A letter to Daisy on her birthday

Dear Daisy,

Happy first birthday to my beautiful baby girl! I cannot help but imagine what you would be like if you were here today. I imagine you toddling around, chasing after Ella, giggling and showing off a few new teeth. 

I am so happy for you that you are spending this birthday and all of your birthdays to come with Jesus! You are so blessed to have never known any of the pain, sadness, or sickness of this world. You left this world safe and warm and loved, tucked inside my womb.

 For me though, I am sad that you aren't here! Today started out rough for me. I couldn't sleep and so I got up at 5am and sat on the porch awaiting the sunrise. My tears streamed silently for you. Later my sobs became uncontrollable and gut wrenching. I am so HURT that you are gone. I feel an emptiness inside of my heart where you should be. 

When Ella woke up I was reminded that we had plans to celebrate you today, Daisy, not mourn you. We went to the cemetery and Ella gave you a very cute heart shaped wreath with some beautiful roses and a teddy bear attached. She is so proud to be your big sister, even though you're not here with us. She loves you and misses you so much! Daddy and I gave you some pink daisies and some birthday balloons. We are so blessed to be your parents. We came home and made you a cake and some homemade ice cream. All three of us pitched in. 

We wish so badly that you could be here to have cake with us. I wish I was throwing you a big birthday bash! We would have had so much fun. No matter how hard I try to make this day special and happy, it has a sad undertone and it always will. 

I love you, Daisy, and I am excited to hug you and squeeze you one day in heaven! 

Love, Mommy

Bad days

I started blogging when I reached a relatively "good place" in my grief journey. I've been very positive and optimistic but I don't always feel that way. Today is a bad day. There's no real reason. I just can't stop crying. This is hard for me to admit because I want people to see my strength, to have hope. I don't want people to worry about me. 

I am writing this with the main intention of letting people know there is no time limit on grief. And realistically I think grief like this is infinite. I do not think it ever goes away. 

I also believe that you can have bad days where you cry all day long and don't get out of bed and still be "doing good." I've noticed through my grief journey that people will often tell me how good I'm doing or how strong I am and I wonder if lack of emotion is strength. I wonder if the ability to paste a smile on my face in difficult times means I am doing good. Am I strong because I don't let other people into my heart? I want to tell myself and other grieving parents that it's ok to cry, to be sad, to miss what you've lost. It doesn't mean you're taking a downward spiral. It doesn't mean that you are not doing well. All it means is that you loved someone so much that it is unbearable to be without them! 

I don't think I should lay in bed and cry all day. In fact, I don't think I've done that one single time since my daughter died. I think that it's best to pray and read my bible and find strength in The Lord. I think getting up every day and choosing to feel blessed has helped heal me. Finding happiness in the little things is what keeps me going.

All I'm saying is that it's ok to have bad days. I probably need to allow myself more of them, honestly. I talked in my last post about parenting Ella through our grief journey...parenting her doesn't always allow me to have bad days. I don't often have time to grieve. I know that sounds crazy but it's true! It's pretty hard to find a few minutes to myself where I feel comfortable enough to just cry. Today she slept in and it just hit me as though an elephant sat on my chest. I am getting through it with prayer and this blog but I'm also trying to let myself experience the grief. I think it's important to FEEL. 

Loneliness of an only child

One of the more difficult parts of losing Daisy is parenting Ella through it. At first it was because I was trying to do everything "the right way" for her. I didn't want her to see me cry or crumble and so I was strong and tried to be as normal as possible. I had my weak moments, for sure, and still do but over all I think I did a good job of maintaining my composure for her sake.

She had a very hard time with the loss of her sister. For months afterwards she was worried that everything around her would die. It was a very difficult time for us as a family. She began to withdraw from activities she would normally  participate in because, according to her, she wanted her sister to do it with her. We just focused on the fact that Daisy was in the arms of Jesus in heaven and never had to feel pain or sickness, worry or stress. We encouraged Ella to pray when she missed Daisy or wanted to talk to her and that seemed to be the ticket. She really latched onto that idea and would just stop in the middle of the day to "talk" to her sister.

Losing Daisy kept Ella as an only child for an extra year and this was not something we wanted. At all. We wanted Ella to have a sibling LONG ago but it just didn't happen the way we hoped. Ella NEEDS other kids! She is so energetic and imaginative and sometimes playing with mom and dad just doesn't cut it. I have tried my hardest to insert her into activities where I know there will be other kids for her to interact with. Sometimes this is a hard thing to do. I find that other families aren't as desperate to make time for "play dates" because their kids have each other to play with. This is hard for me as a mother. I try to give her plenty of opportunities to play with others. I invite people to do things with us and I hope that we receive invitations to play as well but it seems that it is just Ella most of the time. I wish other people could see how much my daughter needs companionship, how she begs to have other kids to play with, how she cries when play dates don't work out.  It is frustrating and heart breaking! If Daisy were here, Ella would have a walking, talking, laughing little sister to dress up with and play tea party with. Knowing this upsets me. Ella will be starting Pre-K in August and I am so excited for her! She will be able to learn so many new things and will make new friends and I hope that she loves it! I am hopeful that this will help her need for socialization. If we can get through the next 6 weeks or so of summer boredom, I won't feel so guilty about not giving her a sibling sooner. I just feel so sorry for her that she is always around adults! 

We are expecting a baby in a few weeks and I know that it will help Ella with her need for companionship. However Ella was really unhappy with my pregnancy at first. She was not excited as she had been before. She was even more upset when we found out we were having a boy. She would cry and tell me that she didn't want a brother because her sister was "just perfect." She would add that she missed Daisy and wished she were here with us. Ella would get very stressed and worried every time I went to the doctor for a prenatal visit and so we stopped telling her when we would go and/or try not to take her with us. We would just tell her when we returned that everything was good with the baby. Recently she has really come around though! She has to hug and kiss my belly every night before bed and she says she is excited to meet her brother. It is such a relief that she is warming up to the idea because I know she will make a great big sister!  

I can't wait for the day when there are kids (plural!) running around my house laughing and fighting, playing and squealing! Music to my ears! 

Deserving God's blessings

You would think being a teacher and having summers off would give me more time for blogging but, man oh man, have we been busy! I'm on the school's site based committee whose main responsibility is conducting interviews so we have had to do interviews 2 days a week thus far. Luckily we are done with all of that! I've also been going to San Angelo for workshops. I tried to schedule all of them as early as possible so that I wouldn't be huge and pregnant traveling far from my hospital! On top of that Ella attended Vacation Bible School at 2 churches, one of which I was a volunteer for. 

I had a baby shower a couple of weeks ago and so I have been preparing for my baby boy. I've been cleaning and organizing all of his new things. Next week I will be painting the kids' room and moving Ella's new bed in. 

Preparing for this baby has been so much fun, so relaxing. I feel that The Lord has really eased my anxieties about losing this baby and I feel confident that I will bring him home! I am so blessed to have him growing and wiggling inside of my belly. I am trying to cherish every single moment...which anyone who's ever been pregnant knows is a pretty hard thing to do! 

However, at times I get scared and panicked and start imagining how I will deal with it if he dies too. I read an article a couple of weeks ago about mothers who have lost infants and there was one thing that really stood out to me. The woman said that she wished she had the same excited innocence as she had once had about her pregnancy and labor and delivery. I sooooo agree! I feel like my feelings are so tainted by the tragedy that I went through that it can be difficult to just be flat-out, pure and sweet, EXCITED! I have so many friends having babies right now and every time one of them announces they are in labor, I am on pins and needles until I get confirmation that their babies are ok. I pray endlessly and I worry constantly. I think, "If they only knew what I know, they wouldn't post this or that." But I don't want them to know all that! I don't want their excitement to be diminished. I don't want them to know what this is like. I was so unguarded with my previous pregnancies and I don't regret it. On the same note though, I have to force myself to post things about my current pregnancy. I don't want to look back and regret NOT posting and allowing myself to be happy. I should be documenting this gift from God.

 In a bible study I did awhile ago, it talked about being deserving of blessings. The thing is we DON'T deserve God's grace or His blessings. However, God wants to give us these things and we need to accept them. Can you imagine receiving a gift from your father, a heartfelt gift given for no reason, and saying,"Oh no. You keep it. I'm too broken to accept."? Of course not! You would accept the gift humbly and feel good that he was thinking of you. I have prayed a lot about accepting God's blessings and I know that God wants me to be happy. I know that He has given this baby to me as a precious gift.

I thank God every single day for this boy! I canNOT wait to hold him, nurse him, play with him. I can't wait to see his sweet face. I can't wait to raise him up knowing that he has a sister watching over him in heaven and a sister protecting him on earth. What a lucky little guy!

1 Corinthians 15:10 But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me. 

Daisy's birth story (my experience with vasa previa)

This story starts out as a happy one. I found out I was pregnant with my second child on December 16, 2013. We had been trying to conceive for about 5 months and were very excited to add to our family. I ordered Ella a shirt that said "I'm gonna be a big sister" and she wore it to our family Christmases. Our families were ecstatic, not even knowing we had been thinking about adding to our family. 

I had a normal ultrasound at 7 weeks. I began to feel those precious little bubble bursts in my tummy at 17 weeks. And at 20 weeks we found out we were having a girl and that all was well with our second little princess. From then on everything was going well. My weight was on track. My blood pressure was good, the baby's heart rate was strong, and she was measuring right on time. There was nothing odd about my pregnancy other than some periodic spotting throughout the pregnancy. Every time it happened I called my doctor and he said it was fine and completely normal (even though this had never happened in my first pregnancy.) My whole pregnancy was happy, healthy, and normal. BUT on July 11, 2014, at 33 weeks and 4 days gestation everything drastically changed...

That morning started out normally. Ella asked during breakfast if her sister was coming out that day. I said, "No! It's too early. She'll come out when God's ready for us to meet her." Later that afternoon Ella went to her Granna's to spend the night and Tyler and I made some popcorn and got in bed to watch a movie. A few minutes into the movie I felt a warm trickle in my underwear. I went to the bathroom to investigate, not thinking much of it. I was absolutely shocked to see my underwear completely saturated in blood. I sat on the toilet and blood POURED out of me in a steady stream. I knew we needed to go to the hospital. 

We went to my mother in law's house to pick her up. She drove me to the hospital while Tyler stayed with Ella. I was not in pain. I checked into Llano Scott and White hospital around midnight. They strapped monitors to me and said that a doctor would be there in a few minutes as one of his patients was about to deliver a baby across the hall. The nurses and I noticed that the baby's heart rate was a little unsteady so they put me on oxygen.

Enter Dr. Miller. He did an ultrasound and said everything was fine (wrong). He said the placenta looked normal (wrong) and in the right place so he was unsure as to why I was bleeding. He did notice the umbilical cord was near the baby's neck but not wrapped (red flag!) I began to have contractions 5-6 minutes apart and the baby's heart rate was changing drastically. It would be normal in the 150s and then drop suddenly into the 49s. Dr. Miller ordered a shot to stop my contractions. He didn't want me to deliver because they don't have a NICU in Llano. He said I would be monitored for a few hours and be released in the morning, although he still expressed confusion about her heart rate and the bleeding. I was told by a nurse that Dr. Miller went home at this point.

 My mother in law went to trade places with Tyler. We were not terribly concerned at this point because the nurses and doctors didn't seem to be. I began to doze as the nurses constantly moved the monitors around in my belly trying to find a steady heart beat. Around 6 am Dr. Miller returned. A nurse had called him to come check on me. He said they were going to fly me out to a bigger hospital. I was shocked! He left for a minute and returned saying the helicopter couldn't fly out due to weather....this still confuses me because it was a clear summer morning. 

He says, "We're going to do a c-section now and the baby might not make it. We have St David's NICU on the way but she still might not make it." Tyler hadn't made it to the hospital yet and I was alone. I started crying. I was so scared. They began to prep me for surgery and Dr. Miller did another ultrasound. He was silent. I could tell something was wrong. He looked at me and said, "The baby didn't make it. I'm sorry." About that time Tyler called and I was so hysterical he couldn't understand me. He came to my room and the doctor repeated the devastating news. 

A few minutes later an angel of a nurse, Debbie, came in to tell me they would induce me and I would deliver my baby that day. I told her I wanted an epidural as soon as possible. I did not want any of the pain without the prize at the end. She understood. They also sedated me. I was still aware of what was going on; I just wasn't so hysterical. When my contractions became painful they gave me an epidural but it was useless. I told them it wasn't working but the anesthesiologist was rude and didn't seem to care. I don't know how long I was in active labor but it felt like an eternity. I felt every contraction, every pain of that labor. It was the most horrific experience of my life. 

Our baby girl was born still at 8:23 pm on Saturday July 12. She weighed 3 pounds 13 ounces and was 17 inches long. She had dark curly hair even though it was sparse. She looked a lot like Ella when she was born but she favored me more whereas Ella favors Tyler more. She was beautiful and perfect. 

I was heavily sedated when they put my angel in my arms. I took a quick picture of her with my phone and it is the only one that exists of our sweet girl. I didn't cry as I looked at her face, touched her soft lips and nose, opened her eyes to see deep blue irises, unwrapped her blanket to count 10 tiny toes and 10 tiny fingers. After about a half hour they took her away from me and I wish I hadn't been sedated so that I would have fought to hold on to her forever. It just happened so quickly. I'm sad that I didn't get to hold her tiny body in my arms longer. 

2 weeks later we met with my doctor for a cause of death appointment. We were told that I had a velamentous cord marginally inserted, which means the umbilical cord inserted to the side of the placenta instead of the middle and was also like a spider web of veins instead of a cord enclosed in Wharton's jelly. He suspected vasa previa also and suggested I research it. I did and it seems that this is the case for me. All the signs are there: painless massive bleeding, fetal bradycardia (heart rate drops), and FETAL DEATH. 

I had never heard of this condition before even though I researched everything about pregnancy! I had no symptoms to speak of. I had no risk factors. Despite all of this, it happened to me. All I know to do is inform other people about this condition that is NOT screened for during pregnancy and possibly save a child's life and save a mother from the pain I feel. 

All you have to do is ASK to be checked for vasa previa. The best time to do so is at your 20 week growth ultrasound. When VP goes undetected it has a 90% mortality rate but if it is diagnosed, with proper care, that rate drops to almost ZERO. If I had been diagnosed with VP, I would've been planning a csection at 34 weeks instead of a funeral. Fight for your child's life!

Mother's Day

When it comes to Mother's Day many moms have feelings other than happiness or joy. For those mothers who have lost a child but have other living children, some people will say that you need to focus on the children you do have and not dwell on what you've lost. Before I became a bereaved mother, I had that though cross my mind as well. But I now know how insensitive that idea is. 

Just because I'm sad, it doesn't mean I'm not grateful. And just because I'm grateful, it doesn't mean I'm not sad. 

I can miss my daughter and be sad that she isn't in my arms on this Mother's Day. I'm allowed! At the same moment I can be grateful and find joy in my daughter, Ella, and my son growing inside of my belly. I can do both! 

I can't help but think about Daisy on this day as I do every single day. But I have found today that I am able to be joyous that I am her mom. I am happy that I was able to take care of her and nurture her through 8 months of pregnancy. I am proud of how beautiful and perfect she was. I am reflecting on all those little baby wiggles from the inside of my body. I am just so lucky be her mom, no matter how much time I got to spend with her or how that time was spent. She taught me so much about life, God, myself, my marriage. She taught me how to find joy in life even when it seems bleak. I want to honor her memory with happiness and pride, not sadness and grief. 

While I am still sad that she isn't with me, I am choosing to be thankful for every little moment I had with her. I am choosing to celebrate her life today and celebrate my job as a mother. I have been blessed with three precious children, Ella, Daisy, and my baby boy. Being a mom is the best job in the world and at the same time, the hardest. I give thanks to God for choosing me to be the mother of these three children and I am excited to see how He continues to bless my life.

Be sensitive to those mamas out there who have had to give their children back to God. Some are hurting more than they show. Don't be afraid to speak about the children they lost. They want to! Push yourself out of your comfort zone in order to brighten a mama's day. 

Proverbs 31:28 Her children arise and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praises her:

Levels of loss

This week I stepped in a time machine and went back to July 12th, the day my precious daughter died. I relived everything about that day in vivid detail. I couldn't stop thinking about the days after.. I remembered that feeling when I would wake up in the morning and for a second it was all a dream, and how when I would shake the sleep out of my mind, my horrifying reality would hit me like a ton of bricks. I remembered the devastation. I remembered planning my daughter's funeral. I remembered pretending to be fine. I remembered attending that funeral and showing the people nearest and dearest to me how weak I really was. 

Those thoughts and memories never really leave me. I just know how to manage them better now. But the thing that triggered all of this was the death of another precious baby. Reliving all of those moments caused tears to stream down my face for days. I was not crying for my loss, though. I was crying for the parents of Cooper Burnett, the 6 month old baby who fought his whole short life to live but alas could not. I have so much empathy for his sweet parents. I understand what it is like to lose your baby. I am sorry for them, for the path they have to take now. 

In my journey through grief, I have found that you must be very careful when showing empathy, though, because there is a very fine line between empathy and insensitivity. The need to relate to people in order to comfort them is great. Since the passing of my daughter, so many people have told me they know how I feel or share stories that they think connect us. Sometimes it is helpful and sometimes it is offensive. 

I have found that there are different levels of loss. The levels are on the same plane, not one being better or worse than another. There are similarities in the feelings you may feel but there are differences. For example, I have bonded with my mother in law over my loss because she has also lost a child. Her son, Tel, passed away at 18 years old in a car accident. We share many of the same emotions because we have both suffered through the death of a child. However I feel cheated out of a lifetime of memories, whereas she has tons of memories. She had to deal with missing someone who was a constant physical presence in her life, someone she saw and talked to every single day, whereas I did not have to make those adjustments since Daisy was never able to come home with us. I could go on and on. My point is my loss is much different  from her loss. It is different from a miscarriage, the death of a child at 5 years old or the death of a child at 40 years old. No better. No worse. Just different. For me to tell my mother in law I know how she feels would be wrong. I don't know how she feels and vice versa.  

I know that I can offer some empathy to our friends who have lost their baby but I don't know exactly how they feel. They got to know Cooper and see his little personality grow. They watched him fight for 180 days. I'm sure there were days of hope and days of discouragement. 

 I pray that I can be sensitive to their needs as they grieve and that I can offer comfort to them. I hope they will know that I am here for them to talk to any time. I hope that I do not let my own grief cloud my ability to be completely caring and loving towards them. I have realized that we should not have our own agenda when comforting others. Just listen and love and be there. That's all anyone really needs from a friend. 

Matthew 19:14 

But Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven.”

Proverbs 3:5 

Trust in the lord with all your heart; lean not on your own understanding.