October 15th 2013 ~ Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Day

Today is October 15th....Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Day here in the United States.  Its crazy when you think that one in four pregnancies will end without the birth of a healthy baby.  One in four....that number is beyond belief to me.  I am one of the lucky ones, our journey to become parents gave us our beautiful rainbow baby....but the pain of losing our daughter will never go away!!!  She came into the world silently on 2/24/12.  I never got to hear her cry, or look into her eyes and tell her I love her...she never got to say her first words or take her first steps......but through me she will live forever!!!  Bristol Grace I love you!!!  

“When a child loses his parent, they are called an orphan. When a spouse loses her or his partner, they are called a widow or widower. When parents lose their child, there isn’t a word to describe them. This month recognizes the loss so many parents experience across the United States and around the world. It is also meant to inform and provide resources for parents who have lost children due to miscarriage, ectopic pregnancy, molar pregnancy, stillbirths, birth defects, SIDS, and other causes.” -Ronald Reagan.

Some of you may know of the organization called Molly Bears, they make bears for parents who have lost a baby and the bears weigh the same amount that your baby weighed....well, our Bristol Grace bear arrived last week weighing 14.7oz just like our Bristol did...she is beautiful!!!

Starting Over

**We havent told anyone this and I dont know if or when we will (so clearly posting it online is a wonderful idea...lol) but Im feeling like talking about this...**

I come from a big family....I have 4 siblings.  DH comes from a complicated family but he has 3 half siblings.  Ive always dreamed of having 2 kids...but now I think three might be the magical number for us.  So two weeks ago DH and I started ttc again.  Or at least we stopped preventing......

When we lost Bristol I struggled wondering why God would create her only to know suffering and pain.  And I found comfort knowing that she was created in His image and that we are all perfect in His eyes.  God doesnt make mistakes.  So I am taking that approach to ttc again.  If He chooses it will happen.  If not, thats ok too.  Im terrified of loosing another baby.....but if I do I will hold on even tighter to our miracle lil one.

I was asked the other day if I would go back to our reproductive doctor if ttc doesnt work for us.  In short, Im not sure.  I am going to call them this week and schedule a time at the end of this cycle to go in for blood work and an ultrasound to make sure everything is all set to start ttc.  Should we get a positive test I will also probably seek their assistance in monitoring my progestrone levels for the first 8 weeks (they were low last time and I needed medication to help) and also for the heparin for the first 12 weeks.  But Im not sure if I will go back for treatment...it was so hard on my body and I dont know if I can do that again.  Plus, it posses another problem....who would watch the little one while we were at the doctor???  Because I know from personal experience that its not easy to see babies at an infertility clinic....its really hard and I do not want to put other patients in that place.  

Anyway....thats where Im standing now......

The Haunting Part 2

This blog started as my journey through infertility, transitioned to a blog about the loss of our daughter, then the emotions of our surprise pregnancy with our rainbow, and now....well, I dont have as much time to write as I would like and frequently when I do I suffer from writers block but I would like it to still focus on our journey....the ups and downs of my daily life (especially as it relates to our loss and infertility because those are two things that now define who I am as a person) with the occasional random post....this is one of those randoms posts :)

So we have a video baby monitor for my disabled sister who lives with us...well I just turned it on (I'm getting ready to go to bed) and there were these two floating orbs that were going from one side of her room to the other. It almost looked like a thin line of light that was going to them but the orbs were really bright. So I watched it on the monitor for a few minutes trying to figure out what it was. Then I brought the monitor down and showed my husband. He actually agreed with me that it was kinda creepy. We went down stairs to her room and she was sitting up in bed laughing....but we couldn't find a cause for this light nor could we see them with our bare eyes. So we tucked her into bed and left the room, I looked at the monitor and they were back, went from one side of the room to the other and were gone.....even Dh agreed it was creepy.

About my last post...

I was thinking about my last post the other night and I got to thinking....I really hope I didnt offend anyone.  I started this blog about two years ago as kind of a journal to myself....to get my thoughts and feelings down while going through IF treatment. It became my outlet when our daughter died.  And now...well, I dont get to write as much as Id like but its still my journal.

I dont know how else to describe it, but I feel like our IF journey and loosing our daughter changed me to my core.  During IF my thoughts focused on every pregnant chick and how I felt bitter towards them.  It derailed me as a woman when my body couldnt or wouldnt do the very thing that it was designed to do...and how does one continue to love ones self when your body wont do the very thing it was created to do.  And when we lost our daughter I felt like my body failed me yet again.  But this time it failed our daughter and my husband too.  And how do you even process that???  I mean my baby died in my stomach....the safest place in the world and my baby died!!!  And how can I help but not feel to blame for that???  I mean I understand that I didnt cause her to die....but I couldnt even protect her inside of me???  And how did I not know that she was gone???  I mean my baby dies in my stomach and I dont even have a clue?!?!?!?  What the hell kind of mom am I???  When Bristol died I held on to many quotes that kept me going in my darkest hour...I think the one that I repeated the most was, "eventually there will come a day that isnt as hard as the day before it."  I think the say we lost Bristol was the day my innocence died too.  Or at least my pregnancy innocence (my other innocence died way before that, but thats another story) died that day.  It's sad to say, and I dont think I will ever admit this to D, but I didnt enjoy a moment of my pregnancy with him.  I was too afraid of something going wrong...every twitch, every tingle....could be the last I'd ever feel my baby.

Anyway, I say all of that because I want to explain my last post...I've always been a very emotional person.  Our IF changed me.  Loosing Bristol changed me...made me cherish human life even more and put me on the edge....the edge of everything normal.  And having D has continued this trend......

I cry at random times....I am an IF survivor, a mother to an angel, and I am one of the lucky ones who gets to hold her rainbow!!!!

Motherhood....

I always thought that I was prepared to be a mom, that I knew what it would be like to love a child that grew inside of me...but nothing could have prepared me for how I felt the day of the bombing at the Boston Marathon.  I mean these were families out having sun in what should have been a safe environment...and to have their lives just destroyed in moments....its just something I think of all the time now.  How simple things could turn drastically wrong in the blink of an eye.  I've always been an anxious person and even highly emotional at times but now even news stories will bring me to tears and I feel like Im turning into a nut...I've been wondering if its just my hormones evening out, postpartum depression setting in, or just my new normal...

So I was trolling FB the other day when I came across the following that basically described my feelings to a T....so I guess Im normal after all...

"We are sitting at lunch one day when my daughter casually mentions that she and her husband are thinking of "starting a family." "We're taking a survey," she says half-joking. "Do you think I should have a baby?" 

"It will change your life," I say, carefully keeping my tone neutral. 

"I know," she says, "no more sleeping in on weekends, no more spontaneous vacations." 

But that is not what I meant at all. I look at my daughter, trying to decide what to tell her. I want her to know what she will never learn in childbirth classes. 

I want to tell her that the physical wounds of child bearing will heal, but becoming a mother will leave her with an emotional wound so raw that she will forever be vulnerable. 

I consider warning her that she will never again read a newspaper without asking, "What if that had been MY child?" That every plane crash, every house fire will haunt her. 

That when she sees pictures of starving children, she will wonder if anything could be worse than watching your child die. 

I look at her carefully manicured nails and stylish suit and think that no matter how sophisticated she is, becoming a mother will reduce her to the primitive level of a bear protecting her cub. That an urgent call of "Mom!" will cause her to drop a soufflé or her best crystal without a moments hesitation. 

I feel that I should warn her that no matter how many years she has invested in her career, she will be professionally derailed by motherhood. She might arrange for childcare, but one day she will be going into an important business meeting and she will think of her 
baby's sweet smell. She will have to use every ounce of discipline to keep from running home, just to make sure her baby is all right. 

I want my daughter to know that every day decisions will no longer be routine. That a five year old boy's desire to go to the men's room rather than the women's at McDonald's will become a major dilemma. That right there, in the midst of clattering trays and screaming 
children, issues of independence and gender identity will be weighed against the prospect that a child molester may be lurking in that restroom. 

However decisive she may be at the office, she will second-guess herself constantly as a mother. 

Looking at my attractive daughter, I want to assure her that eventually she will shed the pounds of pregnancy, but she will never feel the same about herself. 

That her life, now so important, will be of less value to her once she has a child. That she would give herself up in a moment to save her offspring, but will also begin to hope for more years, not to accomplish her own dreams, but to watch her child accomplish theirs. 

I want her to know that a cesarean scar or shiny stretch marks will become badges of honor.

My daughter's relationship with her husband will change, but not in the way she thinks. 

I wish she could understand how much more you can love a man who is careful to powder the baby or who never hesitates to play with his child. 

I think she should know that she will fall in love with him again for reasons she would now find very unromantic. 

I wish my daughter could sense the bond she will feel with women throughout history who have tried to stop war, prejudice and drunk driving. 

I want to describe to my daughter the exhilaration of seeing your child learn to ride a bike.

I want to capture for her the belly laugh of a baby who is touching the soft fur of a dog or cat for the first time. 

I want her to taste the joy that is so real it actually hurts. 

My daughter's quizzical look makes me realize that tears have formed in my eyes. "You'll never regret it," I finally say. Then I reached across the table, squeezed my daughter's hand and offered a silent prayer for her, and for me, and for all the mere mortal women who stumble their way into this most wonderful of callings. 
Please share this with a Mom that you know or all of your girlfriends who may someday be Moms. May you always have in your arms the one who is in your heart."

-Author Unknown

Our Haunted House...

I'm going to take a break from my normal blog topics and tell you the story of my house. Sounds boring, right??? I WISH!!! The actual story is anything but...what you are about to read is real. It's happened over the last 3.5 years at my house. Think of it as you wish....this is my story.

So when DH and I met over 10 years ago we were both still living at our parents houses. About a year after we started dating we got engaged. At that time we bought a condo (big mistake as it was 2004 and the housing market was just a few years away from tanking)...big mistake but what did we know? The condo was nice, except I'm not meant for condo living....I like to listen to my country music loud while cleaning. And there was this jerk who lived across from us who thought he owned the grass in front of his unit and he yelled at me every time my dogs went to the bathroom on "his" yard. Whatever JERK!!! The condo wasn't all bad though, we met these wonderful people who moved in next door to us. And though we have both since moved we are still friends. And even though we don't see them anywhere near enough, they are close friends who have been super supportive. Anyway, in 2010 we decided that we would start looking for a house to buy and rent out our condo. After a few months of searching we found one that I loved and my husband was happy with it too. As the house buying goes there were ups and downs but on April 30th we closed on the house. And after two weeks of hard labor on DH's part we were finally ready to move in. On May 15th 2010 we packed up the condo and moved the gang (2 dogs and 1 cat) 45 miles across town to a colonial more in the country. 

It didn't take long...the weird stuff started happening on our very first night. About 2am we crashed and fell asleep almost immediately. About 5am we were awoken by a loud crashing sound. We went to investigate only to discover the hook that was holding up a poster gave out and the framed poster came crashing down. Simple enough, but it was one of those J hooks and the frames's wire was resting in the bottom part so it didn't make a lick of sense that the entire hook had opened up. The next morning DH bent the hook back to its original shape, hammered it back in the wall, and hung the poster back up....it's been there ever since. 

Over the next few months our garage door would randomly open and close. We chalked that up to the opener being on the same frequency as another garage door opener. Then one fall evening while DH was still at work I was vacuuming the house. I finished and put the vacuum away. I popped my head into the guest bedroom to turn the light off and what I saw changed my view on my house forever!!!  On the side of the room opposite the door, in my freshly vacuumed carpet was the perfect footprint. It was a big manly size footprint. I was so freaked out and thinking no one would ever believe me I took a photo. At that point I was ready to call the people from Paranormal Witness but DH was still not convinced.

A few months later one evening I was getting ready to take a bath (DH was on his way home from work). I put my clothes in the hamper and noticed the access door to our attic was ajar. I figured DH had just been up there and didn't close it all the way. So when he got home I asked him why he had been in the attic. I wasn't prepared for his response, "I haven't been in the attic in well over a month." Needless to say my suspicion that my house is haunted continued to grow. 

About a month later DH and I along with both dogs and our cat were watching TV in our bedroom when we heard footsteps coming up our stairs. Since we were all upstairs we knew it wasn't one of us...DH flew to get his gun and then went to investigate. After a through investigation of our house turned up nothing we went back to bed (with the alarm set that's for sure).

In October of 2011 we went to our first homeowners association meeting.  After the meeting was over we were standing around talking to some of the other people at the meeting (we tend to keep to ourselves and we don't know too many of our neighbors). The husband of the president of the association came up to us and we were talking. When we told him where we lived he said that he already knew, that we lived in "the dead guys house." WHAT?!?!?!? Long story short, the guy who used to live here lived here with his wife, daughter, and mother. He was a higher up for one of the domestic automakers and in 2009 when they started to fail he lost his job. When his money ran out his wife left him. Being unable to support his family he committed suicide in the garage.  Now I was starting to regret buying a foreclosed house....had we bought it from a person and not a bank they would have been required to disclose that at the time of purchase...


Things continued on and off for the next few years...we'd hear footsteps on the stairs, our dogs would all of a sudden start growling at nothing and on occasion our cat would have her hair stand up and start running around like crazy. And sometimes I'd feel like I wasn't alone in the house.

Then in October of 2012 we were having our basement finished. The tile guy who did the tile in the bathroom is also an EMT for our local fire department. When we started talking to the guy he mentioned that this wasn't the first time he had been in our house....he had responded to the call when the former owner killed himself. So we tried to ask him questions about what had happened but due to privacy laws he was unable to tell us any more than we already knew. He did tell us one thing that I will never forget...when DH asked if the reason the floor in our garage had been freshly apoxied had anything to do with what happened. His response was, "Well, there are just some things that you can't wash off." 

Then about 3 months ago I put little D to bed around 11pm.  I turned his music and projector on and set the night timer on for 45 minutes. I went into our bedroom to brush my teeth. I took the dogs out and then crawled into bed. It only took me a minute to be overcome with the silence....less than 10 minutes after I turned on the music it had been turned off (and DH was asleep next to me). This has contined to happen about once a week. I've been trying to chalk it up to a short in the device.

About a month later DH was in bed sleeping and I went to go check on lil D since the music shut itself off again. I looked downstairs and saw what I can only describe as a shadowy figure moving from my kitchen to my living room. I was so freaked out I ran into lil D's room and closed the door.  He was sound asleep and I watched him sleep for about a half hour. When I finally gathered the courage I went back into our room. I didn't say anything to anyone because I was afraid of sounding like a complete nut. The next evening DH and I were sitting on our couch watching TV when he tells me that twice that day he saw a shadowy figure moving from the kitchen to the living room. I was SO freaked out!!!! 

Then about three weeks ago I was awoken in the middle of the night by a loud crashing sound. I searched the house but was unable to find the source of the noise. The next morning when I went to make lil D his bottle I saw the source of the noise...a solid metal door knob was on the floor in the kitchen. This knob doesn't match any other knob in our house nor is it missing from any door or cabinet in our house. I have NO idea where it came from. 

Then two weeks ago we had my MIL and FIL babysitting my sister and lil D. When I called them after the movie to see how things were going my MIL sounded terrified. When I asked her what was wrong she said that while she has been sitting in the family room watching TV the door to our basement kept opening and closing on its own, twice slamming. She said all the windows in the house were closed and that all three animals were in the room with her.

Finally, two days ago I was in lil D's room feeding him when DH went to take a shower. When he went to put the clothes away in the closet he discovered the door to the attic was again ajar. And then he told me the craziest thing I've ever heard...(keeping in mind that DH is a skeptic and believes there is a logical explanation for most of what has happened) earlier in the day he had been asking out loud if there was some sort of spirit or ghost in the house that it make itself known by slamming the door. I told DH that if he didn't get his proof then I don't know when he will...

So that's the story on our house. That's why I feel our house is haunted. At this point I'm not sure what to do. 

See You Again

I was on my way to work yesterday when all of a sudden I was blindsided by a song that just struck me...by the time the song was over I had tears rolling down my face....

Its called See You Again by Carrie Underwood and, if I could carry a tune in a bucket, I would sing this for Bristol....