Eight more weeks

On Tuesday, I would have been 36 weeks pregnant with Sawyer.

My doctor said she would have brought me in tomorrow to start an induction. I anguished over this day and that number for such a long time - even before Sawyer was born. Looking back on my blogs from May, my goal was to make it to 28 weeks. The actual day he came into the world.

I knew I was never going to make it this far. I talked to my nurse early last week and she said that she's "been doing this for 23 years, and there are the women we remember. The women like you who tell us the entire pregnancy that they know something is wrong. And they're always right."

I wish I realized it in my mind sooner. When I went to all those appointments week after week I would say the same thing over and over again - I didn't feel right.

I guess it wouldn't have mattered if Sawyer was born on June 1 or July 27 or August 24 (his actual due date). I know what the neonatologist said, "Even if he was full-term, the outcome may not have been much different."

But, to me the past eight weeks have been a blurry, painful nighmare. I could have had him eight more weeks. That would have been eight more weeks to get to know my baby. Eight more weeks to pinpoint what Sawyer's favorite food was. Eight more weeks that he would have felt my pure love and heard my heartbeat as we both waited, unknowingly, for the same end.