I browsed through the Target baby isle last week, attempting to pick out a baby shower gift. It seems like everyone around me is expecting. And that’s okay – it’s great, really! – but hard. It’s happened twice now, where I’ve almost started bawling right there in between the packs of onesies and the tiny socks.

There’s just so many “she would have”s that are left unresolved. Last Wednesday she would have been part of our family Halloween costume, with red skinny jeans and a blue and yellow superhero cape. I would have brought her to Tyler’s office and the ladies would have gushed over how beautiful and tiny she was.

But instead it’s just Jack showing off, which I’m really okay with. The hard part is just that no one knows (or cares?) what would have been. No one knows we would be a family of four instead of three. As we sat in the break room at lunch, a coworker of Tyler’s told us we looked like the portrait of a perfect family. If only he knew that perfection in my mind included our nine-week old baby.

By the strict sleeping standards I set with Jack, Amelia would have started sleeping through the night this past week. Milestones are what really get me teary-eyed and longing. She would most definitely be smiling and giggling by now. She would be angrily protesting tummy time. She would have taken her first flight (and vacation!) to San Diego this past week, and I could have dipped her toes in the salty ocean water.