This morning I woke up with a pit in my stomach and a heaviness in my chest that I just couldn’t shake. It took me a bit to figure out why, until I looked at the date: January 3. Eight years ago this day, I lost an adopted son that kicked off the most traumatic and difficult year of my life.
For those who don’t know my story, here is the short version: I was set to become a mother to a baby due at the end of 2015. His birth mother went into labor late at night on January 2, 2016. He was born a few short hours later but never took a breath in this world, an umbilical cord wrapped so tightly around his neck that he suffocated in the womb. That was Joel - I never met him, but I loved him deeply, which I couldn’t explain if I tried.
