Yep, I'm still alive. Still breathing. Still processing. Still hurting. Still missing. Still loving. Still crying. Still anxious. Still scared. Still stressed. Still proud. Still.

If you remember, Colby and I had a miscarriage in September of 2011. We were 10 weeks along. An old acquaintance messaged me when we found out we were pregnant that time and shared that she was pregnant too. We were even due in the same week. We chatted back and forth for a few weeks, but when we miscarried, her and I lost touch. She went full term with that baby, but ended up losing him during delivery. The cause of his death was never discovered.  I was so devastated for her, but I had recently found out I was pregnant with Elliston, and out of fear....I never said anything to her. She has been a rock for me these past few months. Reaching out to me when I'm sure it wasn't easy. Listening to me go on and on, when I know she was still healing too and probably needed to talk herself. She has shown me Hope. And taught me that hope and joy and hurt and grief can coincide.  Seriously people, this girl is amazing.  Today, she is just about 37 weeks pregnant. Ready to have her rainbow baby.  I am still figuring out what I now think the purpose of prayer is.....but take 2 seconds and send up a prayer, a thought, a good vibe....whatever....for her peace.  She is already the mommy of one sweet little boy in heaven, but is so deserving to bring home this next little one. I can't even imagine the mix of emotions.

xo

You have to endure it.

I had thought that returning to work may help me move forward.  I was wrong.  Very wrong.  My job is going through a stressful season.  I dont sleep at night because i am stressed about work. My mind and emotions are consumed with the death of my daughter, yet i am forced to push it aside because i have work work work.  Every night I breakdown because I dont have the mental or emotional capacity to balance both.  You know that crazy thing your brain does when you've had too much coffee?  You know you must eat something, drink a big glass of water, open a window.....something.  That is my brain everyday.  I feel like an idiot because im thinking about so many things at once, when really, my main thought is, "I want to hold my daughter." In all honesty, I feel like I'm on the edge of entering Crazy Town.  All this to say.....I havent had the ability to put into words this latest part of my journey. 

A blog that I follow referenced an excerpt from an advice columnist name Sugar.  Someone had written to Sugar about the stillbirth of their daughter.  I have read this excerpt everyday since she posted it.  It puts into words what I cant, and has given me hope that I havent yet felt.  

"Here's just some of it...

"Though we live in a time and place and culture that tries to tell us otherwise, suffering is what happens when truly horrible things happen to us.

Don’t listen to those people who suggest you should be “over” your daughter’s death by now. The people who squawk the loudest about such things have almost never had to get over any thing. Or at least not any thing that was genuinely, mind-fuckingly, soul-crushingly life altering. Some of those people believe they’re being helpful by minimizing your pain. Others are scared of the intensity of your loss and so they use their words to push your grief away. Many of those people love you and are worthy of your love, but they are not the people who will be helpful to you when it comes to healing the pain of your daughter’s death.

They live on Planet Earth. You live on Planet My Baby Died.

It seems to me that you feel like you’re all alone there. You aren’t. There are women reading this right now who have tears in their eyes. There are women who have spent their days chanting daughter, daughter or son, son silently to themselves. Women who have been privately tormented about the things they did or didn’t do that they fear caused the deaths of their babies. You need to find those women, darling. They’re your tribe.

I know because I’ve lived on a few planets that aren’t Planet Earth myself.

The healing power of even the most microscopic exchange with someone who knows in a flash precisely what you’re talking about because she experienced that thing too cannot be over-estimated. Call your local hospitals and birth centers and inquire about support groups for people who’ve lost babies at or before or shortly after birth. Read Elizabeth McCracken’s memoir An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination. Find online communities where you can have conversations with people during which you don’t have to pretend a thing.

...

This is how you get unstuck, Stuck. You reach. Not so you can walk away from the daughter you loved, but so you can live the life that is yours—the one that includes the sad loss of your daughter, but is not arrested by it. The one that eventually leads you to a place in which you not only grieve her, but also feel lucky to have had the privilege of loving her. That place of true healing is a fierce place. It’s a giant place. It’s a place of monstrous beauty and endless dark and glimmering light. And you have to work really, really, really fucking hard to get there, but you can do it, honey. You’re a woman who can travel that far. I know it.

...

You will never stop loving your daughter. You will never forget her. You will always know her name. But she will always be dead. Nobody can intervene and make that right and nobody will. Nobody can take it back with silence or push it away with words. Nobody will protect you from your suffering. You can’t cry it away or eat it away or starve it away or walk it away or punch it away or even therapy it away. It’s just there, and you have to survive it. You have to endure it. You have to live though it and love it and move on and be better for it and run as far as you can in the direction of your best and happiest dreams across the bridge that was built by your own desire to heal. Therapists and friends and other people who live on Planet My Baby Died can help you along the way, but the healing—the genuine healing, the actual real deal down-on-your-knees-in-the-mud change—is entirely and absolutely up to you..."

          Dear Sugar: July 15, 2010--How You Get Unstuck

I miss her.  I miss myself.  I cant be afraid to move forward from this sorrow.  She is not there.  

Goodbye 2012

Its New Year's Eve and Im sitting in front of our pink Christmas tree that I cant bring myself to take down.  I am reflecting over this past year and all of the highs and lows it has brought.  I would have expected to feel like this is the worst year of my life and in some ways it is.  Even though we lost our baby girl this year.....we also fell in love with her this year.  I spent 9 out of these past 12 months carrying the greatest light that has ever touched my life.  As devastating as her death was and still is, darkness will never overshadow the light. I am coming out of 2012 a better person because of my little Elliston Rae.  I embrace 2013 with HUGE open arms.  May this be a year of promise and more light for my family.

When you lose a baby.....

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 swear 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.

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.

Written by Small Bird Studios

awkward silence

I get it.  What do you say to someone who has just lost their baby?  And not just their baby....their dreams of the future, their innocence to tragedy, and their heart. No words can ever take that away.  So I get the awkward silence.  Or the droopy eyes and pouty lips that probably intend to say Im sorry but rather just stare.  I cant say I wouldn't do the same.  But honestly, all we want to do is talk about her.  She is our daughter, not something we want to be shy of talking about. We dreamed our whole lives, and especially the last 9 months, of when our first born would enter the world. That moment you hear about when in an instant, you have never loved anything more.  Never seen anything so beautiful. You are holding in your arms a part of you. A bond that can never be broken. We had all of these things. And just because she never took a breathe on this earth, doesn't make me want to talk about her less. I don't want my perfect girl to be a taboo subject.  We still want to talk about her, especially with those closest to us.

And just to put it out there.....a 2 second text message asking "how you holding up?" Is going to get a 2 second text response. Most likely, "fine"....but if we're feeling really honest, it may say, "shitty". 

We went out of town for a weekend, just to get away from everything for a short time.  Its interesting how differently Colby and I are dealing with this.  It was a good distraction for Colby, even though he thought of her all the time.  For me, I felt like I left my baby at home.  I could not have gotten home fast enough.  I take time everyday to sit in her room.  Elliston was cremated, and we have her ashes in a cute pink box in her room.  So I still feel like she is with me.  We haven’t touched a thing in her room….I just don’t feel like its necessary.  Its way too cute.  I have moments where I still feel like she will be here any day.  When I was pregnant I used to sit in there and think about what she would look like and picture me feeding her in the rocking chair.  So much anticipation.  Sometimes now its easy to still think those things and forget that they are never going to happen.  There are moments when I am out where I panic and think, “Oh my God, I left the baby at home!”  I feel like I go back ten steps every time I realize again and again….Elliston will never be with us.  As much as I wish this to go away, it just never will.  At first I couldn’t even imagine what a “good day” felt like.  Then I had one.  Now I am having multiple good days in a row.  I still miss her every second of every day….but I am still waking up and still breathing.  Showering every day is a different story, but I start work on Monday so I need to get out of this habit.  

I am so broken today.

I love and miss you baby girl.