6 months

Dear Baby Sellers,

Today marks 6 months since my whole world came crashing down. 6 whole months of trying to make it through this storm, 6 months of trying to survive, 6 months of sadness, anger, guilt, questioning, and a little acceptance. 6 months of trying to figure out what God's purpose of this test is and who I am now. I don't really think the storm of losing you is really over. I feel like it comes and goes. Some days I have really good days and I can't believe I survived, and other days I feel like the walls are crashing in around me and I'm back in the dark place again. Honestly, I don't know how I survived these past 6 months. You and God really must have been looking out for me. I think back to the weeks right after I lost you and the days are such a blur, I was living in a fog, going through all the motions with no thought or feelings. I was so, so sad.

Over time things have gotten easier, I have more good days now. I laugh, I look forward to things, I regained my motivation for life. But I still struggle with figuring out who I am. The person I was before I lost you seems like a stranger. And when I try to be like her again it just doesn't feel right. I'm not naive any more, I'm not carefree. Losing you has taught me that bad and scary things happen all the time. Losing you has taught me that some of the people you thought you could always count on let you down. Losing you taught me it's better to only have a couple of really great friends then a large group of just okay friends. Losing you taught me I couldn't survive without your daddy or my family. Losing you taught me that part of finding myself again is going to involve doing something big, something to help others who have lost their babies know they are not alone. My blog has slowly started this, so many women have reached out to me, but I want to do something bigger, I want to make a difference.

I am 17 and a half weeks pregnant with your little brother or sister. Getting past that 16 week mark was very scary, and I spent a lot of days very anxious and upset. But some how the little bean and I made it. The other night I felt what I believe were the first flutters of movement from baby. It made me happy to know baby is still doing well, but it also made me sad because I never got to experience that with you. There are so many things you and I never got to experience together. I'm always going to have that hole in my heart. All of the girls I know that were also pregnant the same time I was pregnant with you have now gone on to have their beautiful babies. I see their pictures of their perfect little newborns and it makes me miss you. It's crazy to think if our story had been different you would be here now. I would be a mom to a newborn baby instead of a mom to an angel. I just miss you baby. Plain and simple. I love you to the moon and back, forever and ever. 

Love,

Your Momma

You Made Me A Mom

Dear Baby Sellers,

I miss you so much baby. Being pregnant again has made me realize just how much I miss you.Your due date is only 3 days a way. It doesn't seem possible that this week is already here. The 16 weeks that I carried you inside of me seemed to drag on, but ever since you've gone to Heaven it seems like time is just speeding on without you. I find myself wondering if things had played out differently would be here already? Would you have came early? Or would you have been stubborn and stayed inside of me for a few extra days? Would you have my eyes? Your Daddy's nose? I have all of these questions and no answers. I'll have to wait till my time on this Earth is done to finally hold you in my arms.

 I want you to know baby that even though I am pregnant with your little brother or sister, you made me a mom first. My first experience of being pregnant was with you. My first time experiencing that all consuming love a mother feels for her baby before even laying eyes on them was with you. You will always be my first baby. I've had a couple of people ask me if this is my first pregnancy. For most people this is such an easy question to answer, but for Baby Loss Mothers, this question creates so much anxiety. I could just say yes, but that would be a lie and it's not fair to you. You are my baby, my first baby and I won't deny that. But if I say no the follow up question will be how old are your other child(ren)? Then I have to explain that my baby is in Heaven, which results in the awkward silence and the sad puppy dog look. It's not fair that the loss of a baby/child is such a taboo topic in society, considering it happens to so many women and families.

Next week I will be 16 weeks pregnant with your little brother or sister and this TERRIFIES me. Sixteen weeks is when I learned I lost you. I am so scared that history will repeat itself. Being pregnant again after a loss is absolutely the most terrifying thing I have ever done in my life. No matter how optimistic my doctor is, no matter how good I feel, there is no guarantee I will bring this baby home with me. Even if I make it past 16 weeks without any problems, I am now so much  more aware of all the things that can go wrong at any point during pregnancy or even after the baby is born. Now that I belong to the Baby Loss Mother world I know women who lost their babies at 20 weeks, at 30 weeks, at 41 weeks. I know women who took their babies home with them and a few days later lost their sweet angels to SIDS. There's no safe zone when you've lost a baby. I would give anything to have a crystal ball so I could see if 5 months from now I have a healthy baby in my arms and this baby stays healthy and happy for the next 80 years. But I don't. So I'm waiting, hoping, and praying. Look over your little brother or sister and me, baby. We need our guardian angel to make sure nothing bad happens to us. We love you. I miss you.

Love,
Your Momma

Our Rainbow

Dear Baby Sellers,

I'm sure you already know, and have known for some time, but you are going to be a big brother! I thank God and you every single day for this little miracle growing inside of me. And I ask that you both continue to look over me and baby over the next 6 months. I feel beyond blessed to be pregnant again, but I am also terrified. I try my best to stay optimistic, but some days it's really really hard. I know this will remain true, especially over the next few weeks as I past the 16 week point of this pregnancy. Every day I find myself more and more anxious. I have no reason to believe anything will go wrong this time around, everything has gone surprisingly perfect since daddy and I first found out your little brother or sister was growing inside of me (knock on wood!!), but I am scared. At my 12 week appointment with you I saw a heartbeat, I saw you wiggling all over inside of me, and then at my 16 week appointment you were just gone. My doctor has been absolutely amazing when it comes to comforting me, and I try to remain optimistic, but what if history repeats itself? I don't know how I would survive that...

But I know you are watching over me every day. As much as I miss you more and more every day, especially with your due date approaching, I have come to a point in my grief where I've accepted that for whatever reason you were not meant to be on this Earth with daddy and I. You were meant to be our little angel baby. And your little brother or sister (I'm calling sister!) will be so lucky to have the best guardian angel ever.

Next week it will be 5 months since I had you here with me. 5 months ago I never would of imagined I'd be where I am today. 5 months ago it felt like my life was over, like I'd never be happy again. Life isn't the same as it used to be, things are different now, but I'm beginning to understand that different doesn't always mean bad, it just means different. I survived the end of my world as I knew it. And I'm still standing, I'm still moving forward. Thanks to you little baby, I learned how strong I really am. Thanks to you I know daddy and I can survive anything. Having this baby will never justify losing you, but I know I am better person because of you. I know I will be a better mom because of you. Losing you isn't right, but I finally understand it's the way it had to be. I would give anything to have you back, but I can't. Giving you a little brother or sister is what I can do. And when they are old enough I will tell them they story of my little angel baby. I love you and miss you.

Love,
Your Momma

Here's your little brother or sister, waving hello :)

Time

Dear Baby Sellers,

Time is such a scary, scary thing. Before you came into my  life my biggest fear used to be losing the people I love.  After you left I learned that it isn't losing people that is the scary thing, it's time. Time keeps moving on, even when all you want to do is pause it in the moment and not take a single step forward. But time forces you forward, no matter how much you wish it wouldn't. Time scares me. The more time that goes by means the longer it's been since I had you here with me, since I was genuinely happy. Today marks 4 months since my world came crashing down. That is absolutely crazy. Why is it that when you don't want time to go by, it goes so fast, but when you are looking forward to something it just drags on??

My heart still hurts, a lot. I have changed so much in the past 4 months. I am no longer the carefree, optimistic, happy-go-lucky girl I once was. I don't think I'll ever be that girl again, no matter how much time goes by. That's the funny thing about tragedy. Once it has touched your life, you are never the same. Your life is forever tainted by the tragedy. I'm not sad all the time, I do have good moments, happy moments, but it's not the same as before. Whenever I feel happy I find myself waiting for the other shoe to drop, because surely my happiness won't last long. As your due date quickly approaches I find myself having more and more sad moments. I've accepted that for whatever reason you were not meant to be on this Earth with daddy and I, but that doesn't make the hurt go away. If you were still here I would be 34 weeks pregnant. I would be feeling you move all over the place. Daddy and I would be putting the finishing touches on the nursery. We would have our hospital bag packed in case you decided to make an early debut. We would be narrowing down baby names and taking birthing classes. I wish that was my life, I wish I was mere weeks from meeting you. We never found out if you were a boy or girl, daddy just wasn't ready, and honestly it didn't really matter to me because in my heart you are a beautiful baby boy. From the moment I found out I was pregnant I thought you were a boy. And I am sure you are the most beautiful baby boy. I wish I would have gotten to hold you. I miss you so much baby. Continue to look over daddy and I. You will always be our angel. We love you.

Love,
Your Momma

Excuse me while I step onto my soapbox....

I am not a confrontational person, never have been. I am a lover, not a fighter. I want everyone to get along. If I was born in the 50's/60's I probably would have been a hippie because I am all peace, love, and happiness. Its amazing that this is my mantra through life considering the amount of crap I have been dealt over the past 23 years. Now I am not looking for a pity party. I am not looking for people to feel sorry for me. What I am looking for is a little understanding, a little compassion, a little empathy. I should not have to defend my grief, yet I find myself doing so almost on a daily basis. As do many other baby loss mothers I have met. And it is NOT RIGHT!

Yes, believe me, I understand that people go through miscarriages all the time. I have done plenty of research over the past 3 months and I understand the statistics, I understand I am not the only one, and I have never said I was. Babies, children, people die every single day. I get that. But just because it happens all the time, doesn't make it right, it doesn't make it any easier to go through when you're the person who is dealing with the loss. Telling me that people miscarry all the time and I need to get over it would be like me telling you if your child died that "children die all the time." It doesn't make a difference. It still hurts like hell.

I miscarried at 16 weeks. Now, I've never loss a pregnancy early on so I have no idea what that feels like, and I know that no matter what point you are at in a pregnancy, when you hear your baby did not or will not survive it is so hard. But I do believe there is a difference between losing your baby at 8 weeks and losing your baby at 16 weeks. 30 to 40% of first trimester pregnancies end in a miscarriage. That is a lot of people. And any women who has ever been pregnant will tell you that those first 3 months of a pregnancy are so scary, because any number of things can go very wrong. But we are told we just have to make it to that 12 week mark and we are in the "safe zone".  Once you make it into the second trimester, 13 weeks, your chances of miscarrying drop drastically to 1 to 5% of a chance. Maybe I was naive, but I thought I had made it into the safe zone, I thought I was going to get to bring my baby home. But I didn't. And NO it does not happen to a lot of people. It happens to 1-5% of pregnant women. That is a small number when you think of how many women are pregnant. My baby wasn't just a cluster of cells. My baby was about 4.5 inches long, my baby weighed about 2.75 ounces (approximately the size of an avocado). My baby had 10 fingers and 10 toes, my baby's muscles were developing, my baby could make facial expressions, my baby had finger nails.

If you don't like listening to me talk about my baby, don't come around. If you don't like reading about how I'm feeling then don't read my blog or my Facebook. This isn't about you. It is about me doing what I need to to get through each day. And if you can't handle that, if you can't be compassionate and understanding, then I don't want you in my life. I need people around me that are going to help lift me up, people that make me want to survive this. I DO NOT need people in my life that bring me down, people who make me feel worse than I already feel, people who make me want to give up. I'm letting go of those people starting right now, because I don't need them in my life.

Shoes

I am wearing a pair of shoes.

They are ugly shoes.

Uncomfortable shoes.

I hate my shoes.

Each day I wear them, and each day I wish I had another pair.

Some days my shoes hurt so bad that I do not think I can take another step.

Yet, I continue to wear them.

I get funny looks wearing these shoes.

They are looks of sympathy.

I can tell in others eyes that they are glad they are my shoes and not theirs.

They never talk about my shoes.

To learn how awful my shoes are might make them uncomfortable.

To truly understand these shoes you must walk in them

But, once you put them on, you can never take them off.

I now realize that I am not the only one who wears these shoes.

There are many pairs in the world.

Some women are like me and ache daily as they try to walk in them.

Some have learned to walk in them so they don’t hurt quite as much.

Some have worn these shoes so long that days will go by before they think of how much they hurt.

No woman deserves to wear these shoes.

Yet, because of the shoes I am a stronger woman.

These shoes have given me the strength to face anything.

They have made me who I am.

I will forever walk in the shoes of a woman who has lost a child.

Author Unknown

92 days....

Dearest Baby Sellers,

It has been 3 months since daddy and I last felt true happiness, true optimism. That's 13 weeks ,92 days, of living half a life. Both of us are missing a piece of our hearts, the pieces you took with you when you left this Earth behind. It's weird to think I should be 30 weeks pregnant with you right now. I should be 10 weeks from meeting you, from holding you in my arms, from smothering you in all the love and kisses in the world, but I'm not. It feels like just yesterday we heard the awful news, I remember every single detail for that day, but at the same time it feels like an eternity has passed since you were safe inside of me. Time is such a scary thing.

I'm trying to stay positive, but it's so hard some days. This roller coaster ride of grief I'm on is absolutely exhausting some days. Some days I feel okay again, like I'm getting the light back in my life that I lost 3 months ago. And then other days I feel so sad, so hopeless, so depressed. Everyone told me it would get better with time, but that's a lie. Some days are easier then others, but they aren't ever better. I do know that 3 months ago I never thought I would be were I am right now. I survived these past 3  months, as much as I didn't want to. And I'm trying to stay hopeful that maybe three months from today things will be a little easier. I miss you so much little one. You are on my mind all the time. I love you to the moon and back.

Love,
Your mommy