Behold

ten

Reina | Six Months Later | January

It's been an interesting six months nonetheless. At my eight month checkup, the doctor had found that my baby's heart had stopped beating and so they had to induce labor and so on September 19th, 2015, I gave birth to a stillborn child, baby King.

I had never understood what real heartbreak felt like until I was in the thick of those few days. Damien was a mess, our parents were a mess, basically everyone was a mess. My obstetrician couldn't determine the baby's cause of death, chalking it up to SIDS, but I blamed myself, and still do, for the whole thing. I was more concerned for myself than the baby for most of the time and I was always stressing myself out which created an unhealthy environment for it. I fucked up and I'm never going to forgive myself for it.

The baby was a girl, if it had lived I would've named it Diana. After I gave birth to it, I held it in my arms for such a long time and I cried because their life was taken away before it even had a chance to live it. I also cried because Damien was so excited to have another kid and to have that taken away just wrecked him. I also cried because explaining the situation to a four-year old girl was the hardest thing I've ever done. Damien and I told her that the baby decided to go straight to heaven and for a long time after that, Gab would just look up at the sky and cry and ask the baby why she didn't want to be with her. It continuously broke my heart that this piece of our family that we were so excited for was just gone and everything that we dreamed of and prepared for didn't matter anymore.

For about two months after that, I didn't really do much. But then I figured the stillbirth was a sign that things needed to change so I did. The salon reopened and I decided to take the hands-off approach and let the two managers, Tiana and Layla handle things there. I still did hair from time to time but not as frequent as I had been in the past.

I started physically taking care of myself and went to the gym at least four times a week with Terrell. He was determined to get even more defined in order to impress this female he had met and I just wanted to get healthy so we decided to reach our goals together.

I also enrolled in classes at the New School, deciding to study Sociology so whenever I wasn't there in Manhattan, I was at my apartment, also in Manhattan or at my parents back in Brooklyn.

Since the baby's death, Damien has been spending a lot more time with Gabriella which is understandable. His birthday just passed a few days ago and all he wanted to do was do whatever Gabby wanted to do so we went to Hershey Park and rode all of the rides she wanted. My birthday was coming up in about two weeks and I really had no interest in doing anything. This guy Javi in one of my classes kept trying to get me to go out with him on Valentine's Day but once I told him about my child and overprotective baby daddy, I pretty much scared him off.

In terms of dating, I'm not. I've really been to busy to have the time to date and I haven't found anyone who I'm interested in. When Damien finally saw how much I wanted to move on from our past, we finally realized that we were better as parents and friends instead of a couple, the love will always be there though.

*

I pushed my key into the lock and turned it until the door opened up. I heard a small yelp and looked down at my feet to see Dyogi jumping all over me. I picked him up and cradled him in my arms. "Hi puppy. How'd you get out of your cage?" I walked into the living room to see Chyenne and Morgan sitting there with all of her wedding stuff spread across my floor.

"You know," I said, setting Dyogi on the floor, "there are times when I wonder why I gave y'all keys."

"It's those times when you forget your cell phone charger and instead of taking the ten minute journey back over here, you make us get it instead." Morgan said in a soft voice as she fed her baby boy. In October, Morgan gave birth to Alexander Lane McDaniel, the most precious baby boy I've ever seen in my life. He was three months now and was so spoiled by all of his aunties and uncles which was composed of our group of friends since Morgan was an only child, like myself. After Morgan finished feeding him, I grabbed him from her and held him.