Dear Rainbow Baby,

I remember the day I found out you were here. I held my breath as I walked back into the bathroom, after the standard three-minute wait, and gazed at the white stick on the countertop. There were two blue lines and I had never felt so beyond excited and so amazingly scared at one time. You see, rainbow baby, you were very much wanted and needed more than you will ever know. Your momma’s heart had been broken not just once, but two times in the year prior to that test.

Your dad and I both decided not to tell anyone about your existence inside of my belly until after our first doctor’s appointment. So for those first 12 weeks, we bit our tongues and said secret prayers to God that you would stay here indefinitely, that we’d get to meet you on the other side of pregnancy.

With each person we told, I felt like I was giving away chances at your survival.

I know that sounds crazy, but to me, letting others know about you was a big risk and putting it out into the world scared the hell out of me. Only a few select people were told about you until we got the results of our genetic testing back.

I’ll never forget the day the doctor called me and told me that everything looked really good and that you were a boy—which totally took me by surprise because I would have bet a large amount of money on you having been a girl.

With each passing month, I continued to pray and hope I would get to meet you. I religiously listened to your heartbeat on the fetal Doppler machine your nana had bought for me nearly two years prior, when I was pregnant with your first angel sibling. Nearly every night, I searched for your heartbeat, and when I found it I swear I would listen to it for over an hour. The beating of your heart was like music to my ears and I didn’t want to stop listening.

As you started to kick and I could feel you move, my worries lightened a little but not much. At every doctor’s appointment I was so scared they would have some kind of bad news to tell me. The anxiety affected my pregnancy and I was not able to enjoy it the way I had with your older brother.

And then, just like that, two days before your scheduled arrival via C-section, my water broke in the doorway of the upstairs backroom and phone calls were made to your daddy at work and both grandmas and we were on our way. You didn’t arrive until six hours later, because I had decided to eat an early dinner that afternoon and we had to wait to deliver you until it was out of my system. However, because of you, I got to feel real labor pains and the chaos of rushing to the hospital to have a baby. It might sound like I’m complaining, but I’m grateful for that now because I never got to experience that with your brother.

At 10:30 p.m. on a cold January night, we heard your seagull-like cry for the first time. Everyone in the operating room giggled at the sound of it. Not two minutes later, your daddy placed you on my bare chest and a huge wave of relief washed over my scared soul and I was in love once again.

I immediately thought how much you looked like your dad and noticed your quiet, calm demeanor. As I got to know you over the next couple of days in the hospital, I appreciated the fact that you were such an easygoing baby, a stark contrast to your brother as a newborn. I offered up a quick thank you to God for sending me one of these “easy” babies I had heard so much about.

In the months following, as we curled up in the easy chair together in the middle of the night, I fell even more in love. We had our hard days, where we were both crying and tired but it was so much easier this time around as you didn’t have colic like your big brother did.

Today, at nearly a year old, I couldn’t imagine my life without you.

I know that in order for my rainbow baby to exist I had to endure the pain of becoming a mom to two angels.

Although my heart will always wonder who they would have been and why they could not stay here, I will always be grateful that I have you.

You are the surprise of my life. You are everything my heart wanted and my soul needed. The second I saw you I knew my family was complete. You continue to heal old wounds that have scarred me inside and out.

You are such a happy, beautiful little boy and sometimes when I look at you, I don’t know where you came from. From your blue-green eyes and strawberry hair in a family of brunettes and brown-eyed people, to your contagious smile and constant curiosity, you blow me away.

Always remember how much you are loved.

Always remember how much you were needed.

Always remember that you and your brother (and my two angels) are the lights of my life.

I love you always, my Rainbow Baby,
Mom