Saw the thread, and felt compelled to reply.
As a woman who has wanted children with my husband since the very first date we ever went on (8 years ago), who has spent 4.5 years fighting infertility, being told time and time again by multiple doctors that my husband and I would never conceive on our own, that we had a less than 2% chance of ever having a baby together, to stare at that pregnancy test in September '06- to see the positive test result- it was a miracle.
To have carried that child, my daughter, through the most perfect, textbook pregnancy ever, to have no problems at all- not even elevated blood pressure on my part for even a second- to approach her due date of May 25, 2007 with joy, love, anticipation, excitement and the wonder of it all- to realize that our dream of starting a family was FINALLY coming true, to have proved all the doctors and the tests WRONG, to have conceived on our own just when we were ready to give up.......
....end in the stillbirth of my baby girl, McKenna, (6 lbs, 15.7 oz, perfect baby girl) two days after her due date on May 27, 2007, from something called Fetomaternal Hemorrage. A super-rare thing that "just doesn't happen", according to my OB/GYN, I have never known pain like that. I hope to never know it again.
I would never, ever, even for a split nano-second compare the joy of parenthood and raising a child with owning dog. I would never buy a puppy instead of continuing to try to have children, as emotional, heart-wrenching as this journey has been for us.
My husband bought Tucker for me for Mother's Day 2008, because it was the first mother's day I was supposed to be celebrating with my almost-1 year old daughter, and my husband seemed to know that Tucker was exactly what I needed in my life to finally start to get out of the pit of depression my daughter's death had thrown me into pretty much a whole year earlier. Tucker is not a replacement or substitude for my daughter. He is a symbol of my husband's love for me, and a symbol of the fact my husband will do ANYTHING to show me there is hope, happiness and love still left in this world.
We are still trying to have another baby, we will never give up hope. They told us we would never do it the first time, and McKenna proved them wrong. I hope we get the chance to prove them wrong again, this time- bringing home a baby from the hospital, and not a memory box.
Those of you with live children, you have no idea how blessed you are.