Mila's life.

Two weeks after we lost Mila, after we had broken the terrible news to our extended families and most of our friends, we composed a mass email about her and hit send.

Her death leaves us with an awful sadness, and it’s not just one kind of sadness.  This is a sadness that has all kinds of terrible facets.  I turn it over in my mind, and I see that there are so many things to be sad about.  Of all of them, one of the worst ones for me is the knowledge that, for the rest of my life, whenever I talk about her, the most salient thing that people will know about her is that she is dead.  This bright, happy little baby, full of joy and life and potential, whom I felt I knew - all that, reduced to “Oh, she was your baby that died.”

The death of a baby is not like any other kind of death, where the person who died leaves behind many friends and relatives who knew him well, remember who he was, and have happy memories they can treasure and smile over.  The death of a baby leaves behind nothing.

I felt I had to do something to fight that darkness.  Her death will always be a tragedy, but her life was light; and I can only ever feel gratitude that she lived.  So we wrote that email, and so I reproduce it here - not about the manner of her death, but about her life.  So that someone could know her, other than just me and D.  So that we could tell all the funny pregnancy stories about her that, otherwise, no one will ask to hear.

Here it is.

Since she didn't get a chance to meet the other important people in our lives, we'd like to tell you a little bit about her and how we hope she will be remembered. Over the 37 weeks that we carried her, she developed a distinctive personality that we came to know and love very much.

Her nickname is Nuggs, short for Nugget (or Nuggette, when we found out in late August that she was a girl). She got her nickname when she was about the size of a chicken mcnugget, and it stuck. 

Like everyone in her family, she liked to eat. In her parents' long running debate on the deliciousness of mint chocolate chip ice cream, she sided with her dad and made her preferences known by turning her mom into a mint chocolate chip ice cream lover. She also helped her mom judge the first annual family Thanksgiving/Hanukkah bacon-off - and naturally, she thought her dad's entry was best in class. 

She was happy and liked fun, and had a naughty sense of humor. She always kicked up a storm when watching her favorite HBO comedy, Ja'mie Private School Girl. To our mild concern, her favorite scene seemed to be the one in episode three where Ja'mie hosts a giant house party. She bounced around a lot and liked to show off her moves at the doctor's office and during her mom's important work meetings. The sounds she knew best besides her parents' voices were Pitch Perfect, the Homeland theme song, and Howard Stern. She was never shy about showing off her ladybits during ultrasounds. We think this had something to do with her Vegas beginnings. (More on that below.) 

She was a very sweet baby and gave her mom an easy pregnancy. But she also stood up for herself - she did not like the fake baby from parenting class, and made it known by trying to push it off of her mom's lap. She knew that thing was a fake.  

She was well traveled. One of her very first trips was to Vegas - in fact, her parents found out they were pregnant the day after returning from that trip. She was a San Francisco native, but she has also visited her grandparents in Boston and Fort Lauderdale, and her cousins in Phoenix. She paid her respects at the Boston Marathon bombing site two weeks after the attack. She kayaked off of Malibu and in Kealakekua Bay, where she encountered wild bottlenose dolphins. She camped and road tripped down to LA, and went sea otter- and elephant seal-spotting along the way. Most recently, she cheered her dad on to a Boston qualifying time at the California International Marathon in Sacramento. 

She was born on December 23, 2013 at 10:13 PM at UCSF, weighing 6 pounds and 14 ounces, and measuring 19 inches long. She had her mom's dark hair, long fingers, and eyes. She had her dad's ears, long eyelashes, and long skinny feet. She had a button nose, red little lips, and soft cheeks. She was the prettiest baby girl we have ever seen. 

Her first name, Mila, is a Russian name meaning love and grace. Her middle name, Nalin, is a Thai name meaning lotus flower, a Buddhist symbol for purity of spirit. 

We will always love and remember her for these things.