Dear Andrew,

Your room is getting dusty.  It's filled with everything we bought for you over the short nine months of your life but never used.  Well, it's more like brimming over with everything we bought you.  There just isn't enough room and I will never have the heart to get rid of anything.  If anything I keep adding.  I've already knit you two more baby blankets.  I guess you can never have enough blankets buddy.

But I love having your room set up because on days like today I can go in there and think about what it would be like to have you here.  Five months to the day since you were stillborn.  What are the milestones for a baby that is five months old?  I don't even know.  I know you should be making lots of noise, providing lots of cuddles, and probably screaming your head off at us.  You should be a little roly poly ball of baby pudge with brownish red curls and big eyes.  You should have that baby smell that is just so perfect.  And you should be here for us to dote on.  You should be looking to your father and I for comfort but also being a little bit adventurous and curious as to what's around you.  We should be enjoying bath time and reading you books.  We should be so in love with who you are now rather than who you were and will always be.  You will never change from that newborn photo that we have of you and it makes me wonder what we have missed out on not being able to watch you grow up.

Your father always used to talk to you in my belly so that you would know his voice when you arrived.  He loved to tell you how it was going to be when you arrived.  How you were going to sleep though the night and always listen to him (yeah right!).  He used to tell you not to be like me since I'm stubborn and never listen to him and to never listen to the music I was forcing on you.  He was convinced if I kept playing it you were going to burst out of that womb as a hipster!

He loves you so much and always will.  He still talks to you like you are right here with us.  And in some ways you are and hopefully somewhere you are listening to us.  You are so engrained in who we are now it's hard to remember how our lives were before you were in them.

So today, for the first time since you've left, will not be filled with tears.  Today I am going to appreciate the time I had with you and the three of us as a family.  There will be plenty of time for tears but not today on your five month birthday.

I know this is all over the place but that's how my thoughts of you are.  One minute I'm thinking about what could have been and the next I'm thinking about when you were here.  The one thing I rarely think about is when we lost you because I think that is still just too scary.  I'm still not ready to relive those moments.

Happy five months baby.

I love you.