Before Lila was born, we got such joy seeing babies at the store or the mall or wherever. We'd look at them, tell his/her parents that they were cute and discuss if that's what Lila would look like. Since Lila died, it has been a completely different experience for us. Almost torturous. There have been a few times at restaurants that we see families of three with a baby girl and others where the baby is crying right next to us and all I can think of is that Lila did not get the chance to do any of that. Lila never cried, never got to go home, never got to do so many things that I know most families take for granted.

Now when I see babies, especially newborns, I get a huge pit in my stomach and my heart drops. Almost six months later, I still get this feeling. Even when I'm at work, where 10 babies were born to people in my department over the last year, I get those feelings when I hear conversations about newborn kids and grandkids. At work, I can't escape it and I usually get angry and put headphones on to distract me. We try so hard to avoid any situation that would expose us to seeing a baby in public. It's really one of the only things we can sort of control in this life. But, inevitably, we'll come across another newborn baby and get those sinking feelings once again. It seems endless and I don't ever see this feeling going away. Every time I see a newborn, I'm going to think of what should have been for Lila. It's crazy, even as I'm writing this almost six months after Lila was born, I'm still in such great shock that this happened. - Mike