Today one of my support forums that I prowl had a really good post. It was copied from another blog, Small Bird Studios, which I’ve never heard of until today. But, bet your bottom dollar that it got added to my list and now will pop up with things to read on my Google Reader.

Anyway, the post was about When You Lose A Baby and she nailed it. I couldn’t have written it better myself, so I won’t… here’s what she wrote:

You don’t know what to expect.

People surround you. For a couple of weeks. Making sure you are not going to kill yourself, refuse to get out of bed, or start rocking a baby doll like the crazy lady they heard about from a friend.

You get lots of sympathy cards, clearly written and designed to be sent to console a daughter losing her father. Not the other way around.

You get free baby formula in the mail. For months and months and months.

And free baby magazines. And free baby coupons.

You secretly envy every pregnant woman. But not without a tinge of guilt, because you know all too well that she might be one in four- expecting her rainbow child.

It seems like the whole world is expecting a baby.

You have baby stuff around your home. Because you never imagined you wouldn’t need it.

You feel jarred. In the grocery store. At a birthday party. At the dinner table. At Christmas. Driving.

The baby you never knew, but lost changes every part of your life. Every. single. part.

Forever.

You see baby clothes and it brings tears to your eyes.

You get sick and tired of crying. You never knew it was possible to cry this much.

You find yourself angry at God. Angry at yourself. Just angry.

You sware you can feel them kick but they’re gone. They call them phantom kicks. I call them painful, all kinds of painful. But sweet too.

You know, or you have a strong feeling of knowing what your child would have looked like, and been like. You see a child in the store, or on the street. Their hair color, dimples, smile, their personality and suddenly you are reminded of your child. You miss your child even more, if that’s even possible.

Your Babies R’ Us Registry is still active. There is no delete button on their site. The babies r’ us people don’t make a dime on people like us. Why bother right? You have to call them, plead with them to remove your freaking’ registry, because there will be no baby shower. There is an awkward silence. There is sadness. There will be no baby.

You get hospital bills about 3-4 months after you buried your child. You have to pay for the baby you delivered but didn’t bring home.

You find that moment of happiness in life for the first time, but the guilt swallows it up almost immediately.

You remember the size of the casket. The size of the plot. The face of the funeral director. The expression of those that attended the funeral. The feeling of raw pain, like your chest has literally been ripped open.

Somehow you convince yourself that you deserve happiness. Because you really do. But in the happiest, purest moment, there is still that hole that only they were meant to fill.

People compare your pain to their own pain. The loss of their grandmother, husband, their failed marriage, rebellious teenagers. Somehow this comparing leaves you stranded. If they can compare their pain of a situation to the loss of your BABY, they will likely never get it. Babies are not supposed to die. End of story.

You lost a dream. And it almost feels like you imagined their entire existence up. Their name becomes a distant memory on the lips of others.

There is awkwardness when you talk about your child in a crowd. No one knows whether to cry, walk away or pretend you never brought him or her up.

You lose friends. You find new ones.

You can’t believe that women have actually survived this and you never knew about it. Not really, anyway.

You would do anything for another minute with your child.

You cry when others bring up your child, not so much because it hurts but more so because it such a precious and rare gift.

You long for the rewind button, even after many many instances of acceptance.

You want to know what went wrong, and why…

You find a new appreciation for moments in life that make you laugh… you laugh harder and love stronger.

You know that you can die bitter, or die thankful. There is no in between.

You never ever, EVER get over your child. The one you hoped for, prayed for, carried and loved for the weeks and months they were with you.

You learn to live with the pain.

You are better for having known them at all.

Image by CarlyMarie Project Heal

Thanks Franchesca for writing this. You’d never know she lost her child three whole years ago.  She has gone on to do great things with her experience and that includes starting her blog and business both based on her loss and then having a beautiful baby. True inspiration.

Today Tyler and I took a fun lunch break. I picked him up around noon and we went to Joseph Jewelry to check out our memory rings. We have been in nearly constant contact with the jeweler and last week we were informed that Tyler’s wax model and our stones were in and ready for us to come and approve.  My ring didn’t need to be approved in the model because I had seen one nearly the same and was confident they’d get it right.  Tyler’s was completely conceptual, so he wanted to see and feel it before casting it in white gold.

So, in we went and we were thrilled. 

Tyler loved his ring model and he had to choose from two stones with slightly different cuts. Both of our stones were beautiful and my ring looks great.  I didn’t realize mine was already cast and the ring was complete but without the stone since that was waiting our approval.

Now I really need to get looking for footprint and font ideas for the engraving. Do you have any suggestions for me?!?! Leave a comment with a link to cute footprints or fonts because our jeweler will do anything I want! ANYTHING! So exciting but also means there are too many options! In fact, send wing ideas too if you are so inclined… I was thinking if I found the right pair of wings, I might have them incorporated too. Maybe.

I can’t believe our rings are almost done. The only thing holding them back is us!

I can’t sleep. It’s very late and I’m laying in bed right now writing this note to you curled up with your blanket. It is damp from being washed earlier today.

Yesterday night your doggie sister must have gotten sick because she threw up in bed and on your blanket. I am ashamed to say, I was furious but not at Glory or anyone, just a general furious feeling. Mostly because I was afraid.

Afraid your blanket was ruined. I stomped around and huffed and puffed and was beside myself. I stripped the bed and left everything on the floor for the night and threw some temporary blankets on the bed for a quick fix.

I had to sleep without your blanket. Without you.

Today I was doing laundry during the party because I needed your blanket clean and I needed to know it wasn’t ruined or that I wouldn’t ruin it further by washing it. I used the delicate cycle, of course, but I was still nervous. It probably seemed ridiculous to be doing laundry during a party, but I don’t think anyone noticed.

I’d like to say I had to do laundry because we needed the bed sheets cleaned, but honestly, we’ve got extra and it wasn’t the case - it could have waited. But your blanket, that couldn’t wait. It’s here with me and damp. I don’t dare put it in the dryer. I don’t mind.

Your blanket is all I have of you and if I lost that, I don’t know. I’ve already lost so much of you. I have your bunny, and of course, your ashes but your blanket you were wrapped in all day and I feel close to you when I snuggle with your blanket. If only you were still snuggled within it too.

I miss having you in my belly. And at night it’s the worst. I don’t remember having so many bubbles or fluttery feelings before I was pregnant with you. But now that I’ve felt life and lost life, I feel it and it tricks me. Just for a second, but a cruel second. I’m ready to feel life again. I want so badly to give you a baby brother or sister.

I think we are ready to start trying again. Today is the beginning of a new cycle, a fresh start. I’m not going to lie, I had slight hope that we had made a little miracle this month but it would have been with very slim chance as we were not trying. Even though I say trying very lightly because we are not going to “try” in the literal sense. We will be leaving it with a higher power. God can decide this time as He did last time with you, against our will.

Hopefully He has less heartbreaking plans for us this time, because, Zachary, your mommy is selfish. I want a baby - to give you a sibling - but I don’t want all my children to be up in heaven. Can you tug on His robe and with those big beautiful eyes I never got to see and ask ever so kindly to bless us with another baby. One for you to look over and care for like the best big brother in the whole world. Like you would have been here on earth and like you will be up in heaven.

I miss you tonight as I do every night. I will hold your blanket close and think of you. If I’m lucky, I’ll even dream of you.

I love you forever and always,
Mommy

This has been a crazy busy week.  Work has been time consuming and after work, I spent a lot of time prepping for today.

Taking a step back to Thursday, Katie and the kids, Kate and Kari came over to help decorate for Jess and Tony’s baby shower so that I wouldn’t have to scramble too much this morning.  It was a good thing we did it then too, because getting the food fixed up was plenty on top of the other stuff going on - I’ll get to that in a minute.

All done and looking great!

So Thursday us gals (Tyler was with his brothers working on Taptitude) got down to work.  Katie brought delicious dinner and drinks and Kate brought extra decorating supplies left over from her shower last weekend. We ate and chatted for a while then we got down to business and it turned out great. I couldn’t have done it without those ladies. Thanks for coming, helping and making the night fun and festive!

It was especially important to have the decorating done early because on Friday night Tyler and I went out to dinner at the Palace Kitchen in Seattle with our friends Joy and Daniel. We had a delightfully long and relaxing dinner and hung out a little bit after before calling it a night and heading home.

Prep time… it’s getting crabby!

On Saturday morning I woke up around 9am and started preparing for the shower.  I had quite a bit of food to prepare.  I started with the task of cutting hot dogs.  I was seriously into the “Under the Sea” theme for Jess and Tony’s shower since they are doing a sea theme nursery. So, I found a bunch of ideas on Pinterest and was ready to make it happen.  So the first thing was cutting those hot dogs into little octopus and crabs.  

After an hour of hot dog cutting, we had a guy come out to buy our wood burning stove off us. It was great because he paid us and uninstalled it (which we would have had to pay for when getting our gas fireplace inserts installed). So he came and took that off our hands and the downstairs looks 100 times better without it!

Before with the stove… what a giant beast!

After: It seems like a whole new fireplace!

Once all the fireplace stuff was done it was about noon and my backup arrived!

Nalena, Me, Ali and Kari helping prepare food

Ali, Nalena and Kari came early to help prepare the food and they also came bearing snacks! Nalena, master baker, brought amazing pink champagne cupcakes because that is Jess’ favorite flavor. Ali brought bacon wrapped water chestnuts and boy do I wish there were some of those left over right now (I’m starting to get hungry again!) Kari brought the oh so helpful food color pens and a veggie tray.  Not only did they bring food, they swooped in and helped create the crescent roll “swaddled” asparagus, boil and decorate - aka drawing faces on- the hot dog crabs and octopus, and make the punch. Thank you ladies, your help was very much appreciated!

Just in the nick of time everything was laid out and looked beautiful.

Under the Sea table spread

Lemon-lime water, goldfish, blue sea creature
punch, crab and octopus hot dogs, veggies, bacon
wrapped water chestnuts

Jello with fishies, asparagus “swaddled” by
crescent rolls

Everything turned out fabulous. I kind of obsessed over a few things, like the punch… and they didn’t turn out as I had hoped but it was all pretty good.  That’s what happens when you get ideas from Pinterest I suppose.  I swear the people who pin stuff are professionals.  The punch I made was supposed to be easy. Supposed to be. Instead, I kept running into issues.  The first hurdle was finding blue koolaid. Apparently there is a ban on blue koolaid in Washington because the five stores that Katie and I searched, there was none to be found. My mother- and sister-in-law both sent enough for us for a good long time which is awesome because it is sooooo good! (Tyler absolutely loves it and I have a feeling now that we can, it will always be in our fridge.)

The second hurdle was finding pineapple sorbet. Turns out that isn’t readily available but I simply resorted to lime sorbet instead and it was just fine, although it did turn my punch a little more green than anticipated.  Speaking of anticipation and expectations. See the punch recipe and goal picture at Everyday Celebrating. Mine was not quite that blue and sudsy looking, but it was good enough.

My slight obsession

Swaddle sea turtle, cupcakes and gummy fish

My other, much easier - but still not perfect - obsession was the hot dog octopus and crabs. They took a while to prepare but they were so cute.  They too did not look quite as cute as the Cute Food for Kids website I got the idea from.  They didn’t curl as much and I didn’t have time to make the goofy faces other than quickly drawing, but they still were darned cute.

Finally, my last solid idea was the swaddle turtle.  It was a take on towel origami but with two swaddle blankets and a burp cloth. That I came up with all on my own and turned out perfectly! Probably because I didn’t have something to compare it to.

The girls

The guys (plus a sleepy Carmen)

It was this nice out!

Anyway, the food was good, the decoration was festive and the company was all in good spirits. Even the weather was at its best! The sun was out shining all day with beautiful blue skies and 60 degree temperature.  Tyler even uncovered one of the patio sofas and the guys sat outside for a bit.

We played only one shower game, which was a baby look alike type game where everyone guessed which attributes Tony and Jess wanted their baby to inherit from themselves. Then they opened gifts and we all had a nice champagne toast for healthy and happy babies for both Tony and Jess as well as Kate and Scott.

Now the countdown really begins. The showers are over and there is less than a month till Baby Ross is due and just a few short weeks after Baby Brodie will come too. Unless of course anyone is early or late! Let’s have two leap year babies… wouldn’t that be fun!

Proud dad and mom to be!

On a very separate note, my body gave me a very kind reminder that I am not in fact pregnant anymore and I started my period today. We can only hope that changes very soon as this is cycle three and we are more than ready to try again :)

Tonight I had a fun night. I will post more on Saturday but it all comes down to having awesome friends. I’m exhausted. Thanks for a fun night, Katie, Kate and Kari :)

It’s odd to think about the past, present and future in terms of Zachary. I’m not talking distant future, but rather more near future as in I did that because of the baby as in future baby. The future baby, Zachary, but then he wasn’t Zachary because Zachary isn’t our future baby anymore, and talking now about something I did back before the day we found out but now seems so odd. I want to say I did it because of Zachary, but that’s not true either. I did it because I’d be pregnant now with Zachary who we wouldn’t know was Zachary.

Read that paragraph again. I read it five times and I know it doesn’t make sense but to me it does somehow. Basically, I am struggling internally with saying “the baby” vs Zachary.

Maybe it would make sense if I explained.

Today the pest control came. They sprayed the exterior of the house only and Tyler asked why they didn’t spray inside. It was because I had them spray inside last time since I didn’t want them spraying inside while I was supposed to be extremely pregnant and in case the chemicals could be harmful to the baby. The baby. Zachary. I did it for him but not him because at that time in the past I didn’t know it would be him.

Does that make more sense?

Probably not.

It just feels wrong to say I did it for Zachary but also feels wrong to say I did it for the baby. They are one in the same but can’t possibly be. The baby was supposed to be here in March, but Zachary came in November. The baby was supposed to be healthy and alive, but Zachary wasn’t.

Get the gist? Ok, I’ll stop my rambling and try and go to bed. I think my hormones must be out of whack tonight.

Just thought I’d share a little tidbit in case you didn’t already know. See that Facebook box on the middle right side of the page? You can click the “Like” button and blog posts will automatically show up on your News Feed so you never unintentionally miss a post. Of course, you can always just “Like” my blog just because you are a fan of my writing or crazy life. If you don’t have Facebook, you can also subscribe by entering your email address in the little post-it area - titled Newsletter - at the top right (to unsubscribe you simply re-enter you email address) and you will get an email each time I publish a post. If you go the newsletter route, make sure you check your spam if you don’t seem to be getting the updates.

Another one of my favorite methods of keeping up on my favorite blogs is using Google Reader. It compiles all of my blogs in one place and I just go there when I am ready to catch up and it shows me everything that is new since my last visit… perfect for my busy life!

Also, so you know, the “like”, “tweet” and “+1” at the end of each post are for each specific post, not the entire blog. They help recommend the individual blog post to the world or your friends.

I had a memorial party instead of a baby shower. I got flowers and cookies instead of toys, blankets and cute baby things. Instead of being pregnant, I’m not.

I had fun today at my friend’s baby shower and I will have fun next week at the shower I am throwing for Jess, but I can’t help but notice I am not having one too…yet.

Have you ever woken up from a dream and been extremely happy, sad, upset or just off? Or maybe woken up and tried so hard to fall back asleep just for a little longer so you could see more of the dream?

That’s what happened to me this morning.

I was having a pretty unrealistic dream but I wanted more. Tyler and I were on a cruise with lots of family but the cruise ship was much smaller than a real ship and the rooms much larger - we were all in one room like a giant suite but had our own areas. We also had room service with a waitress bringing us breakfast in bed. In the dream everyone was letting loose and having a fun time (drinks were involved) and next thing I knew, I was in labor. I was drunk out of my mind, and in labor! I would not drink if I was pregnant or even thought it was possible to be pregnant, let you know.

I didn’t know I was pregnant at all in this dream.

My dream fast forwarded to the next morning and apparently I couldn’t remember the labor and delivery of this baby at all. But I was thrilled. We had a healthy baby boy who had a nearly full head of precious shaggy hair. He was small, but perfect and we named him Matthew (even though it wasn’t a name in our short list)… talk about detailed. This was very different from the dream I had when I was actually pregnant with Zachary and never mentioned but the dream felt “off” and Zachary had a rather large head (hindsight, I think it was my unconscious knowing about the fluid on the brain).

Anyway, the day went on and we had to go buy clothes and things because we were not prepared. We stopped at an island and somehow got the necessary items for Matthew. Although I kept worrying because I was forgetting about feeding him.

I also remember finding a computer so I could email everyone with pictures of Matthew and I was particularly excited to tell my sister-in-law for some reason… like frantic that I had to tell Katie.

When my alarm went off, I tried to go back to sleep. I snoozed for 10 minutes but I had to get up to live real life. Time to go live it, without a baby for now… unless I’m pregnant and don’t know it (pretty unlikely still but not entirely impossible).

Who’d have thought that the November birthstone had meaning. I look for meaning in lots of things, but a birthstone was not one I checked. Silly me. But of course, my dear friend Leigh is a lot like me and likes to find meaning in things so she took it upon herself to share a bright tidbit about Zachary’s birthstone.

Our rings will have yet another dimension of meaning because the November birthstone, citrine, is said to support vitality and health while encouraging and guiding hope, energy and warmth within the wearer according to the American Gem Society. Citrine is known as the “healing quartz”. How perfect is that?