Balloon Release

Posted on October 16, 2010 by mingomama

Awhile back I mentioned going to the dead baby party. While there I met so many wonderful women. And other than Facebook, I haven’t seen them (not including Lyz of course) since.

One of the women, Stephanie, founded the Sweet Pea Project after losing her daughter Madeline. This year she organized a balloon release for Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Day.

It was magical. I know, magical doesn’t seem like the right word to describe a bunch of families releasing balloons to the skies and tears from their eyes. But it really was. It was solidarity. It was amazing. The cloudy sky opened up right as the baby’s names were read so that the balloons were highlighted on their way up into the heavens.

Stephanie really thought of everything. The paper that we wrote notes on was seed paper so that when the (biodegradable) balloon burst the seed paper will plant wildflowers.

Stephanie was so sweet. While we had met at the DBP, we hadn’t really talked all that much. When she saw me she told me that she was so sorry that the worst day of my life, was the happiest day of hers. Her rainbow baby was born the day Blue died. It was so beyond sweet of her to think that she needed to apologize for something like that! It made me weepy.

We also met up with Lyz, Avery and Delaney (who had to leave early to get to a Halloween Party, hence the costumes), and Andrea, Belle, Hudson and Nicole to honor Lyz’s Angles (long story), Asiah and Max.

More pictures:

(check out Delaney’s face)

Balloons for Blue, Honeydew, 3 angels and Right, Obtuse and Isosceles:

I remember.

Posted on October 15, 2010 by mingomama

Remembering Blue, Honeydew, 3 Angels, 3 Landis Angels, Gabriel, All of the August 2006 Angels and siblings, Max, Asiah, Dane, Madeline, Rayne, JJ, Wallaby, Sprout, Pearl, Agatha, Peter, Augustine, Jude, Roar, Snuffy, Turtle, 3 Flowers, Brendan, Haloumi, Laura’s Two Angels, Baby A, Stella, Liam, Beatrix and so so many more.

In preparation for Friday

Posted on October 13, 2010 by mingomama

As most of us know, Friday, October 15 is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Day. To participate I will be doing three things. One of which I need your help on please.

1-I will be attending the Sweet Pea Project’s First Annual Balloon Release.

2-I will be lighting a candle at 7pm to help in creating the wave of light that will go around the world in memory of all of the lost babies.

3-I will be listing the names of my babies and of those I know as my Facebook status. I plan on posting it every hour. I don’t care if annoys any of my Facebook friends. And this is where I need your help. I need to make sure I haven’t forgotten anyone. If I have forgotten your baby/ies in the list below, please let me know either in a comment or via email ([email protected]) so that I can make sure your baby/ies are included.

Blue, Honeydew, 3 Angels, 3 Landis Angles, Gabriel, All of the August 2006 Angels and siblings, Max, Asiah, Dane, Madeline, Rayne, JJ, Wallaby, Sprout, Pearl, Agatha, Peter, Augustine, Jude, Roar, Snuffy, Turtle, 3 Flowers, Brendan, Haloumi, Laura’s Two Angels, Baby A, Stella and so so many more.

The opposite of not infertile enough is…

Posted on June 15, 2010 by mingomama

This weekend after reading this post over at Two Hot Mamas and visiting with the Hot Mamas, I got to thinking…

If N is not infertile enough, have I become too infertile??

I haven’t gone silent, but I haven’t been talking all that often on ttc, miscarriage or any of the things that brought me to the blogging community all that much either. This blog has simply become the journal of our day to day activities, with an occasional Mingo thrown in for good fun.

I personally don’t stop following people when they have moved on from where I am. I may not comment as much because I don’t have any advice to give on mommyhood. I can answer a million questions about ttc and miscarriage, and a couple hundred about pregnancy, and lots and lots about auntyness…but mommyhood, not so much.

The wonderful thing is, I haven’t lost any readers over this. You are all still out there reading and cheering me on. Well, most of you. Like I mentioned the other day, the two/three bloggers that I once felt the closest with have ditched me in fear that I might be contagious.

I guess the moral of the story is Thank You. Thank you for sticking around even if I am not saying anything worth really listening to. Thank you for being here to support me on the days where I do end my ttc/miscarriage radio silence to get some of the thoughts out of my head. I promise you that my life is not a bowl of cherries. I do love every minute that this life has to offer, please don’t get me wrong. For it not being the life I had planned out so carefully, it certainly is a wonderful life. Made better by knowing that you are all here with me, no matter what.

Lack of motivation

Posted on June 11, 2010 by mingomama

There is nothing I want more in this world that a baby in my arms. Our baby in my arms (lest anyone try and tell me they shall just hand me a baby to hold for a few minutes to make my dreams come true). The problem with this is I am simply lacking the motivation to try.

I case you haven’t noticed, the adoption classes came and went, and we didn’t go. I spent the days before hand crying and vomiting. I’m not ready for adoption yet. I’m not grown up enough to be able to handle it. I don’t really know how else to explain it.

Way back when I first started searching for blogs with lesbians who had been through miscarriage I came across two which became my favorites (no, I’m not going to name them). I followed these two couples through more miscarriages, through a million tried and failed cycles. They made me feel so much less alone in the world. I am all alone. One posted a beautiful picture of their son this morning on Facebook. The other had a beautiful blog post filled with pictures of their daughter.

For once, I am jealous. I’m jealous that they finally found their happy ending. That their road didn’t end by staring down a path that you cannot see the end of. I don’t see the pot of gold, the x that marks my spot. I see nothing.

I know there are newer (to my world) couples who are in the same boat as me (Hi Tbean, Mrs. Spit, Tui, Lizzie, and J… oh and Sara-I miss you and think about you often) so I shouldn’t be throwing a pity party table for one but…

What if the fates decided that I would be the lucky one forever holding that trophy of the girls who tried by never lived out their dream? Thinking that I might be taking the proverbial bullet for us all has really killed my motivation to try and get pregnant/adopt. I was the one sprinkled with “shall live childless” dust.

In my head, if I never try again, and never say we are going to stop trying, then the dream didn’t just not come true, it will forever just have not come true YET. But if we try…try…try again, and it never happens, the dream dies.

The Dead Baby Party

Posted on May 6, 2010 by mingomama

*Yes, I know there are those of you out there cringing that I am so irreverent as to call them dead babies. But you know what? They are. They are our dead babies and you can kiss my hiney and stop reading if you want.*

A bit ago I told you about Nicole. She is Max’s mother, and Max was born still this past December. Nicole and I had never met, but spent a lot of time talking about Max and the things I could do to help her get the Missing Angels bill passed.

She decided that she had met so many of us through Facebook and wanted to meet us all in real life, so on Monday evening Lyz and I hopped into her car and headed over to Nicole’s.

Normally I start to get nervous and anxious as things like this draw closer and closer. This time I felt more and more at peace. I wasn’t nervous or scared or begging to hide in a corner. I wanted to go. Jenn and Chris had asked us how long we would be. Oh, who knows, we are a bunch of dead baby mommas, could be midnight we joked. We got home at 12:05am. Guess we weren’t kidding.

The evening starting with a Mary Kay facial party. Our Mary Kay consultant Jennifer was awesome!! She didn’t want us to think about buying anything, just to enjoy the products and relax. She gave us each a Satin Hands travel kit as a gift, which I made Jenn use the next night!! Fun Fun!

Then we grabbed some munchies and sat around the table sharing stories. The amount of strength in that room amazed me. The things that we had all been through. Lyz and I do not have stillborn mommy badges, although we joke that between the two of us we’ve got a baseball team of dead babies, but all the rest of the ladies did, and they treated us no different. Every loss is a loss and these women understood that. There was no judging of any feelings. No judging of anger, or the need to try again. No questioning emotions, just a nod and a pat on the hand that “I’ve been at that point too”.

The thing that amazed me the most is that every single one of them had one part of the story that was EXACTLY the same. It is the part of the story that haunts me, the I should have known when. For all of us they used the Doppler, said “Oh, this has been acting up, I’ll go get the ultrasound machine”. When that didn’t show them what they wanted they said “Well this machine is old, let me go grab the newer one”. Then the nurse would come back with a doctor or two to confirm that they baby’s heart had stopped beating. We should have known that they wouldn’t be using a Doppler that acts up. Or a really old and fuzzy ultrasound machine. But we couldn’t let our hearts break that early. I myself had the nerve to ask “Will they be able to tell me the sex?” Of course they already knew he was dead. And Jenn and I sat in our own little cushioned world where bad things don’t happen.

By the end of the evening there were only four of us left and we continued to sit at that table talking things over. The stories that other people don’t understand, and don’t understand why we need to share them We have to share our stories. It is the only part of our children we can share.

Thank you Nicole for the wonderful evening. Getting to meet you and give you a hug was wonderful. I’m sorry I got to meet all of these wonderful women for the reasons we met, but I am so glad to know them.

LET’S GET THE MISSING ANGELS BILL PASSED IN PA!!!!!

Posted on March 18, 2010 by mingomama

A friend of Lyz’s gave birth to the most beautiful little boy on December 28, 2009. He was born still. Pennsylvania does not give birth certificates for still births. Max’s family should have a birth certificate, don’t you think?

Here is Nicole and Max’s story, in Nicole’s own words:
My son Max was stillborn on December 28, 2009. He was 7lbs 1oz and 21 in long. He had beautiful brown curly hair and I think that he had brown eyes…I went into labor at 39 weeks, had contractions and went to the hospital expecting to give birth to my baby boy, my first son (I have 2 daughters) but instead my life was forever changed in those first 30 mins at the hospital. At first they couldn’t find a heartbeat but I just thought that there was something wrong with the machine or that it wasn’t adjusted correctly but then when ultrasound came in and I saw the lifeless picture I knew before they even said it…”there is no heartbeat”. I screamed and I just couldn’t believe what they were saying, this could not be happening. Then to find out that I have to wait for my body to progress and I had to give birth to my dead son. That day was the worst of my life and I will never be the person that I was before I had Max…the part that is hard is that all I get for everything that I went through is a FETAL death certificate…no birth certificate to acknowledge the 9 months that he grew inside me. I felt him move and nurtured his growing body for 39 weeks he was NOT a fetus he was my baby, my son, my love…Thomas Maximus Jackson “Max” we love you forever.

Click HERE for a link to the newspaper article.

Click HERE to watch the piece our local Fox News did on Nicole and her fight for a birth certificate for Max.

If you are on facebook, please become a fan. Click HERE and then click BECOME A FAN.

Please?

How softly you tiptoed into my world, so silently, only a moment you stayed, but what an imprint your footsteps have left upon my heart.

But will the anger ever stop??

Posted on January 16, 2010 by mingomama

In the last two weeks, two friends of friends have lost their babies. One a set of beautiful twin girls, the other a handsome baby boy.

And while I grieve for them, I also find myself getting so tense and angry.

I know there was no bringing Blue back…buy why did they have to steal him from me all together?? Yes, the above two families have lost their children also, but I am so jealous of them for knowing what they looked like. For being able to show pictures. For that one thing my jaw is so tightly clenched right now that I fear it may never open.

Blue was technically considered a miscarriage. Is it wrong that I tell people he was born still??

I’m rambling because I am at work and if I don’t get this all out of me I will cry and scream and throw a rage right here in the lobby.

If I could have just seen him. If. That is what it is all about isn’t it, the ifs?

Babies and Baseball…the two are more related than you may think.

Posted on July 20, 2009 by mingomama

Over dinner last night, Lyz, Jenn and I were talking about our usual subject. It seems that all conversations end up being about pregnancy and loss. Lyz was sharing a story about a conversation her and Chris had over lunch.

Chris and Lyz had been talking about stats. Since Lyz had had five pregnancies that led to two live births, her stats aren’t that bad from a baseball point of view. Almost .500 Chris says. In answer Lyz asked him why then is he so cranky after a softball game where he only bats 2 for 5? “Softball and Baseball are two completely different subjects” was his retort.

This conversation hung out in the back of my mind through the rest of dinner. It did take a backseat during the movie. (Don’t get me started on the movie. I still get angry about it, so you would have to listen to me rant for a long time.) As a side note here, I did get my shot during the movie. Thank you all for your help.

When we got home (and I had stopped complaining about the movie) our dinner conversation came back into my mind. I mean Lyz is two for five right? And Avery was her first pregnancy. So she had her three loses knowing that could carry a baby full term and hold it breathing later.

Me? All of my pregnancies have ended in loss. I’ve blogged before about Albert Einstein’s quote “Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” Is trying again insanity?

Sure, I tell “dead baby jokes” all the time. I get mad when Jenn or Lyz don’t laugh at me. K and I tell great ones to each other. One’s that I wouldn’t share with Jenn and Lyz lest they beat me with wet spaghetti noodles. I want to laugh about it. I want to make it look on the outside not as painful as it is on the inside.

But, let’s be serious here. I’m batting .000. Honestly, practically negative. We have ourselves a little team of angels watching over us in heaven. And I have killed them all. Don’t start on me with the “you didn’t kill them” bit. I’ve heard it a million times before. I did kill them. It may not have been by choice, or by anything I did (although if you ask me, I can list seven million things I did wrong), but it was me and my body that killed our babies.

The voices in my head have been getting a little loud lately. In fact I’m texting Lyz right now because I have myself convinced that I hurt her feelings somehow because the voices said I did. But what they are loudest about, is that I am planning a murder.

Yes. You heard me right. What makes me think, that if I do actually get pregnant, that I won’t just murder this precious life too?? My “batting” average is .000. I can’t hit the ball. If I was playing on a baseball team I would be sitting the bench. Should I just bench myself?

If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again? That doesn’t seem right. Where do you draw the line? When do you decide that you have gone far enough, or have gone too far?

This does not mean that I am calling off this cycle. I am too bloated with drugs and have already spent the money. I can’t not try this cycle. But I am curious? If you were in my shoes, would you be planning your next murder, or would you move on?

I’ve been buttering you all up…

Posted on January 10, 2009 by mingomama

did you notice?

See, I’ve posted funny things this week because I knew what this weekend was going to bring. I am trying to stay positive and be happy, but it isn’t working as well as I had hoped.

Today is the last day that I will be able to say “A year ago I was pregnant with Blue.” Really, I can’t even say that. Yesterday was the last day that I was really pregnant with Blue. Today, a year ago, the doctors told us that his heart had stopped beating. And ours did too.

I hold a lot of anger towards the whole thing. I wish they had explained things better. I wish they had let me make a more informed choice. What would I have done different? I’m not 100% sure. Jenn and I would have had a longer conversation about how Blue would have come into the world. I am 100% sure I would have had him cremated. I could have him here with us.

Saved in my files on my work computer is an 18 page letter that I have written to the hospital. 18 pages of how they should handle things in the future. 18 pages of anger, tears, and lessons on how to better communicate. Not only did we lose our son that day, we lost our chance to keep him forever. I had no idea what I was signing up for in “choosing” the D&E. We will never know what his precious face looks like. We will never be able to say we held his hand. Kissed our sons toes. I feel very cheated, not only by his death, but the way it all was handled. I don’t ever want to see Dr. A again.

The fact that five days later Jenn had surgery in the same hospital and was treated with more care and sympathy than I was also royally pisses me off. I wasn’t even sent home with painkillers. No one warned me about the contractions. No one warned me that my breasts would leak milk. Milk that our son would ever be able to taste. Milk that had no chance of sustaining Blue.

There isn’t a hour that goes by that I don’t relive the entire thing, more the sounds, the voices. Hearing my doctor not say the words. Hearing myself scream. Scream so loud it still echos through my head. Calling my parents and hearing my dad’s pain. Hearing Elissa not believe me. Hearing Lyz talk with a voice that told me she knew before I got to tell her. Hearing Jenn cry next to me in bed, holding my belly and sobbing.

It really is the sounds that haunt me. The nightmares have gone away for the most part. But I don’t believe the haunting sounds will ever leave.

Tomorrow we will have a cake. Actually we will have two. One to celebrate Blue’s first birthday. One to celebrate our 6th anniversary. Six years ago as I walked down the aisle to meet Jenn, the mother of our future children, I had no idea that five years later we would be mourning the death of our child.

We hurt so much. The letter will probably never be sent. I’ve never even let Jenn read the contents. I think I’ve written it more for me. I think that at some point I will print it out and burn it.

Maybe I’ll save those ashes. At least we will always have Blue in our hearts.