Today was a hard day.

{This post was written sometime in June, and has been saved as a draft ever since. I have no idea why it was never posted. So here it is now}

Well.

Today was rough.

I'm still in training at my new job, which includes a few months of mandatory classroom training. Today, we talked about Shaken Baby Syndrome so that we can recognize the signs of it. That actually isn't the part that was hard. I knew when I applied for this job that I would see some awful things happen to kids. The part that really got to me was when we spent a long time talking about grief and mourning. I actually hadn't really thought about that being a part of my job. After talking about it for a while it makes a lot of sense - a lot of parents will mourn the loss of their children from their lives even when their own actions might be the reason that their children were removed from their homes. I can talk about grief - obviously. No big deal. The hard part came when the trainer wanted us to talk - in detail - about what grief felt like...because we'll be more empathetic etc., if we can kind of know what they're feeling. He asked if anyone in the class who had recently lost someone would be willing to talk about the physiological effects that it has on your body... like what it physically feels like to grieve. I knew that I would lose it if I raised my hand to speak, so I just kept my mouth shut.  A couple of other people raised their hands and shared their stories... but I could very well be the only person in the room who knows what it's like to actually have to hand over their child to someone knowing that it's the last time I'll ever see her.

Talking about grief and mourning isn't the problem, but because of the discussion, I felt like I was actually reliving the moment we placed Olivia back in her basinette and walked out of the NICU over and over and over in my head. I haven't actually let myself really think about that moment in a very long time. I didn't cry though... and I don't think anyone could tell that I was getting shaken up.

Afterwards, the trainer read two poems about grief out loud. To the group. By that point I was just thinking, COME ON!!

The good part was that after we finished talking about those issues, talked about attachment and watched a video of kids seeing their military dads for the first time after a deployment. I think ALL of us (at least the girls) were crying... so that was a good little emotional outlet for me!

I also would like to say that I really hesitated before writing this post. Then after I started writing it, I erased it and started over a few times. Talking about hard days makes me feel like I'm complaining too much. I struggle with worrying that people will think I'm grasping for sympathy from others - like I want people to feel bad for me. But I know that when I was a "newbie" to this baby loss thing, I found so much comfort in reading the blogs of women that were candid and honest about their pain - and happiness. It's so much easier to write about the good days than it is to write about the bad ones, but I think it's important that I'm honest with myself and with you guys. Because even after posting just yesterday about how well I'm doing, it's okay to have a bad day too.

defeat

Tomorrow, it will have been one month since the ultrasound appointment where we found out that there was no  heartbeat. 

Honestly? I feel pretty much completely normal. I am not sure if that's good or bad. The pregnancy started and ended so fast, it barely had time to register. I was really trying to hold off on getting too excited or thinking about baby stuff "just in case". I wasn't pregnant for long enough to get attached to that particular baby. I am grieving, but it's completely different this time. 

Right now, I'm just feeling defeated. I feel like I have no enthusiasm to try again. Obviously that means that now isn't the time to try again, and I'm hoping that feeling will go away eventually. But I think both of us are really wondering how much more we can handle. How many more bad things have to happen to us before we get to bring home a healthy baby? 

Trust me, I'm really not trying to throw a pity party - just being honest about my feelings. Actually, what I want to do is throw the complete opposite of a pity party. I am so sick of being the people that everyone has to feel sorry for. Even though we told the world SO early about this pregnancy, it was really nice to have a couple of weeks of "Congratulations!" before the, "so sorry for your loss" comments kicked back in again. I know some of you are probably thinking, "you probably shouldn't have broken the news so early". And maybe you're right. But at the time, all we were thinking was that we were so excited, and we didn't want to waste a single second. I honestly don't have any regrets. Yes - it was hard to tell everyone so fast that we miscarried - but it was nice to have the support, rather than having to keep it all inside. 

That's pretty much all I have to say about this right now. I'd like to start blogging about some positive things again.:)

A very late, and not very happy update

As usual, here I am, apologizing for not keeping up to date with my blog. This time, I can say with complete honesty that I have been thinking about writing every day, just couldn't bring myself to do it.

I have officially become one of those women who falls into the "multiple losses" category. You would think that after losing Olivia, we would have learned to be a little bit less naive. I guess somehow, both of us just hoped that after going through such excruciating pain after her death... There's no way we would have to go through losing a baby again... Right? Wrong.

We found out on the morning after Thanksgiving that we were expects again. We made the decision after we lost Olivia to never waste a single second of a pregnancy, so we called and told our parents immediately. We were, of course, SO excited.

We went to the doctor almost right away. I wasn't sure if I needed to be seen faster than normal because of the "high riskiness" of this pregnancy. When I called and talked to the nurse, she made an appointment for us for the next week, which would put me at 5 weeks or so.

We went to that appointment, which was with the same OB that I had when I was pregnant with Olivia. We talked a lot about how things would go once I got further along. I would have had ultrasounds twice a month. One at her office, and one at the perinatologist's office. She also said that they would have tested around 37 weeks to make sure the baby's lungs were strong enough, and do the c-section then.

But at that appointment, when we talked about dates, she said that she thought it might be too early to see anything on the sonogram. She said that we had been through enough, and we were the right at the time period where we may be able to see the heartbeat, or we might not be able to see anything at all. The decision was left up to us, but she suggested that we come back in two weeks. Her concern was that we had seen enough "bad news" ultrasounds. And if we ended up seeing nothing, we would just have to come back in two weeks anyway to find out if there was really any cardiac activity.... Or not.

So. December 22nd, we went back for our ultrasound. Kurt was supposed to work, and I had asked my mom to go with me. The day before, he told me that he was going to call in to work, because he felt like he had to be there. I also had a gut feeling that he should be with me, and that I absolutely could not go alone (which is why I asked my mom to go).

When she said that there was no cardiac activity, I wasn't even surprised. It was like I somehow knew. But she kept telling us that she wasn't positive, and that she wasn't getting a very good view. She had us go upstairs to radiology to have another one done on the HUGE machine, rather than her little portable one on a cart. Her nurse took us upstairs, and then that ultrasound confirmed it. Baby was measuring 6w2d... Which is exactly how far along I thought I was based on the day we are 99% sure we conceived on.

My doctor's nurse came back up to get us, and asked us if we'd like to take the "back way" downstairs. I'm not sure why, but I said no, and we rode the elevator back down with a bunch of other people. My doctor wanted to see us before we left. She gave me a huge hug and then gave us our options. We could go home and just wait for my body to do its job on its own, or we could take the misoprostol right away. She also said that we could do nothing and come back in a week to see if anything had changed... But then said that there was no doubt in her mind, or the radiologist's that based on the measured size, cardiac activity should have been very obvious.

At first, I sid I'd like to go home and wait. Kurt jumped in - which he never does during appointments - and said that he didn't think that sounded liked the best idea, and asked if I was sure I wanted to put myself through that over Christmas. After we talked about it, I completely agreed, and we got the prescription. We filled it, and ate lunch at Subway together. The whole thing felt like a dream. Like it wasn't really happening. How could it be happening. To us. Again.

Don't get me wrong, I know lots of women who have had multiple losses. But I guess, just like i said above, I somehow talked myself into believing that losing Olivia was bad enough, and we had reached our maximum loss capacity.

It was the last day of work before we were off for the long Holiday weekend, so the first thing I did after taking Kurt home was get in the car and call my supervisor. She is awesome and super supportive, and knows Olivia's full story, and was one of the first people that I had told about this pregnancy. She knew that I had been at an appointment, and told me to just go home and rest, and not worry about anything work-wise. BUT I had Christmas presents for several foster kids in my back seat.. So I spent the next couple of hours delivering those.

Finally, I made it home at 5ish, and took the pill. Our friends Tony and Alicia came over and brought us dinner, which was nice and took our mind off of everything. I had ben told to expect unbelievable pain.. And I felt nothing. I took the second pill, and still felt nothing. I called the office the next afternoon, and was told that I was just going to have to wait it out. And that I should call on the 27th when they were open again. I spent all of Christmas weekend waiting for something to happen, but trying not to think about it. And nothing happened. I called on the 27th, and they scheduled me for a D&C for the 29th.

My doctor called me that morning and had me come in for one more ultrasound just to be on the safe side. Of course there was still nothing, and baby was measuring the same as it was on the 22nd. The procedure went very well, and I was feeling 100% normal (physically) by that evening.

Okay - I have made this post long enough! I am going to post again with more about how I'm feeling, but this is long enough for now.

As usual, I want to say thanks for all the wonderful support that we've gotten from the people who already know about this - where would we be without you guys?

Pink Cookie Day

Last year, I made cupcakes with pink butter frosting on Olivia's birthday. It was supposed to be pink buttercream frosting, but I read the recipe wrong or something, and it just basically ended up tasting like butter. I took them to our annual "Friends Thanksgiving" that evening, and everyone was really nice to me and said they were good, but I know that they absolutely were NOT good. I loved the idea of having a tradition where we bake something pink each year...but I needed something easier that would both look good and not taste like crap. I searched and searched on Pinterest, and finally found this recipe. It was SUPER easy and they were way better than regular chocolate chip cookies. They are more like shortbread.

I really like this tradition of baking something pink on her birthday. I'm hoping to get more creative with it in the years to come. There's only so much you can do for the birthday of a little girl who isn't on earth anymore. I don't want to go over-board, but I don't want her birthday to ever get forgotten either. I love to bake, and sweet treats are easily shared with family and friends. It makes me feel good to be doing something for her birthday other than just bringing flowers to the cemetary.

Recipe via



Ingredients:

2 sticks (1 cup) butter (see directions below for softening)

red food coloring gel

1 pouch Betty Crocker sugar cookie mix

2 cups powdered sugar

2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips

Directions:

1 - Soften hard butter in microwave at HALF power for 30 seconds just until slightly soft, not at all melted. With a hand mixer, beat the butter just until smooth, being careful not to over-soften it. Using a toothpick, add the food color gel one dab at a time, mixing after each, until the desired pink color is achieved.
2 - Add the dry cookie mix (do NOT add the other ingredients called for on the cookie mix package). Add the powdered sugar. Beat only until the ingredients are fully incorporated. Dough will be crumbly, not smooth. Stir in the chocolate chips by hand.
3 - Drop dough by rounded tablespoon onto ungreased cookie sheet. (1-1/4" cookie scoop works well too.)
4 - Bake in a preheated 325° F oven for 12-14 minutes. Remove from oven when cookies are slightly brown around the edges and soft but not squishy in the center.
5 - Cool cookies 1 - 2 minutes on the cookie sheet before removing to a cooling rack to cool completely before serving. These aren't typical chocolate chip cookies. They aren't cakey -- instead, they are super sweet, slightly crunchy and a bit chewy. A sweet treat with coffee or milk!



We delivered the cookies to our parents, and then went to the cemetary to visit Livie. A guy on stilts gave me a frog balloon animal at an adoption event for work the day before her birthday, so we brought that for her. Our moms;dads/sisters had already visited that morning and had left some flowers and pinwheels for her also.

Happy 2nd Birthday, again, sweet love. We miss you every day!

Happy 2nd Birthday Livie Bean.

Happy second birthday to my sweet girl!!

 I read through several of my old posts this morning... specifically the ones right after Livie was born, and the ones right around her first birthday. I realized that I've never shared any pictures of my favorite thing of hers. The one thing that I would probably grab first if our apartment was on fire.

The bag of her things that the hospital gave us!

Before we removed her from the life support, one of her nurses was explaining how everything would happen. She said that after they removed Olivia from all of her leads and cords, we would get to keep them. I remember thinking how nice that was of them, but I had no idea how much effort they would put into putting everything together for us. Each item is wound up perfectly with a little pink tag explaining what it was used for. The nurse even wrote the explanation as if it were Olivia explaining it to us. I remember crying and crying the first time I really looked at everything, which wasn't until we got home from the hospital.

This is actually the first time I have ever taken any of it out of the bag. I think I was worried that I would mess something up or ruin it before. It felt good to hold the things that touched her and made her feel comfortable. My favorite things are the little diaper and the tiny sunglasses that she wore while she was under the phototherapy light.

(it says: "phototherapy mask to protect my eyes")

(Seeing the diaper in my hand puts into perspective how teeny she was. It's a preemie size diaper, but the top of it had to be folded under so that it would fit her, otherwise it would go up past her belly button.)

I ordered myself a present for Olivia's birthday:





(front)

(side)

(front)

It's a memory keeper from Paper Coterie. If you haven't seen these before, you should definitely check them out. Their stuff is gorgeous. We have been keeping all of Olivia's things in four flowered boxes that stack up. Honestly, it takes up a lot of room. I was reluctant to put any of her stuff away at first, but lately, I had been thinking about how we should pack everything into a tub, and find some way to keep out only the most important things. I had been seeing other bloggers post about these memory keepers, and decided to just order one and see what it looked like. They are BIGGER than I expected, like 9.75x13 inches. It fit the bag of all of her hospital things, her footprints, lock of hair, and the cards that we received.

I love that it fits on the bookshelf, and I can order another one for the next little bambino that we might have some day. I think it will be cool to have them all lined up next to each other on a shelf someday.

I also ordered one for our wedding stuff, but I haven't put anything in it yet.

We are celebrating in a very small way today, but it feels right. To be honest, so far, this feels like an ordinary weekend morning... but who knows if it will stay that way.

Can you believe it's been two years? I definitely can't.

Thanks to all of you for two years of support and love. We couldn't have gotten to this point with out all of you - I'm sure of that.

Somewhere Over the Rainbow

It's fall again. The season that makes me think of Olivia more than any other time of the year.
Now that it's been almost two years since she was born and died, it's become a lot easier than it used to be to just go about my day without really thinking of her. I pass her photos several times each day - especially at work where a framed scrapbook page of her pictures since on my desk - I tell people about her all the time... but I don't even remember the last time I actually sat down and let it completely sink in. Until today.

This afternoon/tonight after pretty much everyone else was gone from the office, and I was packing up my cubicle (Moving to a different office) and trying to organize everything into several different boxes. I was listening to Pandora on my desk computer, and had it set to the Micheal Buble station.

Apparently, it could also be called the Somewhere Over the Rainbow station.

Three different versions by three different artists played within a time period of about 45 minutes. Somewhere Over the Rainbow, the Faith Hill version, is the song that we played during the photo slideshow that we made for Olivia's memorial service. I never realized before how common that song is until recently. It's really hard for me to listen to, especially the slower versions of the song.

For some reason though, I didn't skip the song today. By the third time the song played, I was sitting at my desk staring at the pictures of her in the frame. An awful feeling came over me while I was looking at her. I'm sad about her all the time, but this was the first time in months that I really let myself feel the loss.

I just kept looking at her face thinking,"holy. crap. that baby in the picture is MY daughter. MY daughter is dead".

After that, I couldn't really get a whole lot of work done. I moved very slowly, and didn't end up coming home until almost 8:00pm.

How in the world is it possible that we're coming up on her second birthday? I can't even imagine what it would be like with a 2 year old little girl running around here. I don't really even want to let myself think about it. It's just too hard.

We miss you, little one.

illuminate, week #2

The focus of this week's illuminate assignments is "light". As soon as I read the assignment, I thought of a beautiful song that my friend Meredith shared with me a couple of months ago. I'm sure some of you have heard it by now, Christian radio stations play it pretty frequently. She sent the link to the music video to me in a Facebook message, and said that the Livie had been on her heart recently, and that when she heard this song she thought of us. It's sung by Addison Road, whose song "Hope Now" really helped me get through some dark months.

This Little Light, by Addison Road

There's a little flame inside us all

Some shine bright, some shine small
The rains will come and the waters rise
But don't you ever lose your light
In this life you will know
Love and pain, joy and sorrow
So when it hurts, when times get hard
Don't forget whose child you are

This little light of mine
I'm gonna let it shine
This little light of mine
I'm gonna let it shine, gonna let it shine

May you live each day with no regret
Make the most of every chance you get
Let your eyes get wide when you look at the stars
With the same sense of wonder as a child's heart

With the ones you love treasure the time
And for those who are gone keep their memories alive
Hold on to your dreams don't ever let go
There's a fire inside you burning with hope

This little light of mine
I'm gonna let it shine
This little light of mine
I'm gonna let it shine, gonna let it shine

There will be days when you want to give up
When the clouds settle in
But after the rain comes the sun
Don't you ever forget

One day there will be no more pain
And we will finally see Jesus' face
So until then I'm gonna try
To brave the dark and let my little light shine

This little light of mine
I'm gonna let it shine
This little light of mine
I'm gonna let it shine, gonna let it shine

There's a little light inside us all

Illuminate Post #1

The following post is a part of a self portrait assignment for "Illuminate: Lighting the Path to Photographic Healing" course I'm taking. It's offered by Beryl of Be Young Photography.
Click the link above if you are interested in learning about the course!

Sweet Livie,
It's been a long time since I've written you a letter. I have written about you on this blog so many times, but I guess writing about you is a little bit less emotional than writing directly to you... so maybe that's why I've avoided it. I can tell already that this class is going to break me out of my comfort zone in so many ways - and that's a really good thing.

I don't even remember the last time I wrote you a letter. I do remember the first time though. Your Grandma and Grandpa told Daddy and I that they each wrote a letter to Katie after she was stillborn to put in her casket at her funeral. We loved that idea, so the night before you funeral, we stayed up late handwriting you letters. I typed them up so that we would have copies to keep for ourselves... but I still haven't been able to look back at them. I don't know if I'll ever be able to, but I like knowing that they're there for someday.

I remember crying the whole time I was writing. Now that it's been almost 20 months since that day, I am able to write about you and your story without completely losing it... but I remember the days when I could barely say your name without tearing up.  But just because I don't cry as often as I did then doesn't mean I love you any less. I worry that becaue I appear to be "back to my old self" to most people, they will think that I've "gotten over you". I wish everyone could understand that it doesn't work like that. I will never be over you. I might be able to go out and have fun, and wear a smile on my face all day long... but that doesn't mean that my heart isn't still broken. I know it always will be to some extent... and I'm okay with that. I don't want to feel "normal". Or at least, not the old normal... because the way I felt before you was worse than the way I feel now. Because then, I hadn't met you yet. And I wouldn't want to change that for the world.
I still think of you every day, and I know Daddy does too. Now, instead of being sad every time you cross my mind, most of the time I am happy. Happy that you blessed our lives for the thirty-some weeks that we knew you were in my tummy, and the three days that we knew you "on the outside". But even though I am so happy that I knew you, my heart will always ache. I know that until we meet again someday, a piece of my heart will always be in heaven with you. Someday, you will have siblings who will hold their own pieces of my heart, but there will always be a part of it that is solely and uniquely yours. I am so proud to be able to say that you were our first baby, our first little girl. (Okay, maybe I lied about being able to write without crying).

Do you know how many gifts you have given me? I don't know if I can even count them all. You made me a mommy, and taught me how to love in a way that I didn't know existed. In my opinion, that is one of the biggest gifts a woman can receive. You taught me to see beauty in the little things, and to cherish every second of life and never let it pass me by. You death was the biggest tragedy of our lives, but because you died, I will never be able to take life, or time, for granted again... like I'm sure I did before you. Because of you, I met some of the most amazing women and formed friendships baby-loss mamas all over the country. They never would have come into my life without you.

I always knew that Daddy and I would love each other forever, but because of you, we have a closeness and an understanding of each others emotions that probably would have taken years to discover if we hadn't had to deal with losing you so unexpectedly. And on that same note, your Grandma and I were able to grow in our relationship because of you. Two first born daughters, who unexpectedly lost their first born daughters at the very end of their very first pregnancies. My mom and I were always close, but now we understand each other in a completely different way.

I could go on and on listing the ways you've blessed my life, sweet girl, but I think I've made my point. I hope you know how glad I am to be your mama, and that I as awful as those months after your death were for me and your Dad, I wouldn't trade them for anything in the world. I can still feel the weight of you in my arms, and if I close my eyes and breathe, I can smell your shampoo and the detergent that was used to wash your blankets and little pink sleeper.

I love you more than the moon and all of the stars in the sky. I miss you every single day.

Love,
Mama

The one self portrait that I liked enough to post: This is the pink bear that sat on Olivia's casket in the middle of a huge flower arrangement at her memorial service. The priest handed her to me just before her casket was lowered into the ground. He told me to take her home with me and hug her every time I needed to feel Olivia. It's hard to see in this picture, but her face is kind of smashed up because I slept with her for months after that, and still do sometimes.

I'm just throwin' this one in for good measure. I sat outside and hand wrote the above letter with a glass of wine the other night.

Where I am...

Kristin from Dear Stevie recently posted about the Right Where I Am Project, which was started by Angie, another blogger. You write about your grief, and what it's like right now, so that new baby loss mamas who stumble across your blog can get an idea of what the grief experience is like further down the road, and so that people who are further down the road can reflect on how far they've come in their grief. I've been having a difficult time writing about grief related things lately, so I thought maybe this would be a good starting place.
So, Where am I right now, this very second, in my grief?
It's been one year, six months and seventeen days. Most days, I really can't believe it's been that long. Other days, it seems like it has been a lifetime since we last held that tiny little girl in the "transition" room at the hospital.

I definitely still have moments where I think, "this is bullshit, I can't believe it happened to us". But it's in a different way now. Don't get me wrong - I still miss Olivia SO much it hurts. But it's different now, because in the beginning I couldn't even imagine having another baby. I wanted that baby. Now, I'm able to miss her and still be hopeful and excited about having future children. I remember in the beginning, feeling like that day would never come. But it still doesn't feel fair. I guess that's because it isn't, and it never will be... no amount of rationalizing or talking about the positive things that came as a result of losing her will ever make it feel "okay".
Kurt and I were talking last night about how losing her makes almost everything more difficult and complicated than it should be. We were talking about having kids, and about how scared we are to try again. I have said this before, but because my pregnancy with Olivia wasn't planned, we weren't exactly ready to have a baby - we weren't even living together yet when I got pregnant. If she had never existed, we would have probably not had started "trying" to have kids for another few years. Because we know that's what's smart financially for us {even though our hearts may think otherwise}, we're waiting. It's been unbelievably hard to watch almost every.single.one of my blog-friends who lost babies right around the same time that we dod go on to have babies. Several of them are pregnant now, and several of them have had babies in the last couple of months. I am SO happy for them, but it's been difficult to find women to relate to. I'm in this weird in-between stage where I want to have another baby more than anything, but I'm not trying to concieve like half of the BLM community, and I haven't had a second baby like the other half of the BLM community. I haven't found anyone else who wants a baby, but isn't trying to have one - and not because of a medical reason, just because it's not practical. We had to scramble {and if you know us in real life, you know that we really were scrambling} to get everything in order for Olivia. We had to find a two bedroom place that we could afford when we weren't really quite ready to move in together anyway, and scrape together as much money as possible to afford all of the things she would need. I never want to do that again. I want to be completely prepared next time. I have said that to a few friends who have had babies in the last year or two, and they all tell me that you're never completely prepared, and that if I were to get pregnant now or whenever, it would be the right time. I agree with that... and obviously I know that anything can happen and we could be pregnant again before we're "ready", but I would like to try and be a little bit more responsible this time.

And there aren't very many newlyweds who have lost a baby. We don't really fit in with any of our friends, and that's a lot harder than you'd think. On one hand, we sort of fit in with our newly married friends who don't have kids yet. But they either aren't planning on having babies at all, or not for several years. I think both Kurt and I really feel like parents, because pregnancy and especially dealing with our loss made us grow up quite a bit faster than we probably would have otherwise. Lots of newlyweds are still going out to bars and getting drunk on the weekends with their friends... and we really don't do that. And then on the other hand, we don't quite fit in with our friends who have kids either. I've only been pregnant and had a baby for three days... so I don't know what it's like to have a baby at home to take care of. There are two couples that we're really close with. One of them was pregnant while I was, except I was a several months ahead of her. I had Olivia in November, and their baby was born in April. Then, coincidentally, the day their baby was born, the other couple found out that they were pregnant! Their baby was born on Christmas. So for a full year after Livie died, I got to feel like part of the group, talking about pregnancy pains and c-section scars. But now they both have their kids at home. I love their kids, to them we are "Uncle Kurt and Aunt Betsy" - they feel like family, and I can spend time at their houses and play with the babies without getting overwhelmingly sad or upset, but it is still hard to hang out with them without thinking that we should be a group of 9 - three guys who were best friends in high school, and their wives and babies who are all only a few months apart. Our kids should be growing up together, and now they won't.

So that's where we are. We're stuck here in this kind of limbo area, and it's a very strange feeling.

I should say though, that for the most part, we're very happy. That's something that I want new BLMs to know. Yes, we are still sad and probably always will be in some way or another, but it really does get better. Despite the hard days, life has already gotten so much better than I ever thought it would be in those first dark weeks and months.

It does get better.

James Frey made me cry!

James Frey, author of A Million Little Pieces was on Oprah the other day. And yes - I do DVR Oprah every single day. I love that show and I am not ashamed :).

Anyway, did any of you guys read that book? I bought it back when it was on the NYT Best Seller list, but never read it, and now I can't find it. If you don't know anything about the controversy surrounding the book, I'll give you a little recap: James Frey wrote a book that he claimed was a completely true memoir about his life as a drug addict/alcoholic, and went on Oprah talking about how it was all true when she made it her book club selection. Countless numbers of people read the book and it's sales skyrocketed. He and Oprah both got tons of letters about how much it was helping former addicts understand themselves, etc. As it turns out, most of the story was NOT true, and he went on the Oprah show again where she called him out for lying to millions of people. Some people got extremely upset about it, others said, if it helped people... who cares if it was true or not? SO, after several years, he went back on Oprah this week. Their conversation was split up between two episodes where they kind of apologized to each other and then talked about how his life has changed since that "scandal" happened.

Kurt and I were actually watching it together which rarely happens - the whole two day series was amazing, and made me want to order the book again. But the best part, was when James opened up to Oprah about the death of his son Leo, who died in the NICU when he was 12 days old of Spinal Muscular Atrophy. It was totally unexpected, and I of course was in tears. Kurt didn't get quite as emotional as I did, but we were definitely both glued to the TV.

I have always said that I wish more people would talk about their experiences publicly so that the general public who has not lost a baby could have even the smallest understanding of what it's like. I've also posted before about wishing that dads would be more open about it, so that other dads wouldn't feel like it's weird to get emotional.

My favorite part was when Oprah was trying to talk to James about when he went back to work or something after Leo died, and she said, "...so after you recovered from that", and he cut her off immediately and said that he still hasn't recovered from it, and that he didn't even think it was possible to recover from it. He will always be sad. While he was talking about this, I was saying "thank you, thank you, thank you" in my head. That's the one thing that I think everyone should know about what it's like to lose a child. There have definitely been times when I've wanted to stand on top of a mountain and scream, "I WILL NEVER BE OVER IT".

I'm pretty sure that the closest thing to yelling from the top of a mountain... is talking to Oprah on international television.

He also spoke a lot about how losing a child makes so many other things seem so insignificant and "not matter much", and gives you a completely new perspective on life.

PLEASE, please click here to watch watch the clip from James Frey's interview with Oprah if you haven't seen the actual episode.

Also, I did some googling, and found this blog post that James wrote for World Aids Day in 2009 - the first time he wrote/spoke publicly about his son. I think he has an amazing heart.

Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Mother's Day! To all of my wonderful friends who have lost a baby - or two, or three - I hope you all had a peaceful, relaxing day, remembering and celebrating those little ones who gave you the precious gift of motherhood.

I have this poem saved on my computer {I didn't save the author, so if you know, let me know!}, and thought it was very fitting for Mother's Day.

When a baby arrives,

be it for a day, a month, a year or more,

or perhaps only a sweet flickering moment-

the fragile spark of a tender soul

the secret swell of a new pregnancy

the goldfish flutter known to only you-

you are unmistakeningly changed...

the tiny footprints left behind on your heart

bespeak your name as Mother.

I had a nice day today. It wasn't necessarily a difficult day... but I missed Olivia like I always do. I just re-read my post from last year, and I don't think I could write anything better for this year than what I wrote then... "I wish Livie was here to "help" Kurt make me breakfast, and I wish I were able to sit here holding my almost 6-month old little girl instead of writing a post about my first Mother's Day without her... But I am so thankful that I am her mommy, and that I got to do the things that I did get to do with her. I spent three perfect days with her, and today I will choose to celebrate that".


We slept in this morning instead of going to church, and then got ready and headed to the cemetary.  Instead of flowers this year, we took some little pinwheels and dragonfly garden things that I found at Hobby Lobby.

Kurt got me a beautiful scarf with dragonflies on it. I'm wearing it in the picture below, although you can't really see the dragonflies. I'll try to remember to take a closer picture sometime soon and post it. We went to brunch with Kurt's family and in the afternoon we went over to my parents to spend some time with my mom, and then drove her to my Grandma's so they could go to a movie. I really wanted to go, because they were seeing Water for Elephants whichis one of my favorite books, but tomorrow is my first day of work and I wanted to get some things done this evening. We had spaghetti for dinner and went and got frozen yogurt for desert. We're watching Band of Brothers now, and I'm in the process of painting my nails for tomorrow :).

March for Babies 2011

Today was our March for Babies! It also happened to be International Babylost Mother's Day, which I think was a wonderful coincidence. I hope all of my BLM friends were able to do something sweet for yourselves today - each and every single one of you totally deserve it.

MOST of our team members who walked today! My aunt and a few other people had to work this afternoon so they left early, but regardless...this is a HUGE group! So amazing.

{I also want to say thank you again to http://www.danielle-moss.com/ for designing our adorable shirts for this year, and to http://www.maeandpearl.com/ for printing them. You guys are all fantastic :) }

We had amazing weather this year for the walk. Last year, it was RIDICULOUSLY cold for the end of April, and we were pretty miserable until the end of the walk when it finally warmed up a bit. We had over 30 people actually walking for our team today, plus several littles riding in strollers, and nine dogs. We also had several team members who had to work or had other family obligations and couldn't make it out, so all in all we had a HUGE team! I am almost positive that if there was an award for the team with the most dogs, ours would have won it! I was actually pretty surprised that they all behaved so well! Kurt let our puppies run and run and run in an open field for about an hour this morning while we were passing out shirts and waiting for people to arrive, which was a smart idea because otherwize they would have been ca-razy.

I want to say a big thank you to anyone who participated this year. Whether you walked, made a donation, purchased a shirt, or just thought of Olivia today, we appreciate you so much. As of right now, our team has raised $550! I have been talking all day about how blessed we are to have so many wonderful friends and family members. I just can't say it enough! We are just blessed beyond belief!

Here are some pictures from today - Oh, and our shirts made it on the news again! Haha! I didn't want to be interviewed again (I hate talking on camera!) so I avoided the guy but he filmed the back of Kurt's shirt.

Kurt and I before the walk

Kurt and our good friends Dave and Lindsay's daughter Bailey Rae - The babies who "walked" got Team Livie Bean onesies that matched our shirts, They were so cute!

My favorite part - Olivia's sign on the "Miracle Mile". I forgot that I ordered one until someone told me that they saw it on their way in! That was a sweet surpise!

I was also fortunate enough to meet two women this weekend who have impacted me greatly since Olivia died. I think I've posted about her before, but at that time, Kurt worked with a woman named Madeline. She had lost three babies - Joseph and Gracie, as well as a miscarried baby that she didn't name. Within the last 18 months, she has been blessed with not one, but two sweet litttle girls, Rylie and Halle. She was the only person he worked with that could even begin to understand what he was going through, and she reached out to him and helped him get through those initial few weeks back at work. She and I messaged quite a bit on facebook and exchanged phone numbers, but never met in person, and Kurt quit that job not too long after that. She saw my post about or MOD team on facebook, and asked if she and her family could participate. She stopped by our house yesterday with her girls to pick up their shirts/onesies, and when I met her in the driveway, I felt like we'd known eachother forever! It felt so good to finally give her a hug. After we saw Livie's Miracle Mile sign, she hugged me and we cried together. I have cried with many, many friends and received many, many hugs... but there's nothing quite like crying with someone who understands every single ounce of pain you've felt. I wish it hadn't taken us 17 months to finally get our flipping acts together and get together! haha.

I also got to meet Lia today, the amazing woman who I was randomly matched with for Faces of Loss, Faces of Hope gift exchange at Christmas time this past year. She and her husband had a stillborn daughter named Sofia Rose, and recently miscarried her little sibling that they named Sam. After the gift exchange we continued to e-mail and comment on each others blogs, but hadn't met until today! While I was running around like a chicken with my head cut off trying to get my team together for a group picture, she recognized me and stopped me to say hi! I didn't recognize her at first, but instantly saw her pin with Sofia's picture on it, and there's no way that I could forget that sweet little face! We talked briefly and had her husband take a picture of us together, but I was on a mission to find my team members before a bunch of people had to leave to get to their next commitment of the day. I feel bad because I had to run off, and I hope she didn't think that I didn't want to talk with her... I'm looking forward to hopefully getting to spend some real time together sometime soon! She hasn't sent me the picture yet, but I will post it whenever I get it.

Again, a HUGE thank you to everyone who supported our team this year! You mean more to us than you know.

NEW March for Babies shirt design!!

I know that this is supposed to be Project Life Tuesday, but I don't care - I'm doing that tomorrow.

Today, I want to share this with you guys - Our March for Babies t-shirt design!

The AMAZING, amazing, amazing, amazing, Danielle of Danielle Moss Graphic Design and Photography{Formerly The Design Girl}, who also designed my blog, did the design for the shirts.

I am so excited, it's unreal. I designed them myself last year, and I liked them... but knew I wanted something a little bit more polished looking this time around. And she nailed it. I pretty much just gave her the words and she went to town. She is now my go-to person for ANYTHING design related. I don't know what else I'll need to have done in the future, but she seriously can do it all, and I love everything she comes up with.

The top part of the image will be on the back of the shirts, and the bottom is going to be on the front of the shirts, off to the side. I can't WAIT to get these back from the printer.

If I look at this for too long, I start crying - seriously. How sweet is that little bow on the "O"!? Pink bows remind us of Olivia, and I didn't even ask Danielle to add it. She just remembered that I told her that when she was working on this blog, and did it on her own. She rocks.

We have 26 people who will be wearing these shirts this year. It means so much to me to have something tangible that reminds me, and everyone else, of Olivia. I know that whenever our friends/family pull last year's  shirt out of their drawers, they think of her instantly. That makes me so happy.

Thanks, Danielle :)

Katie's Birthday

Today would have been my big sister Katie's 25th birthday. For those of you who don't already know, she was stillborn in 1986, about 10 months before me. I was their "Rainbow Baby". My mom went to the doctor for a regular check up at about 37 weeks or so and there was no heartbeat. We have one picture of her that is just a poloroid, and it has started to discolor a little bit. I scanned it for my mom recently and re-printed it so that it wouldn't age anymore, but it makes me sad that it's the only one they have. I was thinking about posting it here, but I don't want to do that without my mom's "ok".

My parents are going to her cemetary in Iowa today to take her some flowers and dragonfly garden picks to put in the ground. For years her stone has been sinking into the ground and looking kinda like crap, and the cemetary finally fixed it! I'm sure that seeing it look nice again will ease my mom's mind a little bit. That might seem like no big deal to a lot of people, but when the only thing you can do for your child is keep their grave site looking nice, it is a big deal.

It sounds strange, but knowing that my parents still think about Katie all the time after 25 years and after having two more girls is comforting to me. It really shows that having more kids does not in any way, shape, or form replace the one(s) that have been lost.

I'm thinking about my Mom and Dad today, and of course about Katie who I'm sure would have been the best big sister ever.

Blessings

I'm about to get really religious-y. I know that some of you don't share my beliefs so I'm telling you now. This is my blog where I write about my personal thoughts and beliefs, and if you don't like it... lo siento.

Throughout this journey of loss, I have always believed that God has a plan. I believe that He is good, and that He never gives us more than we can handle, but I also believe that He places obstacles in our path to teach us lessons - to show us that we are stronger than we think we are. This is something that I believed long before Olivia died, and losing her reaffirmed it for me. I know that this isn't what everyone believes... I have even gotten in arguments with family members about this issue. They argued that God would never take a child from his/her parents, and that this must have been the work of the devil. I do not think that the devil took my baby. To me, that's ridiculous and that is what makes that argument seem completely ridiculous to me. I've been told all my life that no one knows what God's plan is or why He does the things He does. We are just to believe that all things in life happen to glorify Him in one way or another, and we will find out the answers to all of our unanswered questions eventually, when it's our turn to leave this place.

On my way home the other day from a frantic search at three different stores for a freaking shamrock cookie cutter (only to get home and find out that we already have 3 of them in different sizes), this song came on the radio. By the end of it I was crying - it was exactly what I needed.

Blessings, by Laura Story

We pray for blessings

We pray for peace

Comfort for family, protection while we sleep

We pray for healing, for prosperity

We pray for Your mighty hand to ease our suffering

All the while, You hear each spoken need

Yet love is way too much to give us lesser things

'Cause what if your blessings come through raindrops

What if Your healing comes through tears

What if the thousand sleepless nights are what it takes to know You're near

What if trials of this life are Your mercies in disguise

We pray for wisdom

Your voice to hear

We cry in anger when we cannot feel You near

We doubt your goodness, we doubt your love

As if every promise from Your Word is not enough

All the while, You hear each desperate plea

As long as we have faith to believe

'Cause what if your blessings come through raindrops

What if Your healing comes through tears

What if the thousand sleepless nights are what it takes to know You're near

What if trials of this life are Your mercies in disguise

When friends betray us

When darkness seems to win

We know the pain reminds this heart

That this is not, this is not our home

'Cause what if your blessings come through raindrops

What if your healing comes through tears

What if the thousand sleepless nights are what it takes to know You're near

What if the trials of this life are Your mercies in disguise

Or the aching of this life

Is the revealing of a greater thirst this world can't satisfy

What if trials of this life

The rain, the storms, the hardest nights

Are your mercies in disguise

Starbucks & Kate

This morning, I had a coffee date with my old friend Katie {Katie has a super cute Etsy shop which you should totally check out. And a cute blog, check that out too}. She is a newlywed also, and lives in Iowa with her husband. This week, she's in town to visit her mama who just happens to live up the street from us. She picked me up in her little red bug and we spent two hours at Starbucks. It was so nice to catch up. We've been friends since the early days of high school, but have lived in different states ever since.

Katies Dad passed away very recently, and at one point I asked her how her mom was doing with that. We talked about it for a few minutes, and then she said, "how are you doing?" Without thinking twice, I responded by saying something about how I'd been good, just feeling so ready to graduate and start working.

Tonight as I was folding laundry and listening to the new Adele album, I was thinking about our conversation and it occured to me that she was asking me about how I was doing with losing Olivia. That should have been obvious to me because of the context of the conversation... but for whatever reason, it wasn't. {Kate, if you're reading this and that's not even what you meant at all... let me know :) }

This is the first time - or at least the first time that I've noticed - that my first instinct wasn't to answer the question with something grief/loss related. Once I realized this, It was a very, VERY good feeling. I think it's definitely another milestone that tells me I'm healing. I have used this comparison before, but I used to say that even if good things were going on, I still felt like no matter what, I was being followed around everywhere by a big gray cloud that seemed to be saying to me, "You can try to be as happy as you want, but you won't ever actually be happy because your daughter is dead". I'm sure my fellow baby loss mamas can identify with that. Don't get me wrong - I am still sad, a lot, and I think about Olivia or something related to her in some capacity every day, and I probably always will. Sometimes every hour of the day. But I'm definitely healing, and that's a good thing.

On another note, one of the starbucks employees brought in cupcakes for everyone to try while we were there. Supposedly, she made them by using a white cake mix and adding in Starbucks VIA Mocha mix. They were okay... they looked much cuter then they tasted. I found a recipe for VIA cupcakes here... and I might just be trying it out this weekend. I'll let you know if it's a giant fail or not...