♥ A true surprise

With both my oldest daughter and with Audrey their pregnancies were planned and mapped out. We planned what days were best to conceive, I monitored my cycle online to make sure I was regular, etc... after we lost Audrey, I knew if we ever became pregnant again that I didn't want to plan everything and check my cycle and all of that stuff. I just wanted to let whatever happen, happen....

Well, whatever was meant to happen did in fact happen.

I went for an appointment with my gynecologist on Wednesday the 17th and got the shock of a lifetime - I'm 8 weeks pregnant! We were not planning this and hadn't even really committed to letting whatever was meant to happen just happen. I had not been regular since November and by early January I had taken so many tests that turned up negative that I had resigned myself to the idea that I was not pregnant and my body was just being screwy. I went to the Doctor in mid-January and even HE told me I wasn't pregnant. Well, after another month of a no show period I went back and he told me I am pregnant. I am due 9.26.2010. Baby measured 8 weeks and had a strong heartbeat. So, everything is looking good.

I never knew how I'd react finding out I was pregnant again after losing Audrey. I wasn't sure if I'd be happy, sad, whatever.... When the Doctor told me, I was completely blind sided and it took me a good few minutes to catch my breath. When I told my Husband, I was thrilled beyond words and he even had the same shocked but happy expression I did.

I don't know what it was with Audrey's pregnancy but I always had an uneasy feeling, like something wasn't right and even though it did shock me when I heard she was gone, part of me expected that to happen. I can't explain the feeling... it was something that I just knew. I felt it from the beginning.

Since hearing the news of my pregnancy last week, I feel at ease. I feel hopeful. I've still had my moments where I've been scared and nervous but overall, I'm thrilled and I absolutely cannot wait for September. I can't wait to hold a live baby in my arms and leave the hospital with my baby and not with empty arms.

♥ Break even

I've used music a lot in my life this past year to show my emotions, to tell how I feel without having to try to sort out the mess of thoughts in my head. I heard this song the other day and it was another one of those songs.

I'm still alive but I'm barely breathing,
Just prayed to a god that I don't believe in,
'Coz I got time while she got freedom,
'Coz when a heart breaks
no it don't break even.

Her best days will be some of my worst,
She finally met a man that's gonna put her first,
While I'm wide awake, she's no trouble sleeping,
'Coz when a heart breaks
no it don't break even, even no.

What am I supposed to do when the best part of me was always you
What am I supposed to say when I'm all choked up and you're ok
I'm falling to pieces
I'm falling to pieces

They say bad things happen for a reason
But no wise words gonna stop the bleeding
'Coz she's moved on while I'm still grieving
And when a heart breaks
no it don't break even, even no.

What am I gonna do when the best part of me was always you
What am I supposed to say when I'm all choked up and you're ok
I'm falling to pieces, yeah
I'm falling to pieces, yeah
I'm falling to pieces
(One still in love
while the other one's leaving)
I'm falling to pieces,
(Cuz when a heart breaks
no it don't break even)

You got his heart and my heart and none of the pain,
You took your suitcase, I took the blame.
Now I'm tryna make sense of what little remains, oh.
'Coz you left me with no love, with no love to my name.

I'm still alive but I'm barely breathing,
Just prayed to a god that I don't believe in,
'Coz I got time while she got freedom,
'Coz when a heart breaks
no it don't break, no it don't
break, no it don't break even no.

What am I gonna do when the best part of me was always you
What am I supposed to say when I'm all choked up and you're ok
I'm falling to pieces, yeah
I'm falling to pieces, yeah
I'm falling to pieces,
(One still in love
while the other one's leaving)
I'm falling to pieces,
(Cuz when a heart breaks
no it don't break even)

Oh, it don't break even, no
Oh, it don't break even, no
Oh, It don't break even, no

----

Adam gave me a card for V-Day and in it he wrote "This past year was the hardest of my life and I couldn't have made it through without you." 

That man has NO idea that he is my rock. He's what kept me from collapsing the second I found out our daughter was dead. When the Doctor told us, I asked for a few minutes alone with Adam and when I tried to get up from the table I got a little weak in the knees and I wrapped my arms around him, held him and cried "they're going to make me deliver this baby. I can't. I can't. I can't."  Then, the night she was born, he held my hand and wouldn't let go as he stood by my bedside and we cried when we learned our sweet baby that we never got a chance to know was in fact our sweet daughter. If I didn't have his hand there, holding mine and squeezing it with all the love we have for each other... well, I don't even want to think of it. On May 11th, just six days after we lost her, we had to bury her and during her service, I wrapped my arms around his waist, buried my head in the comfort of his arms and sobbed harder than I ever have in my whole life. He kept me from falling to ground. He held me up. 

I often complain about him and he drives crazy like no other but in that very same thought, he's my rock. He's literally held me up during the weakest moments of my life. He tells me I'm his strength but he has no idea that I wouldn't be nearly as strong as I am if I didn't have him.

Stillbirth on The Doctors

Dear Stillbirth Mommies & Friends,

The suggestion of Stillbirth Research & Education has been submitted for a segment on the NBC program The Doctor’s.

Now we need your help!

The most popular segments are selected for production – please go to the website below and vote for this suggestion. Ask your friends to vote frequently and get the word out. This would be a tremendous opportunity to gain the awareness that we need. PLEASE put the voting information on your respective websites. Copy this message and send to everyone in your address books.

Go to: www.thedoctorstv.com/produce/vote –

 

look for the following submission. It is categorized under Women’s Health.


Stillbirth – Stop the Madness!


http://www.thedoctorstv.com/produce/vote

A private journal

Shortly after Audrey died, a friend of mine mailed me a journal and told me to use that any time I needed to pour my heart out and to use it for somewhere to collect the many thoughts flowing through my head. I've always been so much better at pouring my heart out on paper (or on the internet) than I have verbally.
I used to write every now and again after she died and a lot in the beginning and then as time has gone by, and my days have gotten a little easier to live through, it's been a long time since I wrote.

So, last night I took the time to sit down with my little girl and pour my heart out to her again. I told her about all of the events that have happened in our lives since she died, all of the moments she missed out on. I told her about how we moved into the house and while it was a very exciting and happy time for our family, it was also very bittersweet knowing we weren't preparing a room for her like we planned to. I told her about how we finally got her headstone designed and placed at the cemetery and that seeing it for the first time took my breath away.

I also opened up my copy of "Trying Again" and started reading through the chapter talking about the emotions and feelings of trying for another baby after a loss and the thoughts that go along with that. They had various quotes from different women and what they said rang so true. I feel every one of those emotions. I feel guilty, I feel fear and panic, I feel anxiety, I feel overwhelmed and terrified. I'll also feel extremely optimistic and full of joy the next minute. It's been a never ending roller coaster of emotions. It also talks about anger and how a person can feel angry knowing they're in this place again, with the stress of having to try, when if they had had a healthy pregnancy and the baby lived, they probably wouldn't be dealing with that stress again. Which is SO how I feel. I am so mad this happened. I am so mad that my baby died and now I'm left feeling this way for the rest of my life.

My head spins constantly with thoughts and my heart aches every second of every day.
It takes everything I have in me some days to even care about things. I figure what's the point in stressing? Life could be worse. The people I deal with on a daily basis at work and in my personal life and there are a lot of days I want to yell "YOU COULD BE MOURNING YOUR CHILD! YOU COULD HAVE HAD A CHILD DIE IN YOUR WOMB AND HAVE TO BURY THAT CHILD."

Each day is another day closer to the one year mark. It may be another 3 months away but it's already in my mind and I just don't want to face that day. That day was the worst day of my life and I just don't know how I'll make it through that day without losing my mind. It's been almost 9 months and there are days, moments like now, when the pain feels so fresh, like it just happened.

I have thoughts in my head about the spring and how I want to go to her grave and plant flowers and make it look beautiful there. That is a place where I can go and just get lost with my thoughts. I've found myself quite a few times just sitting there, running my fingers through the grass, the patch of earth that covers her casket, and just wishing this wasn't how it ended.

I had so many plans, so many hopes and dreams and all it took one was split second to change everything - to take all of that and shatter it. My plans changed - instead of dreaming about her homecoming and what life would be like raising my two girls, I'm planning what flowers to plant at her grave and planning for the weather to get nice so I can spend more time up there. So much was robbed from me, from my husband, from Addison and so many others in our family.

It's so hard to get my head out of this fog and focus.... but life goes on and even though I didn't want mine to after May 5th, 2009, it did and now I have to go face it.

♥ Please vote!

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"So...?"

Last night Addie spent the night at my Mom's. She usually spends one night a week there, so Grandma has her time with her. I went there after work to pick her up and I was chatting with my Mom for a few minutes and she looks at me and says "So...?" in that tone. You all know the tone, especially that tone from your Mom.

I looked at her and said "What?" and she said "So.... when are you going to have another baby?"

That question never irked me and bothered me quite like it does now.

It's not as easy as it was before. Before, at the thought of that question, I'd just laugh and say "I don't know. Never. Next week. I haven't decided."

After the worst day of my life, it's not easy to think of having another baby. It's not easy to remember the worst day of my life and think that something like that could ever happen again. I absolutely cannot relive that moment. No way, no how. That day almost killed me as it was and there's no guarantees it won't happen again.

Right now, we may be just letting whatever happen and even that terrifies me! I'm scared like you wouldn't believe at the very thought of that stick turning pink with two lines and in the very same thought, I'm terrified if it never does.

I got SO lucky having Addison. She is 100% perfect, 100% healthy. She was an ideal pregnancy and raising her has been the ultimate joy in my life. There is nothing I've done in my life that has ever given me the fulfillment that raising her has. We got so beyond lucky with having her turn out as perfect as she is. I often wonder if we shouldn't just count ourselves blessed with her and have her be the only child that is living and we're raising.  But then I think of how special and amazing she is and I know how much she'd LOVE having a little brother or sister to play with and I think of that child and I just know they'd be as wonderful and amazing as she is and I can't imagine not having another baby.

I don't know. I don't know.

I just don't know anymore.

Torture

My life since May 5th has been nothing but pure torture, sometimes pure agony. The ache in my heart comes and goes, the strength of it lessens at certain times and then other times it gets so intense, so hard to bare. Tonight I was going through pictures, organizing pictures of Addie into her albums and I came across a picture of Audrey's casket.

My mind immediately went back to that day, the hardest day of my life, the worst day of my life. The day my Doctor told me she was gone. The night I delivered her. The second worst day of my life, the day we buried our baby.

I stared at the picture for a few minutes before tucking it away but of course, never getting her out of my mind.

I have a folder of items and things I received after Audrey's passing, a folder I too tucked away and rarely look at. I just never feel strong enough to go to that place but tonight, it was all I could do. I haven't ran my fingers over her certificate of her prints in awhile but now, it's sitting right in front of my face and I keep looking at those tiny prints of her feet and her hands and the tears keep flowing from my eyes.

I made a decision the night we lost her not to see her or hold her. I can say with 100% certainty that I have lived a life with no regrets, until now. In the minutes and hours after I learned the news of her death, I was numb and just minutes after I delivered her, I still didn't believe this was really happening to me and when I was asked if I wanted to see her or hold her, I said no. I felt if I didn't then it didn't really happen and I wouldn't have to face the truth. Now, months down the road, I regret that decision with every ounce of my heart and body. I am her Mother and I should have held her. I should have kissed her tiny little body and whispered into her ear, knowing she couldn't hear me, and told her I love her and I never wanted anything more than to have my girls, growing together and watching them and enjoying those moments.

I have an envelope of memories, memories that will haunt me for the rest of my life. One day Addison will come across that folder and have questions and I'll have to answer her. I'll have to tell her the story of the day we found out her sister died, the night I delivered her and the day we buried her. I play that conversation over and over in my head all of the time. Addison knows about Audrey now and every once in awhile she makes comments in reference to her sister but at 3 years old I know she doesn't really grasp the idea of what happened, that her sister died and she'll never see her or play with her like anyone else she knows that has a sister.

So when you're standing on the edge waiting
to hear from
All the angels you hope
Will come to save you.
I can tell you all right now, they will never be
There for you and time waits for no one 

I haven't had a night like tonight, where I just sit and cry, in a long long time. There's been a lot of pregnancy announcements around me and even more babies being born and while I am happy for those that are enjoying this momentous time in their lives, it is never an easy thing to hear and it only strengthens that ache that I have.... the ache to have a baby to hold and the ache for the baby I should have had but never will.