Close to seven months into this journey and I am only just beginning to think that you may live. You move so much now. I never mind. You rock back in forth while I sleep, waking me at dawn with kicks that come just in time to ease the panic that you are still. You're alive.

Close to seven months into this journey and I am only just beginning to think that you may live. I may actually walk out of a hospital with more than just a card with faint footprints. I may actually have a lifetime to spend with you. The idea pushes me under, like when I guide your brother's heads back in the tub to wash their hair and they panic at the water rising above their ears. Your sister left this hole, this emptiness so vast and cold that the thought of you warm against me makes the cold feel even colder.  It pushes me under and the water rushes to cover me.

Seven months in and I'm just beginning to think I may need to wipe down the crib and car seat, and pull out the sleepers your three brothers have already broken in. Seven months in and I'm growing so hopeful, so attached, so in love with this fourth son. Please live Ben. Please be perfect. Your brothers are the most delightful cacophony of noise and dirt and kisses. They smell like wind and they run and wrestle and scream like banshees and they need you to join their ranks. So don't leave littlest boy. Please stay with us. Please be my bookend and finish our family.

4-

I hate it when people ask if ill try for a girl. I have a girl. I had one. And i want to say your name, Grace Elizabeth, to put life into you, but they cant handle hearing about you. They dont want to listen to how I grew you for five short months and then you were gone. They cant understand how I never saw your face, but still I look for you in the eyes of every dark hair, brown eyed girl I see. How when I'm counting the boys, 1- Solo, 2- Eli, 3- Jonas, 4-             , I always balk at 4 and that split second of panic catches in my throat because I don't see you and just where did you get too? And then I remember- Don't count to four when counting heads on the shore. Don't count to four when calling the kids for dinner. Don't look for a fourth hand to hold when walking through a parking lot. Don't think about buying a fourth winter coat or budgeting for four kids at Christmas. Don't think about leggings and boots and cute shirts with glitter or anything pink because you aren't here, and I know you can't be here, but the spot you should be in is visibly vacant. I see your absence in their photographs where you should be nestled between three big brothers and where your seat should sit between them at table, between their spilled milk and boisterous banter. I can feel the warmth and weight of where your arms should cross behind my neck with every hug and it's warm like my face when I sit near the fire even though my back is always cold.

 That's what I want to say when people ask me if I'll try for a girl. I had a girl. I have a daughter. And like her Daddy says, we will have her for all of eternity. Just not today.