“Replacement” Baby

When a ship sinks, the water surrounding it rushes in to fill the emptiness it once occupied.  It’s easy to get caught in the swirling vortex created by such a gaping hole, to be sucked down into the depths, fighting for air and often being blind and disoriented, unable to find your way out.  Coraline’s death left that hole in our life, we’re just trying to plug the drain.  We try to fill it with work, or school, or writing, or blogs and forums, friends and lunch dates, Netflix and Skyrim.  But it's never completely healed, it's never the same.  The bottom of the sea is scarred with wreckage.

There seems to be a huge stigma over “rainbow” babies being “replacement” babies.  Although Matt & I are nowhere near ready, personally, to conceive again, I’m here to set the record straight:

Yes.  Our next child will somewhat be a “replacement” for Coraline.

And that’s not always a horrible thing.  Had she survived, I doubt we would try again – I probably would have been perfectly content with my 2 children, my boy and my girl, and left it at that.  But my daughter is gone, before we even had a chance to bring her home.  And there is the vacant spot where our hearts beat for her.  The love is still there, but there is nothing tangible to attach it to.

It is natural to want to try for another.  To know that we are capable, willing, and brave enough to try again.  Scared shitless, but plunging forward into another 8+ months of hell and uncertainty, just for the chance to bring a person into this world and surround them with love.  Never forgetting or really replacing our first baby girl, but adding to our family and continuing the love we had for her.