When I found out that Alaina was probably a girl, I went to the store and bought a pair of shiny pink shoes. (I wrote about this here.) When I got my first set of maternity pictures taken, we included those shoes in a couple of the pictures:

Last week, I took Alaina for a photo shoot with my same photographer friend and look at the shoes now!

One of my good friends is nearing the end of her own pregnancy after loss journey and she just had a maternity photo shoot with the fabulous Karen as well. She had a similar belly picture taken with a little pair of pink socks. When I looked at her photo, I remembered so vividly my own feelings while getting the one taken of me—that almost panicky combination of hope and fear and just trying to trust that I would NOT have to look back at that picture and be filled with grief that I had no one to fill the shoes after all. And, once again, I felt grateful and relieved to be on this other side of the PAL journey. It is a very, very good place to be. I look forward to my friend welcoming her own “rainbow baby” next month and getting to feel that sense of pure relief at putting those pink socks on her happy, beautiful, healthy new daughter!