A Trip to the Beach

I graduated from college in 2000.  I am still in very close touch with 5 good friends from college, and all live within 3 hours of me.  One lives in SW Connecticut, two are married to each other and live in Queens, one lives in North Jersey and the other moved back to upstate NY a little over a year ago.  Out of all of us, there are 4 children ranging in age from 3 years to 2 weeks.  Plus Gracie.

While I was out with the dogs tonight, I was thinking about how much fun it would be for all of us to plan a trip to the beach next summer with all of the little ones (we have to plan months in advance to get us all together at the same time).  And then it hit me...like a ton of bricks...that we had started talking about the same thing a year ago for this summer. Gracie would have been the youngest at somewhere between 9 and 11 months.  That was before our friends got pregnant with the baby that was just born...that was before Gracie died...that was before everything changed.

My closest friend in the group had a baby about 4 months before Gracie was due.  I have watched all of her photo and video updates over the last year, so happy to see her daughter hitting her milestones, yet fully aware of everything that I was (and am) missing with Gracie...and constantly wondering... WTF???  WHY ME?  WHY US?  WHY MY FAMILY?  Now that the thought about beach planning has resurfaced, it is just one more thing that I can add to the list of things that I will never do with Gracie.  Sometimes I almost wish thoughts like this simply would not resurface...

I Met a BLM Today

I unexpectedly met a BLM today.  Our meeting had nothing to do with the fact that we are BLMs, in fact she has no idea that I am one.  Because of paperwork involved, I knew before I met her in person that she was a BLM, but even if I hadn't, her very subtle necklace would have given it away.  How much does it suck that we can identify each other simply by certain types of jewelery???

On a brighter note, but butterflies have struck again.  I was seeing kids at summer school today and noticed a bulletin board that some of the kids had done.  They had made butterflies out of their hands and put them all over a paper tree...I just stared at it for a minute and wondered if suddenly Gracie is like some of her friends and using butterflies as a sign.  And while we are on consistent signs from Gracie, I should mention that I saw 4 displays of Styrofoam coolers over the weekend...but I think i would rather focus on the butterflies.  

Thank You and Random NILMDTS Thing

I want to send a big thank you out to Mama G  for including Gracie in Kheri's beach party in June.  Knowing that Gracie is remembered by other baby loss families does wonders for my heart and gives me a few much needed warm fuzzies.

Some of you may be long enough followers of my blog to know that I have been involved in the fire service for a long time.  Because of that, I am acquainted with a lot of people from all walks of life.  I am currently treating a friend who is a paramedic supervisor in this region; during a recent treatment session our conversation took a very unexpected, almost bizarre, turn.  For some reason we started talking about baby loss - I think we actually started talking about having children/babies with disabilities (he happens to be L's father), and I think we just ended up at Gracie.  When we were talking about Gracie, he looked at me - kind of out of the blue - and said  "You know, you'll appreciate this.  You know Bill Jones (name creatively changed because I don't have his permission), right?  Did you know that he takes pictures for Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep?"   


I am familiar with the person to which he was referring, as he used to be a 'ground' paramedic locally before taking a job as a flight medic at a regional medical center in this area.  Because he is a paramedic, and not a photographer, I was really confused.  I was also really confused about how L's dad knew what NILMDTS is.  So that is where I started with my questions.  He admitted that he didn't know what it was or that it existed until he was talking to 'Bill' one day.  He told me that 'Bill' was really into photography, which I did not know.  (I have since learned that he has invested a fair amount of money into his photography hobby to purchase equipment that would rival some professionals.)  He was apparently looking at some of 'Bill's' work one night, and the stuff that he was looking at included some photos taken as part of his work with NILMDTS.  They apparently spent a considerable amount of time talking about NILMDTS.   I was still confused about how 'Bill' had gotten involved, and I thought that they had perhaps experienced a loss at some point.  Nope.  No loss.  He was wandering around the internet one night, looking at different photography pages, and he stumbled into the NILMDTS website.  Apparently he was immediately drawn to the cause and made application to become one of their area photographers. 


About a week and a half after this conversation, I happened to run into 'Bill' and his wife (whom I had never met) at a carnival.  Even though we did not utilize NILMDTS services for Gracie, and even though I had no idea how to even start the conversation, I felt very compelled to say something to him about NILMDTS.  I pretty much fell over my words at the beginning of the conversation, but I told him that I wanted to just say a collective 'thank you' for all of the families that he has done work for and all of the future families that he will do work for through NILMDTS, and really for the baby loss community in general - and he looked thoroughly confused.  He gave me the 'I'm surprised that you even know what NILMDTS is' line, so at that point I knew that he had not heard what had happened to us.  I told him that I was clueless about NILMDTS until we had a 36 week stillbirth in August, and he stopped dead in his tracks.  


We talked for about 30 minutes, primarily about NILMDTS and baby loss.  He told me that doing NILMDTS work has been a profoundly touching and fulfilling experience for him and that he was so glad that he had stumbled upon their website and gotten involved.  He had a lot of questions about baby loss in general - mostly things that his experiences had brought to mind, but that were inappropriate to ask families that he was photographing.  It was probably one of the best baby loss conversations that I have had with someone outside of my 'circle'...it was almost refreshing.  And it gave me hope...that not everyone outside of the baby loss world is a complete and utter moron, and that some people really can empathize with us.

I know that at least one person reading my blog is involved in NILMDTS services...to that person, and all the others out there, I say God bless and thank you for your services. 

Happy Anniversary, My Love

Today is our 2nd wedding anniversary, and I want to throw out one more itty, bitty tribute to my husband and our life together.  Below are a few pics from one of the most wonderful days of our life together.

 

 

 Jeff picked this topper all by himself.  :-P

Happy 4th of July

I got an email this morning from someone who said that they could not see most of this post from yesterday.  With one exception noted below, I could see everything okay, even when I am not signed into blogger, but when I was edit mode today, I did get a bunch of error messages, so I am going to re-post it and see if that fixes whatever bug seems to be lurking.  I apologize for the repeat post.

I would like to wish everyone a very peaceful, happy and safe Independence Day weekend.   I hope that for all of you it was/is/will be filled with love, friends, family, fun, sun and good food...as well as the ever present spirits of your angels.

Two years ago today I was about 24 hours away from marrying the love of my life after about 14 years together...we had our rehearsal and rehearsal dinner on the 3rd and then had a nice picnic on the 4th to entertain our out of town guests and celebrate our nephew's 14th birthday.  We had no idea what the first two years of our marriage would bring.  ~  One year ago today I was in week #33 of pregnancy with our first born.  We were still clueless about what laid ahead of us.  ~  Today I am in the 29th week of pregnancy with our second child, yet there is no 10 or 11 month old baby here with us.  We still have no idea what lies ahead, but we certainly know that this is just not how it was supposed to go.  I am not super depressed or sad today...just making an observation that pretty much anyone reading this has made at one point or another.  I do wonder, though, how long it will be before I look at the babies that were born around the same time Gracie was due/born without thinking about her....without thinking about all of the things we have missed and all of the things that we will miss for the rest of our lives.

Despite the fact that my heart has been so relatively light over the last few weeks, it is not always like this.  This kind of ties in with my previously posted thoughts about wondering where my grief might wander once I am not so preoccupied by work...and where it might wander after we bring Jellybean home with us.  I think about all of the other I have met over the last 11 months and about how many of them work through portray their grief, and I wonder a lot about the open portrayal of grief, even in the blogosphere.  I think about the extreme ups and extreme downs that can come with this grief, and I think about the fact that no matter how hard some of them might try, very close friends and family can never really understand or appreciate where our grief and its process comes from.  I wonder if any of us, when outside of our '4 walls of safety and comfort' are truly able to openly express our grief and how we really feel about our losses.  Some are.  There is no question about that, but it seems that many are not.

There are some BLM blogs that are 110% upbeat with regard to grief and loss.  They are always 'glass half full.'  I think about my own grief in comparison to this and sometimes wonder why I can't get it or keep it together all the time.  I try to take advantage of the uplifting feelings that can come from these blogs, as they can be helpful in getting out of downward funks.  As helpful as they can be in that way, I have learned that they may not always be as helpful for their authors, as some of these BLMs are not free to express how they are really feeling.  This restriction is usually because their blogs are frequented by real life family and friends...when given the opportunity to express themselves in an unrestricted/uncensored forum, it turns out that these women usually spend as much time as I do feeling not-so-upbeat about this grieving process.

Flipping the coin over, there are some BLMs that really seem to struggle hard to get through this process.  We have all had different experiences, so none of us will have the same grief process, but some of the women I have met here really seem to struggle...almost on a daily basis.  While the basic components of our grief is the same, their struggles seem to be exacerbated by all kinds of different things...pre-existing emotional difficulties; family, friends, co-workers that expect the grief to end with the flip of a switch; multiple losses; infertility subsequent to loss; the list goes on and on.  I feel so helpless when I read these women's blogs...I so much want to say something to comfort them, but know that there are probably no words at all that will bring much comfort.  What I have learned is that many times these women's blogs are private with regard to family and friends, and these women are free to throw out any thoughts or words that help them feel better at the moment they are writing.  Many times these posts are a 'snapshot' written at the height of a particular emotional event and they are also not a 100% accurate portrayal of that person's grief, just as the always-positive posts are not a true portrayal of grief....but they truly serve the purpose of getting it out and aiding in the healing process.

I don't know...perhaps none of that rambling makes sense.  If it offends anyone, I apologize...I am just rambling and trying to sort out some of my own thoughts in a forum that I know is not likely to crucify me for doing so.  I guess what I am beginning to realize is that no matter how we portray ourselves, I think when we boil it all down, so many of us struggle to maintain a healthy balance between the ups and the downs...and so often we struggle with how to balance the expression of the ups and downs, especially when dealing with our real life family and friends who will just simply (through no fault of their own) never understand.

(As I was reposing, I found that this paragraph was completely not visible on my blog - having it visible will probably help in the remainder of this post making sense.  Ugh.)   In thinking about all of this, I also think about the things in life that are certain to bring me up or down.  This also includes the 'new' things that bring me up or down over the last 11 months.  Since I haven't done a 'weekly' list in a while, I figured that I would do so now, and kind of share some of these things.  Feel free to share some of yours with me and others if you wish. 


The things that consistently bring me up are:

• My hubby - we have been together for about 16 years, married for two.  We have absolutely had our share of ups an downs, even before we were married, but I am confident that there is nothing that we cannot conquer together.  He truly is the love of my life.
• Softball - I started playing as a little girl and played for about 11 years.  For several reasons, I did not play in college, but should have.  It's a decision that I will forever regret (just a little bit), but one that I cannot change.  Although fast pitch is my thing, I still thoroughly enjoy a good slow pitch game every once in a while. 
• Making music - I was a song bird and band geek in high school.  I am certainly far from being 'over gifted', but I can hold my own in either realm.  I have not been part of an organized musical ensemble in about 10 years, and I miss it tremendously.  I have been without a piano for about 12 years, and oddly enough, I think that having a piano might have made a huge difference for me in the early months after Gracie's death.  It was always a means of stress relief for me, and I wonder what difference it might have made during this process. 
• QT with my sister -  we are 4 1/2 years apart in age, but we have always been close.  She left for a 27 month assignment in Africa with the Peace Corps two weeks after Gracie's funeral.  She wasn't supposed to be here for her birth, but as things worked out, she was.  I am so glad that she was.  I am so sad that she will not be here in September.  I am looking forward to her return to the U.S.
•  Success/accomplishment in the things that I do - For me, this kind of doesn't require a lot of explanation...it is sufficient on a general level.  I take everything I do seriously - there are too many things to do in life to just waste time not being the best you can be.  This includes academics, music, sports, my participation in the fire service, owning my own business, personal relationships and so much more.
• Family gatherings not overshadowed by drama or negative vibes - Unfortunately, where my family is concerned, this is hard to come by, but I love it when it happens.  :-)

Things that  consistently bring me down

• Constantly negative people - we all have our down moments, but I cannot handle being around people who can never find anything positive or upbeat to talk about, anticipate or be part of.  I find people who are negative all the time to be exhausting. 
• Drama - especially small town bullshit drama...yet, I will forever live in a small town.  While it's sometimes entertaining to see the things that fire people up and get their panties all bunched up, most of the time it's just exhausting. 
• Working to much with too little pay -  I feel like this has been the story of the last 5 years (since I opened my own P.T. practice).  I know that I am making headway, and that it's all good, but it just feels like it's taking forever.  I will include with this the lousy salaries paid out to many emergency personnel in most parts of the country.  If your job involves lights and sirens, you should be compensated well for that...you just never know what you are going to deal with from one day to the next.  
• Living so far apart from the best friends I will ever have in my life - there is a distance of 2-3 hours between where we live and where most of my friends from college live.  Now that we are all starting our own families, it makes getting together on a regular basis very difficult.  I miss them all terribly...
• Knowing that other BLMs are suffering through difficulty TTC, infertility and subsequent loss.

There are some things that now go on the list titled "Things that usually bring me up, but sometimes bring me down".  That list includes...

• Seeing Gracie's name in 'writing' 
• People talking about Gracie in a way that acknowledges her existence and presence here in the world, and her importance in our lives
• Thinking about the rest of the children that we hope to have
• Family gatherings with other children
• Babies...especially those within 4 months of Gracie's age 
• Reading other loss and rainbow blogs - I hesitate to put this on the list, but I really need to.  As helpful and beneficial and therapeutic as it has been for me to read so many loss (and now rainbow) blogs over the last 10-11 months, I think that rehashing grief through other loss blogs might sometimes be more of a weight in my own grief process. I think it depends on the day and how I am feeling at any given moment, but I think I have reached a point where reading loss blogs might not always be beneficial. 

In closing, I will remind you all that I am taking questions in anticipation of my 100th post.  I have gotten a couple by email, but none on the blog.  There is also another month to comment on my questions and give-away post to register to win Gracie's birthday give-away.  I am hoping to give away a gift certificate for The Midnight Orange, but may have to come up with a Plan B.  I would also like to congratulate Maggie and Kristin on their rainbow announcements.  Wishing you all a peaceful and 'up' week....and, as always, thinking of all of you.

The Coming Days --- A Give-away and Some Questions

Next Thursday will mark 11 months since my little peanut was born peaceful and still...which means that we are only one month from marking her first birthday.  The impending anniversary has stirred up many, many thoughts for me over the last few weeks, some of which I may touch on here over the next few weeks.  The year has gone so fast, yet seemed to stand still at the same time, and it just doesn't seem possible that my first born should be almost a year old.  I think that we have decided to do a simple dinner with family and a balloon release to 'celebrate'.  I have noticed that I am also getting closer to 100 posts...I think that I have 15 or 16 to go at this point.  It is possible that I will hit 100 posts around Gracie's birthday, but it is more likely that it will happen closer to the one year anniversary of when I started blogging, which is September 29th. 

I have been thinking about whether or not I want to do anything here on Gracie's blog to mark her birthday and/or to mark my 100th post.  I am strongly considering giving her blog a makeover, and will likely get in touch with Franchesca to help me with this...so watch for a new look over the next couple of months.  I have also decided that I will do a giveaway for her birthday.  I was hoping to give away a gift certificate to The Midnight Orange, however her Etsy shop is presently closed.  For the time being, I am not going to change my plans, with hopes that her shop will be open again in the very near future.  If her shop is not open by August 1st, I will pick an alternate vendor.

To enter Gracie's birthday give-away, leave a comment here on this post.  Tell me your baby's name and birthday (I know many of them, but not all of them), and tell me something very special about them...something that you will hold with you forever, something that will never leave your mind and your heart.  I will pick and announce a winner (using random.org) some time between August 1st and 8th.  

To mark my approach to 100 posts, I think that I will follow some of the other ladies and field some questions from all of those inquiring minds out there.  There are not too many things that I will not answer, so ask away.  Leave your questions here in the comment section and I will start answering them in the near future.

 

Thoughts...and Father's Day

Once again, work and other obligations have consumed my life and my personal online time has been kept to a very, very bare minimum over the last week and a half.  I actually started this post over the weekend and never got it finished...I took tonight off from carnival detail to rest and get some stuff done around the house...so let's see if I can get at least one thing done.  :-)     It's funny that I thought things were going to slow down once school ended, but it seems that I forgot about all of the incidental events that creep up during the summer.  And it seems that I did not give any thought to all of the things I wanted to accomplish at home and at the office before September, and consequently I still have no time to myself for personal stuff. 

Over the last few months I have started to wonder more about my grief - specifically what twists and turns it might take after the school year ended and my overall pace slowed down a little (still busy, but it is a little bit slower).  I have wondered quite frequently whether or not my grieving process has been somewhat stifled by the necessity to get work done, and if I would find the process kicking into high gear once I had a little more time to think about it and really process it without distraction.  Although I have certainly had my share of bad days over the last 10 months, I feel like many of my days without Gracie have been taken in stride, and I just keep wondering if that will change.   I guess time will tell. 

Although the twp weeks have been really busy, they have been pretty good.  Good enough for my heart to actually feel light.  My BIL and his wife had a tattoo party last Wednesday.  I had never heard of such a thing until then, and on some level it still strikes me as cheesy and redneckish.  :-)    But I quickly learned that the most important thing to remember about tattoo parties is that it is far cheaper to get tattoos as part of a group at a party than it is to go to the same artist at their studio.  Since I cannot get my Gracie tattoo right now, I was just a spectator for Jeff's Gracie tattoo.  He was still a little unsure about the design going in, but the tattoo guy did a pretty good job putting the finishing touches together...it needs a little touch up work, but here is the finished product as it is right now...(it is directly under an old tattoo...that is what you see above it)

 

Moving on, I would like to touch on butterflies for a minute.  Some of you made the immediate association between your lost little ones and butterflies; it is an association that was not so immediate for me....but I think you all might be wearing off on me.  :-)   The dog went to the groomer last Thursday; he always comes home with a cute little (very non-masculine) neckerchief.  This time of year his neckerchiefs are always red, white and blue for Memorial Day and July 4th.  Except this year.  Last week instead of the traditional red, white and blue motif, he came home with this neckerchief....

Saturday I drove our rescue truck in a neighboring fire department's annual parade.  The parade route was just over one mile long; for the last half of the parade a butterfly rode on my window sill.  It was a tiny, but brightly colored butterfly and it stayed put for the better part of 15-20 minutes.  I am pretty sure that I have never seen a butterfly stay in one place for that long.  Ever.  Although many of you have always associated butterflies with your angels, it is an association that was immediate for me.  But Saturday there was no question for me.  When I was pregnant with Gracie, one of the standing jokes was where we would mount her car seat in the fire trucks for parades and emergency calls....she was definitely there with us on Saturday.  Sadly, I never thought to take a picture of this butterfly until after we were out of the truck. 


Along with several hundred people from our small town, we traveled about two hours on Friday to support our high school softball team as they played in the state championship game.  In reaching the title game, the girls became the most successful team in our school's history.  In the end, the girls did not bring home the state title, but they had a fantastic run.  Softball is always good for my heart and watching them play on Friday gave me a little lift.  As soon as we were done with the fire department parade on Saturday, we got the call to escort the softball team through their victory parade...a very, very long parade...but one that was well deserved.  After two and a half hours, we reached the end of the impromptu parade route, primarily because we were losing daylight.  While the girls were dispersing, I noticed the sunset.  It was relatively unremarkable, with the exception of one very bright spot through the clouds.  Again, I just had the feeling that I wasn't alone.

I am a few days late, but I want to touch on Father's Day.  During discussion about Baby Loss Mother's Day, my husband informed me that he wanted nothing for IBFD or US Father's Day.  Nothing.  I didn't like it, but did my best to respect it.  I did get him a 'for my husband' Father's Day card that I gave him when he was done working on Sunday night, and I did wish him a Happy Father's Day when we went to bed.  I was disappointed to learn that only one other person had wished him a Happy Father's Day.  Despite the fact that I honored his wishes about not making a fuss, I feel the need to honor him a bit more, so I will do it here.  I could write a book to tell you all how wonderful he is...but I will keep it simple.  I will simply tell you all that he is the love of my life and has been my rock over the last 11 months, despite being completely rocked by his own grief.  He has been the best father that Gracie could have asked for, and he will cherish her until the day that he dies.  The variations in our grieving process has certainly caused moments of strain, but I have never doubted for a minute that we will come out of this experience with stronger bonds than we could have ever imagined.  So, Honey, if you pop in and happen to read this, I just want you to know how much I appreciate everything about you. 

In closing, I want to wish you all a wonderful weekend and coming week.  I will be trying to pop in to catch up on your blogs over the next few days, and I look forward to seeing how everyone has been over the last few weeks.  Thinking of you all....

Thanks

I just wanted to thank all of you who have left comments here or sent such supportive, encouraging emails in response to my posts over the week or so.  I know that I don't have to tell any of you how much the support means when you need it.  I am hoping for a few weeks of 'ups' to balance out the last few weeks of stress, frustration, and other undesirable emotional valleys.  Wishing you all a good week...