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So, my due date was on 12/18/09. It was pretty much as hard as I thought it would be. Maybe because of all the anticipation. The morning started off ok. I was training with another lady at work. At one point she showed me a picture of her family (kids and grandkids). I so badly wanted to tell her that I had just had a baby and that today was my actual due date and that my baby unfortunately didn't make it. But, it was the first day I had met her - and I just ended up not saying anything, it just didn't seem like the right time. Two of my coworkers took me to lunch at my favorite - Chipotle. They also gave me a beautiful arrangement of white flowers. After lunch, I started talking to another coworker of mine who I hadn't seen since I went on my leave. She didn't bring up the baby (she probably just didn't want to make me sad)...so I asked her if she had heard what happened. She had and she gave me her condolences. As I was standing there giving her further details on things, the flood gates opened. It all started pouring out. At that point, I think I cried for about an hour. My boss just sent me home early. We wanted to do something special in honor of Marco that day, so we decided that we would release a balloon in the sky. That evening I went to the grocery store after work to pick up some things and to get the balloon. I stopped to pick up the balloon first. I attached it to my cart and it floated above as I finished the rest of my groceries. People maybe wondered why I had just one blue helium balloon attached to my cart - it must have looked funny. I liked it though, it may sound weird, but I almost felt like I had Marco there grocery shopping with me. By the time I got home it was already dark, so we decided to wait until the morning to release it so that we could watch it float away. That night we had a beautiful snow here (right outside Washington, DC). We woke in the morning to over a foot of snow and it wasn't due to stop until the next morning (we got over 2 feet that weekend). In the late morning, we took our 2 beagles out to the soccer field behind our house - the same soccer field that I had envisioned Bruno taking Marco to to teach him how to play. We trudged through to the middle of the field through all the snow (I don't think my beagles appreciated it very much because the snow was higher than them) and stopped in the middle. I released the balloon and together we watched it float away into the sky - to our little Marco. It was a little hard to see because it was so white and snowy, but it was also very beautiful. We don't usually get that much snow at once in this area, so it was kind of ironic that it happened the same weekend as my due date. It was like a gift from our little angel (well - all the shoveling associated with the snow wasn't a gift!). A week later came the holidays - it was a double whammy for us as my due date was exactly one week before Christmas. We were with Bruno's family on Christmas Eve. His uncle who is a priest in Bolivia was here visiting. He gave a lovely mass in Bruno's Aunt's house. Right after mass I had a little meltdown. After that though, I was ok. I did pretty well through the rest of the holidays. I felt like I was able to enjoy them as much as possible. Six months ago, I had envisioned New Years Eve being a nice quiet night with me, Bruno, the baby and the dogs. Well, we ended up going skiing instead - which was fun - just not how I'd imagined it. So, now it's 2010. I have to admit that I do have my hopes up for this year. I am hoping to get pregnant again in the near future. If everything goes my way, I would love to have a healthy baby this time next year. So, we'll see. I know there are no guarantees - but I am very hopeful, and I'm not going to let anything take that away! Here's to a great 2010 for everybody!