Our Love Story is My Favorite of All Time, An Open Love Letter to My Husband

Originally Published January 26, 2017

You asked me to marry you on a Sunday. The sun’s rays bounced off the rolling waves of the Pacific Ocean, the sky awash in pastel yellow, blue and pink. The very next day we found out I was pregnant. You were excited before me. I sat in the bathroom and stared at the plus sign on the pregnancy test. You watched through the open door and smiled. You weren’t concerned. “But,” I bemoaned, “We just got engaged.” You beamed. “Good thing I asked you to marry me yesterday!”

We were married 10 weeks later. An outdoor wedding in the Spring. The sun shone that day and the high was 55 degrees. Not too cold to wear my sleeveless empire wedding dress. As we shared our vows I got chill bumps when I promised to be “the mother of your children and the companion of your days.”

I was 14 weeks pregnant. We knew Poppy was a girl and she already had her name. She’d chosen it just days after we knew she existed. “Poppyseed,” I started calling our tiny zygote, the same week we discovered I was pregnant. You loved the nickname.

I remember sitting at the kitchen counter with your laptop when we opened the email revealing her gender. We opted to find out. We didn’t want to wait. We couldn’t wait. We were so excited. We were having a girl. I knew it. You were pleased. The first girl grand baby on your side of the family.

You were a prince during our pregnancy. I say our because I don’t remember feeling alone. The weird symptoms and fatigue — we bore those together. You massaged my feet. You made me tea. You drew the bath. You told me I was beautiful and I felt beautiful.

We took those silly weekly pictures in front of the living room wall. I wore the same outfit. A tie-dyed tube top and pink booty shorts. I flexed my muscles and made you take pictures of my butt so I could see if I was getting too fat. You made me feel sexy. I was sexy.

You kissed my belly every day and touched me tenderly. You went to every prenatal appointment. You held my hand at our 34-week ultrasound when the midwife was concerned about my fundal height. But Poppy was just fine. All her measurements checked out. Her sweet face cozied up to the umbilical cord. She had hair already.

You panicked the night I went into labor, and as you paced back and forth in the kitchen I had to tell you to calm down. It made me laugh.

I’ll never forget the look on your face when you understood what the midwife was telling us when they couldn’t find a heartbeat: Poppy was dead. Your face fell into your hands. Your body collapsed. I was sitting on the hospital bed and you were on a nearby couch. I could feel the life being sucked out of you and then it was sucked out of me, just like it had been sucked out of our baby girl.

You were a warrior those next 36 hours we were in the hospital. Our world was crashing down and still we were falling in love. You stroked my hair gently and whispered reassuring encouragement as the midwife told me I could push. You didn’t look away from my face. I remember that. You were focused on me. Our baby was about to be born, still. You were strong.

How can we ever explain to another human the simultaneous horror and joy of bring a dead child into the world? That’s what we did. All our hard work, our love, our efforts, our expectations, ruined and yet fulfilled. Poppy was here. We’d done it. We had a child together and she was perfect. And gone.

You held her so sweetly. You took off your shirt so you could have her skin-to-skin. I want to say she was pretty. Everyone who met her would agree. But how can I assign that judgment to death? Her eyes never opened. We will always wonder what color eyes she had. Her hair was curly and strawberry blonde. I wanted to cut off a tiny lock, but it felt like sacrilege so I only have the memory.

You took the car seat out of the Audi without me knowing. I never had to ask. You quietly and reverently made things as comfortable at home as possible. You pulled at your hair. You couldn’t sleep. You obsessively researched a new espresso grinder because you needed something to distract you from the pain. We were broken, but broken together and we immediately started building a new masterpiece.

Our healing journey has been a rollercoaster. At times we feel impenetrable and other times there is a chasm between us. I frightened you in my desperation. You admitted you didn’t know how to help. You begged me to get help. We sobbed in each other’s arms and I got help.

We went to counseling for 9 months together. We spent thousands of dollars learning how to strengthen our emotional bond to one another while we continued to grieve. We started wanting again. We started dreaming again. We had breakthroughs together. We identified loops and patterns — our dance — that we get stuck in. And even though we still get stuck and smash and stub each other’s toes, we continue to love and heal and grow. Let’s never stop dancing.

Two years ago you and I conceived our daughter. We weren’t “trying”. We had no idea what was in store for our lives.

We loved Poppy with our whole hearts. Since her death, we have honored her time and time again and she is a driving spiritual force in our marriage. Times have been really tough, honey. You and I have crawled through hell together. I didn’t like hell, but at least you were there with me.

Our bond, this journey, takes work every day. We can’t rest on our laurels if we want to have a joyful, adventurous, and fulfilling life together. You and I know that.

I adore you Eli. You drive me crazy sometimes. But damn, you inspire me too. You get me thinking, you get me singing, you get me excited about the life we are building together. Thank you darling, from the bottom of my heart.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again:

Our love story is my favorite of all time.