Happy Birthday, Holden!

Has it really been a year? It doesn't seem like it's been that long. I still miss Holden so much. More so lately. I don't know what I thought it would feel like at this point but I guess I didn't think it would still hurt this much. I thought at one year I would be happier. That time would have helped heal my wounds. I know that my mental state is much different than it was a year ago and I've made a lot of progress. I don't cry very often and there are a lot of days where I'm happy and forget the sadness. But it never leaves me and still hits hard. Like today. Some wounds cut too deep to ever heal.

I didn't really think much of how significant today was when getting ready for work this morning. I thought maybe it can be a happy day, celebrating the short life of my sweet little boy, and not a sad and depressing day.  I went to write something on my calendar and just stood and started at what I wrote for November 19th: "Holden's Birthday- 1 year." I didn't want to forget...not that I ever could! I hate that all I will ever have are reminders and notes as signs of time progression instead of a growing baby boy. I almost lost it right then. It was so hard not to cry. I just hate starting off my day like that so I stopped myself. I kept tearing up at work all day though. I didn't need a trigger. I would just get this surge of sadness, my eyes would get watery and I would have to stop myself from letting them flow. At 10:00 am an alarm went off on my phone. Another reminder that it's Holden's angelversary. I had written in the description "Happy Birthday baby boy!" Another almost cry.

I'm going to bake a cake for him tonight. I think his one year birthday calls for something special! I'll post pictures later...if it turns out good!

My dearest Holden,
How is it possible that it has been a year since you left me? I can't believe it. Every day without you has been so difficult. I miss you so much. I'm so sorry my body failed you. I wish more than anything that you could be here with me now. Every day I wonder what you would be like. If you had made it full term and survived you would be 6 months old now. So old! I wonder what life would be like with you. Would you be a quiet baby like I was, sleeping all through the night? Or would you be like my little brother (your uncle) and cry, cry cry? Oh how I would love to hear you cry. Would you have your daddy's curly hair or my light complexion? You looked like you were going to get his big nose! I wish I would have had the chance to find out. I miss you today and everyday and words cannot express how much I love you.
Love,
Mom

ETA: Here is his birthday cake that I made all from scratch. Chocolate cake with butter frosting, covered in fondant. Unfortunately I don't have any cookie cutters so everything was cut out by hand with just a knife. I think that it turned out pretty good though! I really wish I could have been making it for our living baby.

Unjust Universe

Do you ever have moments when you think because you lost your baby/babies other bad things shouldn't happen to you? Both big and little? Because when they do, it's just not fair. Seriously, universe? Seriously?? You're going to throw this at me too?

I find it difficult to cope with the negativity of life lately. With certain things, like relationships, I forgive easily. I think "life is short" and it's not worth investing all this negative energy on unimportant circumstances. So what if Andrew didn't do the dishes like I asked? I don't need to get upset; I just need to ask him again. It's not a big deal. In other situations, even when I try to be positive and think "it's not the end of the world," I wonder why it happened in the first place. Haven't I endured enough tragedy not to experience more misfortune? Maybe I'm being selfish. Bad things happen to good people all the time. Sometimes life just kicks you when you're down. Why shouldn’t it happen to me too? That still doesn't make it okay.

First, I lose my two baby boys. Then I get pregnant only to have it taken away two days later. Then, I find out I'm being laid off. What the heck do I do now? I have to make some serious decisions about the direction of my life at this point. Maybe go back to school? Then I do some research on my laptop and it crashes for like the 4th or 5th time in 3 years (thanks Vista). WTF? I spend easily over 15 hours trying to fix it only to have to reinstall it to factory settings. I can't have an unreliable computer, especially if I go back to school. So I buy a new one. Of course I put it on the Best Buy card since we're broke. I give my mom my old one and she is so excited that I think maybe something good came out of it after all. All is well. Oh, wait, we're broke? Rent and other bills lined up just right this month so that our paycheck wasn't enough? Three days after we get paid we have -$3 in our account. Dammit. What are we going to do? Oh, we have those checks to deposit! We'll be fine as long as we only use our near maxed out credit cards for the essentials and we postpone all automatic payments until after we get paid again. Shit, I just signed up for automatic withdrawal for my student loans last month. I can change the date! But it takes up to 10 days to adjust and the pay date is in 5. It still comes out. At least the overdraft fee is only $36. Only a week until payday and we'll be fine. Now it's Andrew's birthday (November 15th) and we can't not do something. So we go out to eat with friends. I make sure to grab my camera. We sit in a booth and I ask him to put my purse on the inside of the booth instead of in between us. I never think to grab my camera since I'm not next to my purse. I know that this is when I lost my camera. Last night I'm looking for it, taking the flashlight to our cars, looking in the most ridiculous places in the house for it. Maybe they found it at the restaurant. Did you find a camera? We were just in there yesterday. We were sitting in the bar area. No? Thanks. Then I cry.

I guess the difference between scenarios that are more upsetting, is the money involved. Relationships are free, well, of any monetary value. You invest time, emotion, and love. I can and will invest them in the people I want in my life. These are values that I like to think I have a limitless store of.  I can't run out. I can run out of money. I can't afford to replace every material possession I own. I try to justify it as a "thing." It's just a "thing". Unfortunately even "things" can be important and necessary. While I can buy another camera, on the credit card of course, I can't buy back the pictures I had on it. Luckily I just transferred pictures on Halloween, so not too much time has passed. But I had taken cute pictures of the dogs and other "things" that have emotional importance to me. I always end up feeling stupid for being upset over something so insignificant. Why is this so important to me to cause such emotional distress? It's so hard to be positive, as much as I try, when life keeps throwing difficulties at me. When they build up, it makes even the smallest inconvenience a mountainous obstacle to overcome. I can’t move mountains but it's time to learn how to climb.

Halloween Weekend

Halloween was...mediocre. Not as bad as it could have been and not as good as I was hoping. I had been really excited to dress up and go to a couple of parties on Friday and Saturday. We had really great costumes too! I was Flo from progressive and Andrew was the Geico caveman. We made his latex mask from scratch. We got so many compliments! Still, once I was all dressed up, I wasn't as excited to go out anymore. Then, when we got to the parties, all I wanted to do was go home. I've always had a bit of social anxiety but it has become so bad since my losses. It's hard for me to relate to people or really have the desire to converse. It's not too bad if someone pulls me into a conversation but I don't go out of my way to start one. I did try to have fun but it was difficult. I was basically ignoring Halloween in all other aspects because I really wasn't in the Halloween spirit. Why should I be?

Luckily, we didn't have any trick-or-treaters on Sunday. Small children don't bother me as much as babies but seeing them dressed up would still have been a little difficult. When I went to the Halloween store last week and saw all the cute little costumes they had for infants and toddlers, it stung a little. So, Andrew and I ended up eating candy while playing videogames and watching terrible scary movies on Netflix. We have almost eaten our entire six bags of chocolate candy over the course of the last three weeks. Let's say my digestive tract isn't exactly happy about that...neither is my weight! Still, it was nice.

I think I've decided that unless I have a baby next Halloween, I don't think I'm going out. Even if I do, I might opt to stay in and just be in awe of what will be an adorable infant since at this point, the earliest due date I'm looking at is July. I hope all the other BLMs had a gentle Halloween, especially those with due dates or angelversaries in October. We all made it past the first holiday in the string of holiday events that are to come in the next couple of months. We can do it!

Parker's Due Date

Sunday, October 24th, was Parker's due date. I had a little anxiety before it, as I did with Holden's, but it wasn't nearly as bad. A lot of that had to do with losing Parker 3 weeks before Holden's due date so the grief was still fresh. I also think having been through it once before helped. Luckily, it was as good a day as it could have been considering everything it represented. The anticipation was worse than anything. Due dates are a significant milestone in our lives and for the lives of our gone-too-soon babies.

I woke up that morning and I was in a pretty good mood. Andrew and I had plans to just spend the day together. We added a bunch of scary movies on Netflix and put them on as we carved pumpkins. This year, Halloween is a little more difficult since it is so close to my due date. The holidays in general are hard, but how could they not be? Andrew and I are dressing up and going to a couple of friends parties this weekend, which we are excited about, but otherwise I am pretty much ignoring Halloween. Not really on purpose, I just don't feel like celebrating it as much this year. I didn't dig out our box of Halloween stuff from the storage closet and decorate the house. I have one decoration hanging up outside, next to the front door, of a wooden scarecrow that says "Fall Harvest" that Andrew's mom gave us and the two withered pumpkins sitting outside our door. I don't mind joining in others celebration of Halloween but I'm not in the Halloween spirit myself.

I did have a moment of slipping into alternate realities while carving pumpkins. I have two alternate realities; the one where Holden exists and the one where Parker exists. In Holden's reality, he would be almost 5 and a half months old. We would totally have been carving a pumpkin for him. Andrew carved the Sesame Street Count (he thought it was funny) but that is totally the kind of pumpkin I would have wanted to carve for our baby boy! Something childlike and cute. We probably would have gone to the pumpkin patch and taken the obligatory pumpkin-baby photos. Maybe where he was dressed up in his first Halloween costume. In Parker's reality we may not have been carving pumpkins at all that weekend because I'd be ready to pop! Or maybe I would have already brought him home. Maybe we would have carved pumpkins earlier in preparation for him or waited until he was born to carve. Either way, I would have been so happy to bring him home. So happy that it wouldn't have mattered if we had pumpkins at all.

I was a little sad but my new live in the moment attitude kept me from dwelling too long in those wonderful day dream worlds. Instead, it was just us two, a couple of in-love married people carving some pumpkins and baking some pumpkin seeds. We did do something special to honor the memory of Parker on what should have been his birthday. We baked a cake. It was a white confetti cake with confetti frosting. Delicious! I ate it and thought "I wish you were here." I so wish that I could have been celebrating bringing home my living baby, but at least I could was able to remember his short life and how much I love him.

I really hope that once Halloween is here that I don't have a meltdown. I feel like I'm doing so well but there is no way to know when my "up" will go "down." We are going to hand out candy early on, which will of course be the youngest children, and then plan to turn off the porch light when it gets dark so we don't have to give out candy all night. I don't think I could handle doing that all night, seeing all the adorable kids in their costumes reminding me of what I don't have. It just might be a little too much. I need to preserve some sanity (of what little is left)!

Pity Party Fun

I fail as a blogger. I don't post as much as I should. I know this is my place to put down my feelings and thoughts, but sometimes I depress myself with how depressing I am. I feel like I never have anything significant to write about. My babies are dead. I'm sad. The end. That's the truth of it though, I AM sad. I feel like I'm getting more depressed as time goes on. I'll start to get better and then relapse. I keep thinking if I was pregnant now, I wouldn't feel this way. I know that I wouldn't.

Last Friday Andrew and I had dinner with a few people at a friend's house. I can't remember when, I think after our first loss, I found out that our friend Nicole had a 6 week loss. On either side of that loss, she has two beautiful girls, ages 6 and 1 and a half. Other than that loss, Nicole has lost a lot of people in her life. It's probably hard for people to understand the immensity of her losses when most people have only lost a couple people in their lives by their mid-20's. I don't mean to diminish anyone’s loss, losing even one person in your life is difficult, but I think that when several people in your life die, it definitely takes its toll on you. It's also different when it's your grandparents, who lived long and fulfilling lives, compared to your sister, who left behind her two kids. I don't think she gets to really talk about it. Well, once in awhile you just need a pity party and isn't alcohol always the best catalyst for it?

She started talking about all the people who she lost in her life with tears streaming down her face. Somehow it became this comparison on how many people have died in each of our lives. Everyone was listing off the few people in their lives while Nicole listed off at least 5 people, including her sister who died about 8 years ago, then I said something like "if we're going to make this a competition then I win because my babies died." There was that second of silence where everyone gets a little uncomfortable and I was really afraid that I had ruined the evening with my inappropriate joke, but then Nicole started talking about her loss too.

It was kind of nice to be able to make a little joke about feeling cursed because the people in our lives keep dying. Talking about how sad you are that your babies died. I think it was nice for her to be able to call her 6 week loss, her baby, which I haven't heard her say before. Morbid? Probably. Freeing? Definitely.

Then her sister-in-law started talking about how it's not the same, but she has a tumor in her breast and her doctor basically said if you want to have kids, you need to have them now. She's engaged and they're not ready but she wants kids so she has a very serious decision to make. Then I was able to relate that I have precancerous cervical cells and there is only so much time I have to have kids too. I know it's different, but we're both being faced with this rush to have kids before we can't anymore. Different circumstances, same situation. It was really cool to be relating to this person I'd never met before! Want to hear something funny? We all have the same doctor!

All of this on October 15th, Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day. I was having a difficult time that day as it was and this was a good way to get it out. All in all, it was a really cathartic experience. All week I've been feeling a little better than I have in awhile. Now, if I ever see a grape martini again...

Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance

Today, October 15, is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day. Babycenter says it's "a day to honor and remember babies who die during pregnancy or as newborns. Participants around the world light a candle at 7 p.m. and keep it burning for at least an hour. Because of different time zones, the result is a wave of light that spans the globe. The day also calls attention to the needs of grieving parents and creates awareness of pregnancy and infant loss."

So, take some time today to remember your babies or the loss of someone you know. If you're like me, you already remember them every day!


Holden and Parker,

I hope you know how much I love you. It's more than anyone could imagine. I miss you so very much. I wish more than anything I could be holding you in my arms but I'll have to settle with keeping you forever in my heart. You each represent a special time in my life. Though it was short, those times will always belong to you. You'll always be my baby boys.

Love,
Mom

Regression

Do you ever return to that moment when your heart broke? When shock and sadness overwhelm you and you are overcome by the reality of what has happened to you? That was me last Wednesday. I was driving home from work and started getting a little teary eyed.

Getting teary eyed in the car is not unusual for me. I knew these were the kind of tears that need to come out and decided to let them flow. Well, once they started they just wouldn't stop. Luckily, it was a sunny day so my sunglasses concealed my surely bloodshot eyes, but I had to keep wiping the tears off my cheeks before any red lights. I'm always self-conscious about someone looking in my window when I'm stopped and seeing me cry. I wonder what they would think of me.

By the time I pulled into the garage, I was bawling. I just wanted to see my babies. I went inside, let the dogs out, and then walked upstairs. I walked into our study/office and gently picked up the shoebox that contains Holden and Parker's whole lives. I sat down on the floor, the tears still flowing, and opened the box. I pulled out the "It's a boy!" teddy bear I received from the hospital for Holden. The baby blankets they were wrapped in. All my ultrasounds, pregnancy pictures, and all the hospital bands I wore around my wrist from every hospital visit. Then, I looked at their pictures. At their beautiful, tiny, perfect, helpless bodies. All the time I'm trying not to cry on the pictures because I don't want to mess them up.

After I was done I neatly put everything back in its place and went downstairs. I let the dogs in and just crawled into bed. Cora, who everyone says is a momma's girl, jumped up, cuddled right next to me, and started licking my face. I'm sure it was nice and salty for her. It really was what I needed to make me feel a little better. I had to laugh when her tongue started going up my nose. Gross!

Andrew got home soon after that and walked into the bedroom to see me crying. When he asked why, all I could say was "I'm sad." Then he asked why with even more concern. I think he thought something had happened to me. I just said "I miss my babies." And then he had an "oh" look on his face. He crawled into bed too and let me talk and cry about it. When he wasn't responding, I got a little upset. He said he didn't know what to say. I told him to “just tell me everything is going to be ok and that we will have living babies one day and won't always be mourning the death of our children. That it won't always be this hard.” Then he said those are all things he was thinking but didn't say. "Easy to say now after I just told you what to say to me." We laughed. He wanted to let me be sad about the memory of Holden and Parker and not to diminish that by talking about the future. How sweet is that? I really appreciated it but told him sometimes I need to know that he thinks about the future too and is hopeful that things will be better some day.

It felt good to have that deep cry. Sometimes I feel like my sadness is collective. Everyday adds a little more to the collection until I release it. But I'm not supposed to cry because it's been 5 months since my most recent loss. I should be "over it" by now. Except that I'll never be over it and everyday that I'm not allowed to express my emotions, is another day that I'm just waiting to explode. But that's ok. We all need to break down once in awhile and then pick ourselves back up and keep going. I really do hope that someday life will be better.

Blog Award

My blog was nominated for the One Lovely Blog Award by Violet over at Searching for Ladybugs. Thank you so much! I love reading your blog and relating with you over something that only our community of BLM's can understand. And thanks for reading mine. :)

Here are the rules:

1. Accept the award and post it on your blog with the name of the person who had granted the award and his/her blog link.

2. Pay it forward to 10 other bloggers you have newly discovered.

3. Contact those blog owners and let them know they have been chosen.

I'm pretty sure a lot of these blogs may have been nominated already because I don't follow that many blogs, but these are some amazing women bloggers whose stories have impacted me deeply, so I am nominating them. If you haven't checked them out, you should!

1. Butterfly Kisses to my Angel Alyssa Marie
2. Dear Stevie
3. In Memory of Jacob
4. Our Sweet Corinne Ellery
5. Remembering Drew
6. Valentina in the Sky
7. In Memory of Liam
8. I Wish You Love
9. The Butterfly Room
10. Houston, We're Having a Baby

Thank you for sharing your beautiful, sad stories with the world and and allowing us to share in your journey.

Where have all the days gone?

I haven't posted in a while because I've been pretty sad lately. The 19th of this month was Holden's 10 month angelversary and the 24th was Parker's 5 month angelversary. I just tried to not cry all day at work that week. I cried in the car to and from work instead. I can't believe it's been so long. I didn't realize the dates initially either, which made me feel worse. I felt like a bad mom.

After I lost Holden, I counted every week, even when I was pregnant with Parker. But after we lost Parker, I lost count. I remembered Holden's due date but it was too much for me emotionally to have that constant reminder. Still, occasionally, I realize what the date is and I'm overwhelmed with grief.

Not being pregnant again makes it hurt more. We are 5 months out from losing Parker and in the third month TTC and still nothing. Now that we have some answers, I'm ready to be pregnant again but my body isn't allowing that to happen. I've decided that if we're not pregnant this month, which I'm just not feeling it, then I am going to quit temping. I'm just going to enjoy being intimate with my loving husband...every other day! Less obsessing will probably do me good.

I also found out today that my contract at work is definitely not being renewed next year due to budget issues so I have until January 5th to find a new job. It's so hard. I've been on and off looking for months because I've wanted to get out of my job but haven't found anything. Now I have nothing to fall back on if I can't find a job. I wanted to get out but I was hoping to have more time. I'm going to try to be positive but this is obviously extra stress that I don't need right now!

What Makes a Good Supervisor?

Is it being mean to your employee? I'm having one of those mornings at work. I have been really stressed out lately and my supervisor is really just adding to it. Two weeks ago from yesterday, she needed me to screen some viruses to be shipped. Normally, I could get these done in a week, but due to other circumstances requiring my time, I was unable to get them done quickly.

The biggest reason is that I have a work study student I've been training. Her first week was last week and she was here for about 6-7 hours over 3 different days. That in itself takes time, but I had to prepare for her too. That makes sense, doesn't it? Prepare for training a student? A sophomore who has yet to have a microbiology course. Who has no idea what any of the procedures we do are and has never held a pipette before. Is there a limit on the amount of time I'm supposed to take to prepare for her? I've never trained anyone before so this is new to me. It’s been a little overwhelming. I remember when I started as a student and had no idea what the heck I was doing. So, I decided to be detailed and to plan for the time she would be here. Seriously, I don't even make a plan for myself for the week until Monday, so adding training on top of that...yeah.

Anyway, that has taken a lot of my time during the last two weeks. Plus, this was a short week and I was sick on Tuesday. My supervisor didn't say anything until yesterday when she asked if I was done screening them. I told her no, but they would be done by Friday. Then today she sends another email asking which procedures I've performed on them and saying it's been 2 weeks since she emailed. It shouldn't take 2 weeks to screen "3" viruses (it's 4, actually) and that this needs to be a priority. Then, she so nicely added, "Honestly, this should be done within 1 week." Was that necessary?

Am I overreacting? I realize as my supervisor she can determine when things need to be done. She gives me a task and I do it. That's how the chain of command works. I get it. But, to me, if after a week I wasn't done and she had a problem with that, then shouldn't she have said something? She asked me about it last Thursday and I told her that I would be finishing up this week and she didn't say a word. That was her opportunity to say "Hey, it's been a week and I really need to ship these so do you think you can get them done by (insert day)?" instead of waiting for another week and then sending me an email saying she thinks they should be done.

She gives me things to do and never gives me a deadline or an estimate of when she needs them. It's not until she's annoyed that they're not done that she tells me, always by email might I add, and that just stresses me out more. And she always puts in a little something extra that comes off as rude. She's not a good supervisor. Her position doesn’t allow her to supervise people, technically, but I was hired to assist her so I guess that makes her the boss. I really need a new job.