By Jessica Watson

Life after loss with autism, preemies and a rainbow baby

  • Work with me
  • Our Autism
  • Hadley’s Story

Back and Forth

By Jessica

Crying from upstairs sends me skipping our stairs as I wrap my robe. He never wakes at night. My mind races to a fever or a fall, hoping it’s just a bad dream that I can talk away. Outstretched arms and trembling lips are waiting for me at the door, even though I could have […]

The alphabet

By Jessica

boy with mom and dad

Your Daddy and I were discussing our earliest memories. Whether we remember anything of our childhood before we turned three. Maybe a little, bits and pieces of days. You are almost ready for three. To remember. I wanted to give you one for the bank, from the year you were two. ——————- Last weekend we […]

The Baby of the Family

By Jessica

mom and newborn

I have not opened a child-rearing book since your birth, but have piled you in the bed for one more nighttime story and ignored the clock when you handed me one more book. I used to adjust the bath water, over and over, feeling for the right temperature but for you I push up my […]

Michelle Duggar Envy

By Jessica

baby in NICU

At the risk of receiving my first round of nasty comments, let’s discuss why I have always been a bit envious of Michelle Duggar… There are things that give me an odd amount of contentment: dressing one kid after another after another (in coordinating colors, of course) buckling in a van full of car seats […]

Then and Now

By Jessica

smiling baby

Then I was young. You were born right on time, your due date. You were smiles and challenges and growing up together. Now you are almost grown. You are A’s in Math and contagious smiles and you are never, ever late for a thing. ——————- Then you were Baby A fragile and small, serious and […]

Two

By Jessica

You reach your hand to mine. Wrapping it around two of my fingers, you squeeze. I treasure your smallness as I take in this day. Chestnut hair waves in the sun, baby cheeks round with your smile and chubby toes grip strands of grass. Too busy to lay on a blanket, too eager to stay […]

Bittersweet

By Jessica

Unblinking eyes look up at me and wonder, Mommy, can Hadley come to our birthday party when we are four? Eventually, I find my voice, She will be there. But only in our hearts, honey. And there is bitter in the knowing that there are years and years to come of birthdays with one empty […]

Finally!

By Jessica

He is a man of few words. So few that speech therapy may be in his not too distant future. I have been waiting to hear one word for 1 year 4 months and 25 days but I’m not counting or repeating it to him 10,000 times a day. “MOMMA” rolled right out of my […]

It’s official

By Jessica

he’s big. He stopped nursing, dropped the baby toys, can throw a tantrum with the best of them and insists on feeding himself. No one told him that he is supposed to grow up very, very slowly for his Mommy. Oh and it is also official that he still needs meand not just for diaper […]

My Rainbow Baby

By Jessica

I have been looking for the explanation of the term “rainbow baby” since Sawyer’s birth. I was tossing ideas around in my head for his six month old post and stopped by a loss mom’s blog and there it was… In some circles, babies born to families after the loss of a child are referred […]

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