#28 - NEED SOME PRAYERS, GOOD THOUGHTS and WARM FUZZIES

Okay girls....I need your help. I have pissed off one of the greater powers and picked up some really bad karma. It has been just one shit storm after another for me over the last 5 months, including Gracie's death. The latest in a long string of pleasantries came last night in finding out that someone has gotten their hands on the debit card number from my business account and helped themselves to a load of tools at Home Depot in Las Vegas (I'm in Pennsylvania).

I need some prayers and good vibes to get me out of this horrid karma funk. Please send some goodness and warm fuzzies my way....

#27 - CONNECTING

Hi Ladies.
I have had a few emails over the last several days asking if I am on Facebook. If you are on FB and want to hook up there, shoot me an email (using the link on the right under my profile pic) and let me know what email address is connected to your FB account (and who you are if it's not obvious!)and I will add you as a friend. If you are comfortable leaving it in a comment below, that's cool too. :-)

#26 - OVER IT

So, I was in JoAnn Fabric this week looking for fabric for my next Gracie project, and I ran into a long-time acquaintance.  She is one of those people that you do your best to avoid when you see them in public, but are obligated to talk to once you’ve been spotted.  I did a really good job of avoiding her for about 10 minutes, but then she spotted me when I wasn’t looking.  She said hello, and then got right to it…. “So are you over it yet?”  She’s a pretty forward person, but this kind of knocked me back a little.  For a split second I thought that she was perhaps talking about something else – maybe she thought that I had been ill, maybe she was talking about some of the small town political BS that provides constant drama around here…  So I asked, “Over what?”  Without missing a beat, she came right back with “Are you over the baby thing?” 

You’ve got to be kidding me.  Am I over the baby thing? THE BABY THING?  This comes 2 weeks after I was labeled ‘creepy’ by a virtual stranger for carrying pictures of Gracie with me.  What the hell is wrong with people sometimes?  I like to think that I would never say something like this to anyone…  I looked at her and said ‘I’m pretty sure that it’s not something that we’re ever going to get over.’ She told me that we just needed to give it some more time, and we would get over it.  I really had no desire to be talking to her to begin with, and had even less desire to be tactful at this point in the conversation.  I bluntly told her that we are doing okay, and that we are taking one day at a time.  I told her that as each day passes, it gets a little easier to get through it, but it’s not something that we will likely ever get over.  She said – again – ‘Just give it time, you’ll eventually get over it.’  I was pretty curt in telling her that losing a child isn’t something that people generally get over – it’s just something you eventually learn to accept, something you get through and work around.  It’s not something that you get over.   I then excused myself to finish my shopping and said goodbye. 

My daughter died.  I often wonder if people would look at her death differently if she had died one day after she was born instead of one day before she was born.  There is really no difference.  In the end, I carried her for 36 weeks, gave birth to her and did not bring her home from the hospital. In the end, she is gone.  The moment that I realized she was dead began the worst experience of my life.  After that moment, I endured an ultrasound to confirm her death, delivered her lifeless body, gave her up to be taken to the morgue, came home from the hospital without her, and buried her body.  I do not like it, and I certainly will never get over it.  But I cannot change it.  All I can do is accept it for what it is (the shittiest thing that has ever happened in my life) and move through it.  I will move through it and deal with it at a faster pace than some people feel I should, and at a slower pace than other people feel I should – but it is my experience and it is something that I need to do in my own time.  As I move through it, I expect that I will continue to experience a roller coaster of emotions.  And as I move through it, I can make the conscious decision to be forever bitter about it, or I can make the conscious decision to find some silver lining.  I want to find the silver lining.  I want to find a way for some good to come of Gracie’s death.

They say that what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.  Gracie’s death, combined with some other recent life experiences, makes me feel like I will be ready for the World’s Strongest Woman Contest by spring – maybe sooner.  A friend who has walked this road told me that someday I will look back and be amazed by what I have endured and survived.  I am pretty sure that I will not experience that moment until after we have survived another pregnancy and brought home a healthy baby, but I am certainly looking forward to it!  Until then, I will continue to trudge through.  I will continue to lean on other loss mamas that I have met, and will continue to be here for them to lean on when needed.  I will continue to do what I can to make every minute of every day count, because life is too short to not.  But I will never understand what makes some people tick…

#25 - Weekly list - the 3rd edition

This week's list will be comprised of things that I am looking forward to - short term and/or long term.  Feel free to join me in sharing what you are looking forward to....

• The incisions from yesterday's gall bladder surgery healing - although they are fabulous incentive to avoid a c-section at all costs in the future!
• Finding and hiring a fabulous new physical therapist so I don't have to work a gazillion hours a week.  
  
• Being surrounded by fabulous family for the holidays
•  The completion of the new floor in my living room.  (We started this project in June, in anticipation of Gracie's arrival.  We ripped up the old, nasty carpet and purchased laminate flooring to hold us over until we start the big renovations on the first floor of the house in a few years.  Circumstances surrounding Gracie's arrival brought this project to a complete stand still, and the floor is still not done - but it's getting there!)
• My husband continuing to move through his grief.  I am so blessed to be married to the love of my life, but we are definitely in two different places in our grief.  This makes it difficult to understand each other and sometimes creates tension.
  
• My next pregnancy, which will most hopefully end in welcoming a rainbow baby into our family late in 2010!

#24 - REUNION

I had posted earlier in the week that DH and I were hoping that today would be a good enough day for us to attend a reunion of the couples from our Bradley class.  Our class ended in mid-June and we haven't gotten together as a group since then.  As it turns out, it was a good enough day for both of us, so we went.    They had lots of questions for us, and I think we were able to answer them pretty well.  Overall, it was a good afternoon - it was a true exercise in strength, and I was definitely a little sad inside, but I am glad that we went.  A group picture of the babies was taken - I am so sad that Gracie couldn't be part of it....but they are a good looking bunch of babies.  :-)

#23 - March of Dimes Fight for Preemies

Jill posted information on her blog about March of Dimes Fight for Preemies. I wanted to share the info with those who do not follow Jill's blog.

#22 - A DIFFERENT DAY

I hope that today has been kind to all of you and that each of you reading here has had a somewhat easy day. I have found amongst my blog reading that sometimes we get caught up in all of the crappy feelings that we forget to mention the good stuff. I posted on Tuesday that the day had been simply hellacious; today was just the opposite! I woke up feeling good - tired, but good (tired is just a way of life for me). I enjoyed every single kid that I worked with today - they were all on their very best behavior! All of the adults were also in pleasant moods today.

While I was at my old school (as in where I actually attended school) treating kids today, I ran into my old phys. ed. teacher, who is retired now but still fills in occasionally as a substitute. We got to talk for 5 or 6 minutes and, while it was a brief conversation, it was fantastic. It lifted me up higher than I already was. She had not heard about Gracie, and seemed genuinely sad when I told her.

The sun is shining and the temperature reached 65 degrees, which is unusual for mid-November in Pennsylvania. Usually it is cold, rainy and miserable. I know that I will never be the 'pre-Gracie' me again, but today is the first day in the last 15 weeks that I have really felt like myself. It is so hard to believe that I feel like this on a Friday, which is the day of the week that Gracie died (today marks 15 weeks). I thought that when this day came, I would feel some pangs of guilt - but so far I am guilt-free - and hoping to stay that way.

The weekend looks relatively promising - decent weather, possibly getting together with some friends tomorrow night, and a little reunion on Sunday with the other 4 couples from our Bradley Method birth class. I am anxious to see everyone again, but a little bit nervous about seeing 4 new babies at once. Keeping my fingers crossed for myself and DH on this one!!

To balance this out, DH unfortunately informed me about an hour ago that his day had been 'pretty shitty.' We are off to our nephew's HS football playoff game, so hopefully that will bring him up a little bit.

Wishing anyone who reads this an easy and peaceful weekend...

#21 - Every Life Has A Story - This is Gracie's

There was a bright spot at the end of my day today. I received the link to Gracie's new video from Malory. I wish so much that I did not have to want and need this video, but I am so glad to have it. Malory did a fantastic job, and I could not be more pleased with how it came out. If you have not checked out Malory's Butterfly Footprints page, I urge you to do so. 

Click here to watch Gracie's video.