A gift just for us

(Sorry it’s long, too many things to think, might as well say them😅❤️)

This week I hear is ‘rainbow baby week’. 

For those special babies born after the complete heart break of losing a baby or child.

This year we have our rainbow. Our adorable, funny, curly haired, kinda crazy little Bhodi who has brought so much color back into our lives.

But let me be honest with you, Bhodi is amazing, but being a mum to a baby -after your other baby’s heart stopped and yours broke-is not at all simple. 

It’s going to the maternity ward everyday for the last weeks of my pregnancy just to check he was still ok. I of course didn’t lose Albie in pregnancy, but I now know that tragic things can and do happen, not just to someone else.

It’s making Bhodi wear a monitor sock every night of his life despite him really disliking putting it. First thing when I wake up I analyze how his oxygens been throughout the night. Sometimes I wake up with dread dreaming the alarm is sounding, I have to pick up from his sound sleep just to check he’s ok.

It’s reliving so many of the fun activities I did only a short time ago, but with a different boy. It’s still fun, still important, it’s just a bit of strange echoing of lives. Every week when we sing ‘wave goodbye’ at the end of Baby Sensory I’m never singing it to the class, or even to Bhodi, it’s always to Albie.

It’s being a regular at my GP and with our Health Visitor. I’m so grateful they understand.

I cannot miss anything. I will not miss anything. I will make sure Bhodi is ok. 

It’s only being able to offer a lesser version of my mum self than I was before. Bhodi will never know the me that was care free, well rested in many ways and content. I sometimes worry he’s got a raw deal, born into brokenness. But he doesn’t seem to notice, he knows he’s born into love.

But the really scary thing about a rainbow baby for me is this. What if Albie thinks we have moved on? What if he sees all the smiles Bhodi has brought back and does not realise that while I smile I still ache for him every moment of every day.

What if he thinks we’ve replaced him?

But that would never be possible. 

Albie is Albie. 

And Bhodi is Bhodi. 

Two wonderful boys. They should both be here, with their brothers. Five boys, two of us and a cat all squeezed into this three bed home. That would be heaven.

It’s still seems so strange to me that two of the people I love most will never get to meet, to play together, or even love each other. 

Unless they did…

Bear with me! I’ve always believed Albie sent us Bhodi. He is our very own ‘Albie’s Gift’. 

So maybe somewhere far beyond the stars they did meet.

Albie seen the joy that Bhodi could bring. He seen the fact that he literally would never stop smiling. He seen the fact that he was silly and daft and never serious. He maybe even seen that Bhodi would never sleep even close to all night (and while that’s exhausting!), he’d have known I’d need that reassurance of hearing him babble every few hours. 

I think he seen all that and he thought ‘yep that’s the one they need’ then added a little glint of Albie magic to Bhodis beautiful eyes just so we’d know it’s from him.

He chose Bhodi, so I know at my core Albie doesn’t feel replaced, he wants us to be happy. And I’ll love our gift of Bhodi forever, that’s the very very easy part of a rainbow baby.

So yes a rainbow baby brings color, but also a tonne of other things. 

No one is one type of weather after all!

So here’s to my rainbow baby Bhodi🌈

And to Albie…who is the whole sky