January 23rd.

It was a couple of weeks ago that I realized I would be 23 weeks (technically today is 22 weeks and 6 days) on January 23rd, my due date with Olivia (2010). Olivia was born at 23+2 weeks. And my "official" due date with Lucas is May 23rd. That's made me a little extra leery of this week, all of those 23's.

In the scheme of things, today wasn't really significant, except for that it represents what could have been, should have been, and isn't. If my first pregnancy had been normal, Olivia would be just turning one sometime around now. We remembered and celebrated her birthday back in September instead, and even if by some miracle she had lived, we would have never made it to January. At my last OB appointment the week before I was diagnosed with HELLP, my ob was already saying we would probably have to deliver very soon because she was so growth restricted, they were afraid that she might stop growing completely and/or be stillborn. We didn't know it would be the next week, we were hoping to make it to Halloween, but January quickly became out of reach. So, I guess it's more of a symbol of an impossible out of reach fantasy that was never our reality.

With all of the snow, plus Joe having to work today, we decided to go to the angel statue today instead of the cemetery. That didn't work out so well, because the path to angel was covered in about a foot of snow, plus they had plowed the foot of snow that had been in the parking lot along the edge of the path. It was almost as tall as me, so we quickly agreed it wasn't going to work. Joe did brave the snow to go down to the angel and leave a rose while I watched from the car. Hopefully we can try again in a couple of weeks.