Life two years later.....

Today marks one of the most significant events in my life....the birth of my first born child. This is a day that typically changes you for life...most people's lives become a sleep deprived blur of changing diapers, feedings, burping and rocking a little one. Well our lives changed that day in a very big way but we came home to an empty house...this is the life of losing a child. While we should have been up all night with a baby, we were up all night unable to sleep as the thoughts of your baby that was suppose to come home with you and didn't run through your mind. Their birth and every second of their life runs through your brain constantly as you fear you are going to forget everything. When we should have been up feeding and changing our little one, we laid in bed listening to silence. Instead of planning their baptism we planned their funeral. Although it's been two years the hurt in our hearts in the same...we've just learned to live around those aching feelings. We were blessed with two little sisters for Gracie this past March and watching the girls grow and do things I think has made the ache in our hearts better and worse. The girls are a source of love and joy for us and they have made us laugh and smile  like we didn't know we could again. On the other hand as they go through each stage of growing I find myself feeling like I got jipped out things with Gracie. I constantly wonder what she would be like, what she would look like, and all the things she would be doing as a two year old. I am human when I say I feel jipped on missing out of all of these things and much more and I feel guilty for feeling that way. I know she's where she has no pain and is in heaven...what a perfect place to be able to spend out eternity! Why as a mother would I wish her to be anywhere but there...because I am a mother with a hole in her heart. That hole hasn't shrunk in the past two years and it hasn't healed....it still hurts constantly. Now some may think, "Well she hasn't dealt with her daughter's death very well." I have dealt with it and have accepted it....but I'm still human. As humans we don't want to hurt....why would we? I want the same joy that most everyone else has...to see my little girl grow up before my eyes. Now of course then I think to myself...if Gracie had lived would the twins be here? That just adds a whole new dynamic to the circle of tangled feelings. That is why I took to the computer and my blog tonight....I had to do what brings me comfort and what I've done in the past. Put my thoughts and feelings out in words....it just seems to make more sense to me this way. There are no easy answers in the world of losing a child and I don't think there ever will be. It's a hurt unlike any other in the world. Today as we stood by Gracie's grave with balloons to release and to sing happy birthday to her, I kept looking at her name on the head stone and thinking to myself, "My baby is really in the ground." Even two years later the thought of her being gone is hard. As a mom you will go to great lengths to protect your child and I couldn't protect Gracie from her fate...all I could do was make sure she was loved and I did...and I continue to do so. I had to search and find a purpose to this insanity and I did....unconditional love. I actively pursued spreading Gracie's story and our experience in an area that is dear to me...nursing. This year was my second year talking at two university's and their junior nursing students. Some ask why I do it and to me it is part of healing my hurt. It soothes that ache in my heart a bit and that is why. Anyone that knows me, knows I HATE public speaking which I find ironic and know my little angel is behind all of this and probably getting a good kick out of me doing something that I am terrified to do. I do it for her....and her lasting legacy. It helps me make sense of what has all happened and find purpose in life again. I would like to expand on my talks and may look at contacting some other universities in the future. I feel there is a need to continue what I am doing. I will keep Gracie's memory fresh and keep her mission from God going as long as I'm able to. She may have been alive only 15 hours but was able to accomplish more in 15 hours than most do in an entire lifetime. I think healing from losing someone that special is something you work on for a lifetime as well. So two years later, I feel we are doing pretty good considering the rollercoaster ride we have been on. Lots of ups and downs and Gracie has been there every single step of the way. We want to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has been there for us over the past 2 plus years and who continue to remember our daughter and keep her memory alive. God bless.

Crazy, beautiful life......

Well I looked back to the last time I had posted and it was 4 1/2 weeks before our world was flipped upside down by two special little girls....Gracie's little sisters, Anna and Sarah. Now all those years I waited to have my own children I had heard how ONE baby made life so crazy...well let me tell you what happens when you have two babies....you basically run on a hamster wheel and I mean you run. Life literally became this chaos filled beautiful place in a matter of two minutes...7:52am and 7:53am on March 14th brought us our double rainbow babies. Now I have heard figuring out one baby is difficult and people want a owner's manual, so you can imagine how often I wish I had a book to tell me what they want and need. Anna and Sarah may be twins but they couldn't be more opposite individuals if they tried. Their personalities are definitely unique and belong to just them. We get asked if they are fraternal or identical and Dr. Witt told us the only way to know 100% is to do genetic testing because of how twins develop but we are pretty sure they are fraternal. They look and act differently and are essentially sisters that were just born at the same time. We try and treat them to their personality and like individuals even now when they are only 5 months old...I don't think we have ever referred to them as "the twins." Normally we say "the girls" when referring to both at the same time. I have done a lot of reading and a lot of times twins especially fraternal twins that get treated the same despite their differences and preferences and get referred to as the twins can grow up resenting being a twin. I can see where that would be easy to do but we have tried hard to see them for who they are and go with it. Anna is more of a cuddly baby that likes to take things in. She's very active and rolls over both ways already. She can be more "high maintenance" as some refer to her as, but over all a very sweet little girl. She is a mommy's girl and has been from day one. Sarah is my more laid back, smile at everyone, loud, and boisterous baby. Jeff can do all the rough and tumble stuff with her and she LOVES it. She is a daddy's girl and her face lights up the minute he walks in the room. They definitely have a very unique and special bond. I can see her on the tractor and combine with him in the very near future. When we were pregnant Jeff was nervous because he didn't know how to burp a baby or change a diaper and I reassured him that with two of them he would be catching on quickly and he did. The girls were born right at the beginning of the craziest time of the year on the farm so Jeff has had to help out with the girls as he is able to. He makes time in his day for them even though he has a zillion other things he wants to do. He loves his girls and when people make comments to him how "now you need a boy" he always shakes his head and says how his girls are enough if that is all we have. He talks of all the things he "needs" to teach them from driving stick shift, to driving tractors and combines and making hay, and working cattle and how to pull a calf and on and on and on. They are going to be learning it all around here. :)
  When we think back to how much our lives have changed in the past 2 1/2 years since we were pregnant with Gracie it is hard to wrap your brain around what we've all experienced. It's been a rollercoaster of emotions and feelings from initial joy to devastation about Gracie's defect to dealing with our grief and then joy and anxiety when we found out about the girls. The day Anna and Sarah were born, Gracie's presence was overwhelmingly felt in the hospital and has been since the day they were born. She is here and part of our lives and our family, just not in a tangible way. Since the girls were very small we found them staring up at our mantel where Gracie's big picture sits...I don't find that a coincidence by any means. We talk about Gracie to the girls and her pictures are up everywhere in the house including one in their nursery. She's their big sister and their guardian angel. We find ourselves wondering what kind of baby she would have been and what she would be like right now. We are about 2 months away from her 2nd birthday...hard to believe where we were at emotionally 2 years ago versus today. The hurt and the void in my heart is still there and will always be there but her memory brings a smile instead of tears most days. Of course on her 2nd birthday the memories and "what if's" will be ever present but I don't see how they can't be there. I have so many things I want to ask Gracie but we will have to wait until God joins us as a family in heaven someday. For now I still take notice in her signs that she's here....butterflies still hover around us and give me a glimpse of them out the kitchen window when I am stressed. Having the Anna and Sarah is a big blessing but even big blessings can be overwhelming. There are days (many days) I want to pull my hair out because they seem to like to sabotage each other's naps and it can end up being a never ending process. Each one has different needs of sleep. Anna is a cat napper and there are days I swear Sarah has sleeping sickness (HA!). So their naps times don't jive and they seem to know the exact moment their sister is just ready to fall into a good sleep and they feel it's appropriate to let out a huge scream that I swear is just for kicks. I love them dearly despite all the frustrations of figuring out two babies and how overwhelming they can be at times and I wouldn't trade them for anything. I know Gracie had a hand in this so I am trusting her. Not everything is with the girls is frustrating and overwhelming though...when you get them both going with the giggles there is no better sound. When they snuggle up in your arms and drift off to sleep there is nothing more satisfying as a mother or father. This is our new crazy, beautiful life.......

Tying up loose ends....

I think with life in general if there is something difficult to deal with we tend to procrastinate taking care of it....or even its just a tedious job in general. As our pregnancy advances with the twins I find myself in major "nesting mode" and trying to tie up loose ends that I have let go for too long. One tedious project I "neglected" for too long was filing photographs into albums. I  LOVE to take pictures....after developing them, I loose interest in the whole organizing them into albums type of thing. Sooooooo since I met my farmer almost 6 years ago life obviously got extremely busy so all the fabulous photos I have taken of the farm, our life together, our pets, and family functions have just been sitting in their envelopes from the companies I developed them from. You can only imagine the stacks and stacks and stacks of photos I dug out when I decided I better oraganize and file them before the babies come. I went through hundreds and hundreds of photos and organized them into years and the the time of year and so forth and filled up 9 photo albums with memories my husband and I had made together since we met. It was fun to go through them because you tend to forget about some of the times. We had a fabulous house warming party the February we moved into the family farm house and I had not looked at those photos in over two years. I forgot about how much fun we all had and all the people that came. Made me want to throw another party! Then I came across all of our wedding pictures we had been given by our good friends. It was so fun to go back to that happy and fun day.....it made us want to get married again too! So after several days of remembering all the good times we had, there was a packet of pictures I had stored in it's own seperate drawer....a place that was all tucked away. This large packet of pictures held the hundreds of beautiful photos of our precious daughter Gracie's birth and her 15 hours on earth, her funeral and her first birthday party we had. Now it isn't that we haven't dealt with her death, because we have.....but these photos were literally of almost every minute of her life...her beautiful life. So many milestones had been captured onto film...her yawns, smiles, feedings, visitors, and her death. I had to take myself back to every single minute of her day and there was a lot that happened that day. A lot of emotions that occurred in those 15 hours and the hours and days following her death. In an analogy that one of my medical field friends used...it's kind of like picking the scab off of a half healed wound and opening yourself back up to everything. Now all the extra pregnancy hormones did not help this process by any means. I would pick up those pictures and start to organize them and then put them down and walk away....this process was repeated many, many, many times until I had gone through everything. I had boughten a special album for her pictures that had butterflies on the cover of it....it's so beautiful and fitting for our little girl. I meticulously picked away at that stack of photos until every last one of them was labeled and organized in order. Tears were shed along the way and old emotions boiled to the surface and I was sure on many occasions I couldn't finish what I had started.....but I did. I put each photo into it's new album and as each photo found it's permanent home I could feel some healing of my heart taking place. When the album was complete, I sat and stared at it....I had done it.....I had done something I didn't think I could do. Something I had put off for 1 1/2 years because it was hard to deal with and there it sat in front of me.....done. I could feel myself putting a huge mental check mark beside this in my mind as finally being complete. I didn't realize it had been hanging in my mind in this way until I finished it. It is proudly displayed on our coffee table in our living room. I had made a mental promise to myself I would complete this project before the twins came. I want to have a picture album to show the girls their older sister. I want Gracie to be real to them. Gracie has her own area on the wall of photos and those will remain there as well to always remind the girls that their big sister is in heaven watching over them. When people ask us if the twins are our first children, our answer is alwasy the same.....no, they are our second and third and that their big sister is in heaven. Her existence will always be acknowledged at our house.
 I received two phone calls in January from the nursing instructors at University of Mary and at Sanford Nursing School asking me if I would return to do my talk on Gracie to their classes this year. I didn't hesitate to accept as Gracie's story has a lot to offer to these students. Her story impacted the students of last years classes greatly as I had many students come up and talk to me after my presentation. I actually had one fellow chase me our of the nursing building at UMary last year because he wanted to tell me how much he admired me for doing the talk to their class. As a mother and a nurse I feel like I would be letting a big lesson pass these students by if I did not do this lecture. I sat down today to review my power point presentation and Gracie's youtube video and once again my hormones did not help me very much. I broke down in tears once again and thought, "How am I suppose to find the strength to do this tomorrow?" I phoned my dear friend and coworker, Sarah for a pep talk and as always she finds the right words for me. I don't know if I will get through tomorrow without tears or not, but I am going and I am going to share Gracie's story. I know God wants me to continue to share her story and her message of unconditional love. To not share her story would be a disservice to not only the students, but also to God and my daughter. She was sent with a lesson and message and it is now up to me to continue to spread it. Having to dig deep and go back into the intense pain we felt those initial days after losing Gracie is difficult to say the least, but if we can help new nursing students understand how precious life it and how much their compassion can mean to their patients and their families then I know we are continuing God's message he sent through our daughter. The pain of losing a child doesn't "go away" or "get better" with time.....you tend to learn how to live it and not let it consume your life. You go from crying every time you think of them to smiling because of their beautiful memory. There are always bumps in the road along the way and you do come across days where you do need a good cry....the hole left in your heart is always there. Everyone deals with it in their own way, and all of us moms in the baby loss world have all figured out along the way, that no two people grieve the same way. Our childrend impacted many lives and how we choose to remember them and their messages are all unique and they are all impactful. Our children continue to give us strength, love, and support from heaven as we have learned to look for the signs from them in life. It's truly amazing what you notice when you take time to notice things that you know are not a coincidence...they are messages from our little loves. It's those moments that we all live for. So as the nesting mode at our house continues, we remember our first born and all she gave us. We take notice of her signs she sends us to help alleviate our worries about her two sisters that will be arriving in 4 1/2 weeks. And we notice the strength she give us as we continue to tie up loose ends along the way......