Four weeks later....

Today it is four weeks since our beautiful Gracie blessed us with both her life and her death and it is also the first day that I am starting my new blog site. Writing has been so therapeutic for me throughout my pregnancy and coping with the loss of my daughter, so I wanted to continue my "therapy" and documenting how our lives are changing. At 32 years of age I can say that I have had to learn to deal with some very difficult things. Although I feel like I am drifting along in life these days and that I can't get my feet back on the ground, I have found out from my fellow anencephaly mommies that this feeling is normal. As I've stated in my caring bridge journals, I am a very Type A person and have always been quite sure of myself and who I am. I cannot say at this point in my life that I really know who I am anymore. Jeff and I both say we feel "lost in life" and that we don't know where we fit anymore. Fortunatly for most of our friends, they don't know what we are going through.....we have said countless times in the past four weeks that we hope that they will never have to know what we are going through. We are fortunate though that we have a great group of friends that empathize with us and support us. Tears find us frequently and almost on a daily basis......Gracie literally took a piece of our hearts with her to heaven. One thing I have found that has brought me comfort is the book, "Heaven is For Real." It was easy reading and extremely comforting to me after losing our little one. It is a true story of a 3 1/2 year old that had a near death experience and what he experienced in heaven. There is nothing like heaven from a child's point of view...especially when you have lost a child. The boy describes how Jesus sat him in his lap when he got to heaven and explained things to him. When I read this part of the book I got goosebumps. When Gracie was dying I told her to go to Jesus and he would take care of her and that it was ok for her to go. I remember right after she died I said to Jeff, "She went from rocking in our arms, to rocking in Jesus' arms." Reading this book really confirmed to me that this most likely happened when our baby girl left us. The little boy in the book talks repeatedly about how much God and Jesus love the children. In my mind I know my little girl couldn't be in a better place, but my heart tells a different story. My heart aches for her so terribly and no matter how much my mind tells me that it's selfish to want her here with me, it still aches. I don't think any parent ever wants to be in our situation....it's not a natural progression of life. The parents are suppose to go first....not the children. We are not suppose to bury our baby....but we did. And now we learn how to cope with this all. The phrase "You're never too old to learn something new" is definatly true for us. We will obviously still be "Jeff" and "Missy" and most people will think we are still the same people, but we are forever changed mentally, spirtually, and emotionally. Change is always a difficult a thing, but I think it will be a good thing as well. When you go to church after something as life altering as losing your child, your view on why you are there and the words you are saying take on a whole different meaning. Not that it didn't mean something to us before, but there is a different way you feel when you are there. I do get asked a lot if I'm ready to go back to work and my truthful answer is no. My mind is not mentally ready yet and thankfully Dr. Witt has written for me to be off for 8 weeks. I have another month to heal my mind and my soul before re-entering the work world. At this point it is mentally difficult most days to just get through life at home and to throw work into that would make it extremely difficult. I have a difficult time focusing on anything really and sleeping has been a challenge. I know none of this is abnormal for what I am going through, but it does make life more of a challenge. With this blog site I hope to continue to heal through writing and spread Gracie's message and not let her memory be forgotten. At the bottom of the page there is a slide show of some of our favorite photos from Gracie's life. We want to continue to celebrate our little girl's life and as the title of the blog states....keep Everlasting Grace in our lives.