Life was moving fast for my wife and I. We met on January 1, 2016. We instantly had a deep and meaningful connection in so many ways and after many trips up and down the state of California, we got married on April 29, 2017. She moved in with me in San Francisco to start our beautiful life together.
Almost immediately we were so fortunate to find out we were pregnant. Both of us being advanced age – we knew that we wanted to get started right away on building our family together. Our son was born on February 6, 2018,
and we love him and cherish so much. He just celebrated his 2nd birthday.
In early 2019, we found out surprisingly we were pregnant again and we’re expecting a baby girl in October. However early on, she wasn’t quite growing and developing as expected. Something was off. Then we got the call – we were both at work and had a conference call with the geneticist who had the result of the baby’s screening. We were devastated. We didn’t understand. Further discussions and more testing only confirmed the worst. We did not and have not come to grips with it. My wife copes in some ways by reaching out to her family and friends and they helped carry her through the roughest months. I cannot do this. I can only cope by thinking about my baby girl in my private moments; I cannot express myself emotionally very well during such hard times. We lost our sweet daughter on April 3, 2019. Though she was so young and had only been with us for 3 months, she was a part of our past and going to be a part of our future. We named her Aria. We can only think of how similar and how different she would look compared to her big brother. We can only dream of having her with us every day but we know she’s in our hearts. She left us one memory that we can touch and see and hold on to (see picture).
Life moves in such mysterious ways. Life breaks you and then it makes you. We again surprisingly got pregnant in the middle of 2019. We are having a baby girl – the due date is in March 2020. We are ecstatic and overjoyed. And we can only wonder what could have been. We miss Aria every day.
Seeing so many others go through struggles and some experiencing the ultimate heartbreak – it is inspiring to see a community come together.
Thank you for this opportunity to share my memories and my pain but knowing that I am not alone.