing.
She is worth her own identity. She's worth her own life. She's worth being celebrated and loved without the comparison. Without the longing for knowledge of who her brother would have been.
And yet she's Colton's rainbow. She's a promise. Right? A promise of what though?
The pain isn't gone. It's not lessened.. Sometimes it's even magnified.
And the guilt for feeling this way. A punch into the gut. A feeling of failing another child, just in a different way. Failing to be able to give her untainted love. To give her an individual assessment and appreciation.
I love her so much, so I hate feeling this way. I hate feeling like she's a reminder of all I lost. I want to just love her. Just enjoy her. I don't want to cry when I rock her in the middle of the night, longing to know who Colton would be, longing to have held him and rocked him in his chair.
I want to be her rainbow. I want to heal so that she never feels like a shadow. So she knows she's Delaney. And she's wanted and loved and treasured.
Not as the rainbow baby, but as my baby.
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