8*12*11

It's been over a year since my last post. Not because I've spent the last year with nothing on my mind, or my grief is over. That's definatley not the case.

In fact, today is a terrible day with grief.
I wish grief would just go f*** it self.

We delivered our second baby girl, Hannah, 8 months ago. She's breathtakingly beautiful. However, with her birth has come a whole new round of grief.

Wow... this is what I really missed out on. I'm so f****** mad that I'll never know Grace like I know Hannah.

Every first, every new thing... we'll never see it. We'll never comfort her, hear her, know her little facial expressions, what makes her happy or sad, her fav foods, ... or anything else. All i have is tainted memories and a box of stuff.

I wanna hold her in my arms.... I want to and I can't. It's not fair.

And I'm soooooooooo beyond tired of non blms who just don't get it and complain and complain about pregnancy and their babies.  It's not that I wish being a blm on anyone... i just wish sometimes that other people had just an ounce of perspective about how amazingly beautiful each moment of pregnancy and motherhood is.

I am a mother to Grace, but I'll never be her parent... I hate that.

Anyways... sorry for the rant... I just know this is a safe place to vent. You guys get it. I'm so sorry that you get it, that you understand, but you do.

Damnit

Well... Nikki's baby girl Aamiyah Lynne Rose was born this am at 21 weeks, 10 oz, 9 inches. She didn't make it. I prayed and prayed and prayed for both of them. A lot of people did. She still hasn't told anyone except for her family. She's in the hosp right this second facing this with her family. I don't care if she knows that I know or not, I'm still praying for her. It's just so awful. I hate that she's feeling and going to continue to feel this pain we all know so well. She's so young too, only 21 yrs old. Not that any age is an ok age to face this. I wish babies didn't die. I wish this pain wasn't real to anyone. I'm so so so so sorry to all of you that have felt this. It's just awful.

Grace's due date is still coming up. I suppose it's been coming up since the day she was conceived. It's just that it's THIS month now. 6*25*10. I would have been uncomfortably pregnant right now and ready at any time for her. I would have been so close to having that unimaginable moment where they lay the crying baby on my chest while I smile in amazement. It's never going to happen for her and I. At least not here on earth. I'm never ever ever going to feel her on my chest wriggling around and cooing. I'm feeling especially whiny today. I know she's always with me, both in my heart and on my dresser. But ...

it's

just

not

enough.

Nothing really new to say about it though. I don't feel like
I need to repeat myself over and over again. You all understand.. you all know my pain. My grief is still here... it's nothing new.

Nikki Update

Thanks for all of the prayers everyone! Nikki was actualy discharged! Her ultrasound came back ok and they sent her home on bedrest until delievery. Her fluids isn't 100% but are suprisingly high for as much leaking as she has had. With bedrest we are hoping to keep baby in until it's further along. She will have weekly ultrasounds to monitor fluid levels and she will get steriods in 5 weeks (at 24 weeks). Again, thank you all for the prayers for Nikki and baby. Please continue to pray for them. Oh, and PS- it's a GIRL! Nikki is going to name her Amaiyah.

Prayer Request

Why can't pregnancy always end up in a healthy baby in our arms?

 I've never asked for a prayer from blog world before but everyone please please please pray for my friend Brooke's best friend, Nikki and her unborn baby.

(Brooke on the Left, Nikki on the Right)

 She is 19 weeks along (due in oct) and she is leaking amniotic fluid. She is in the hospital on bedrest now. She is bleeding and and also has a short cervix. She doesn't want anyone to know about it yet, but It'd be wonderful if you could all pray for her and her little baby. She  doesn't know anything about this baby lost world and of course, I prefer it stay that way. This is her first baby and she doesn't know what she is having yet. The father of the baby is not supportive but she does have a supportive network of family and friends. She doesn't even know that I know about what is going on. Please don't say anything on my facebook. I just want so bad for everything to be ok for her and baby. She is going to have a level II ultrasound tomorrow (well I guess today now since it's past midnight) to eval baby and fluid levels. I hope and pray that baby will be OK and Nikki can stay on bedrest until at least 24 weeks.

 Please

 please

please

 everyone pray with us?

June is on it's way

I miss her. June is coming quickly and her due date will be here before I know it. (June 25th) I just wanna sleep through that day. I dunno how you all did the whole due date thing. There are people I see that were pregnant at the same time as me. They are still pregnant. Yea yea, I know I'm pregnant again. But it's not that I miss being pregnant, I miss HER. Her life inside of my life. I knew her and now she's gone. I do love this tater tot baby SO much and am not saying I would rather have her then tater tot... I want them both. Maybe I'm just greedy. How dare me.

 Today we found a really good deal on a crib mattress. I had to buy it. I didn't think we would find another deal like that. Ok so I brought it home, took it upstairs, and looked at her. There she is, in her crib, in her urn, wrapped in her blankie. She was there with all of her stuff. The place she's been since January. What was I supposed to do. Buy a new crib? Leave her in that crib in our room forever. Trust me, I thought about it. Grief makes crazy things make sense. That's why I haven't kept her out of the crib since January. It was ment for her, so she should be in there... right? But now I have this mattress. I didn't even think about it when I bought it. Like I said, there are 2 sides of me. Where would it go? Will tater tot sleep on a mattress on the floor while their sister's ashes lay still in the crib. Again, I thought about it. I decided to move her. She felt heavier then normal while I was moving her out of the crib. Heavy with guilt maybe. I'm not sure. I moved her and all of her things, out of the crib. The cards, our peace bear, her ashes, my d/c papers from the hospital, her footprint cast, EVERYTHING. The crib was empty. So empty it hurt. Here is kinda what it looked like before I moved everything...

She's next to  the vase, wrapped up in the white blanket. The purple bag has her foot print cast in it. The bunny in the pink onsie has hear heartbeat in it. This is a pic from February, there has been much more stuff since then. 

Here it is now:

It's all moved now. She's still in our room. In fact, now she is where I can see her all the time. We are going to build a shelf to put her and all her things on. Until then, she's on the dresser. My daughter is on the dresser in a box. Damnit. Whoever told me that the 4th month after we lost her was going to suck, You were right.

I love my baby turkey tater tot. I love it with such a deep love that it makes me cry when I think about it too much. It doesn't mean I miss or love Grace  any less. Like I said, I want both. I think I'm being greedy.

I think I'll update TTT's blog soon. I have a lot to say... Then you can think I'm crazy when you read all about the OTHER side of me.

First Appointment.

We had our first appointment for our rainbow baby today.

This is Rainbow Baby's Blog

I feel like there are 2 sides of me now.This side, here on this blog, here in my safe spot. And that side, over there on Rainbow's blog. There are similarities between the two blogs, and there are serious differences that I wouldn't dare mention over there. 

 It was just an inital question/answer sesion with a little blood work and stuff like that. We met with the midwife "L.C." She is the reason why I switched to that practice to begin with. I saw her do some deliveries while I was working in L&D and I just thought she was amazing. She has had several losses and was VERY understanding about all of my crazy fears I have right now. I'm going to have my first ultrasound on April 15th to try to see tater tot's little heartbeat and to properly date our rainbow. She called me 5 weeks 2 days right now. Ryan and I think I am 4w6d but whatever. Then I'll have an ultrascreen between 11-13 weeks with Dr. Awesome, the high risk guy, to look @ the nuchal Translucency.

It was tough to go back there. Actually, It was sickening. The only time that I have been to this particular location for our OB office was the day that we got the bad news for Grace Willow. In the beginning of Jan we sat as far away from all of the other pregnant bellies as possible. Tough luck, it was a busy day. They all talked about their babies and how they were kicking. We sat there and waited, hoping to hear good news and hoping that the 3d ultrasound place was wrong.  We had another ultrasound and they saw the hydrops, they saw everything. We walked out of that appointment headed towards the Maternal Fetal Medicine guys, crying while all of the bellies stared at us with their nice happy pregnancies. Anyway, fast forward to now. I didn't want to sit in the same spot, we sat as far away as we could but it was a busy day again and we had to sit right next to where we sat before.

That long chair, that's where we sat last time. It doesn't look scary... It looks peaceful. But it's not. It's a scary dark place where you wait to find out that your baby will die.

We shouldn't have to go back to this office again. There is a location that is about 5 mins from us that we will go to from now on. There were still bellies looking at us. Probably because I don't have a belly yet? I dunno, maybe they know what happened to us. It felt like they did. Again they talked about their babies kicking. Am I ever going to feel that?  We had a different nurse then we had last time. We saw a different doctor. Things were different. I want them to continue to be different. She said that we can have as many ultrasounds as we need to make us feel reassured. I appreciate this. Our insurance company won't, but I do.

These fears are obnoxious. I'm back to not sleeping well . It'll be nice if we get some reassurance after our inital ultrasound. I just really really hope and pray that everything is ok in there. Like I've said before, Kangaroos' have it so easy. They can just open their pouch and peek in on their little Joey's development. I wish I could do that too! I just have to be at peace with the fact that things will turn out just as they are supposed to.

Oh and why when they need to do a vag exam..and they have you undress from waist down, do they give you something about as big as a paper towel to cover your entire bottom half. Seriously? I needed about 4 of those to cover myself. I'm picture happy ya know..but not that picture happy. They'll be no pix of me , my shirt, and a paper towel skirt. Don't get me wrong, I did think about it.

As I was siting there in my paper towel skirt and "L.C." was telling me about how she had had so many losses, all I could do was sit there and think. "This can happen over and over again?" Nooo. Please God , Please don't let this happen again. Please let me bring home a healthy baby. PLEASE.

Tator Tot

Hello Everyone. We're proud and nervous to tell you  all: We are expeciting our Rainbow  around Nov 29 - Dec 2. We're very happy and  very nervous about everything. We hesitated on wheather or not to tell everyone but we just couldn't hold back. Our new blog about our Tator Tot is : http://lifebeneaththewillows.blogspot.com/ All who are willing, are welcome to follow us on this journey.

I made my new blog unprivate for a while. I don't think most of you were getting my updates when I would post new things while I was private. Weird.

Anyway, I just got off of work and I'm getting ready to go to bed! I'll write more later.

*hugs*