Some Days ...

... it's all too much. Everything. Everything hurts. I feel like I just can't ... I don't know. I just can't.

I miss my baby. I miss the sweet newborn that was mine. I miss having her nap on my shoulder, hearing her soft breath and feeling her silky hair against my cheek.

I want to look at the older pictures of her, six albums' worth, and remember her ... but the sight of her sweet, perfect little face cuts me to the core. Because she is not mine. I grew her - those eyes, that chin, they're very much mine - and gave her life, and loved her and took care of her. And she is a stranger to me. A perfect, wonderful little stranger.

When I placed Roo, I gave her parents a notebook I'd filled with everything in the world there was to know about Roo. Her schedule, her habits, her temperament, her health. I was a Roo expert. I knew her better than I knew myself.

That honor belongs now to P and M. They are privileged to know the ins and outs of Roo - to know every little thing about her - the sound of her breath, the faces she makes, the bumps in her tiny teeth. I signed all that away.

I will never regret my decision. And yet ... I miss her. I miss her, and it hurts. She is not mine. She will never be mine again. That will never, ever change. Which is sort of horrible. With my dad's death, I grieved (and still grieve), but that was different. My father will never be any less dead or more dead than he is. Nothing about that will change.

Things with Roo will change. The grief began with a birth, not a death. She will learn and grow and become her own person. Her life will have ups and downs like everyone else's, and things will change. And I won't be around for any of it. I will be an observer, a witness to it all, but it will not be mine to share, to enjoy, to thank God for.

To be a birth mother is to experience the worst sort of unrequited love. I love Roo with every atom of every cell in my body. And she will never really love me back. Not in the way that she'll love her mother. Which is how it should be. I know that. I wanted that.

And yet ... it hurts. And I'm going to live with that pain for the rest of my life.

I'll do it, though. I'll do it for her.