Honest scrap

Today I was given the Honest Scrap award by Isla's Mommy. Thank you, Melissa!

In order to accept this award, I have to name seven bloggers who write from the heart and then I have to list ten interesting things about myself.

My nominees must post this on their blog and leave comments for their 7 nominees.

My nominees are:

Kayla at Lewis Twins

Mary at Nobody Knows It But Me How I'm Missing Lukas

Bree at My Baby Butterfly Ella

Mia at Our Anencephaly Journey

Dawn at Inanna Journey

Emily at Mumblings from Troy Ohio

Lea at Nicholas' Touch

Ok, now 10 interesting things about me:

1) The first night that I met my husband, I knew I was going to marry him. It wasn't really love at first sight, but a connection and I knew it. He really annoyed me at first though, so I kind of hoped I was wrong and he'd go away. He grew on me.

2) I spent my entire high school career planning for college, grad school, etc. I went away to school, had too much fun, and left after one year. I attempted another year, still screwed up, and then got married. I finally went back to college when I was 27.

3) During my senior year of high school, I won first place in regionals and second place in state for a science project and presentation competition. I still have no idea how I did it because I am terrified of public speaking.

4) It soothes me to look up statistics on whatever issues are going on in my life. I can rattle off stats on weight loss surgery, incompetent cervix, preemie survival rates, PCOS, and more.

5) I graduated summa cum laude with my associate's degree in May of this year.

6) I am named after Jamie Lee Curtis. My dad had a crush on her. My mom chose to spell my name Jaime because she thought it was more feminine. My own grandmother can't spell my name after almost 31 years.

7) My most passionate topic is breastfeeding. I didn't breastfeed Christian. I tried and failed. I then read about the benefits of breastfeeding and became very outspoken. When Hailey was born, it took 6 weeks of pumping around the clock and trying to teach her to breastfeed before she caught on. She nursed until she was 3 1/2, then she self weaned.

8) I remember numbers freakishly well. I can remember any phone number that I have dialed. At work, I could often remember customer's social security numbers. If someone tells me to remember something that involves a number, I can do it. My memory sucks for anything else.

9) I hate the month of February. Crappy things always happen to us in February. Hailey was born in February, which was great, but she was 7 weeks early, I was very sick from pre-eclampsia, and it was a very stressful time for us. Valentine's day is always a disaster. Eric had a very bad car accident in February 2001. Sydney was born and died in February. We've lost two babies that were due in February. I do not like February at all.

10) I had weight loss surgery (Lap Band) on February 28, 2008, which is one good thing that has happened in February. In the first seven months after surgery, I lost 100 pounds, then got pregnant. Since having Sydney, I lost the weight I gained while pregnant, then gained 15 pounds back, and have since only lost 5 of those 15 pounds. I'm trying really hard to get back into weight loss mode because I would like to lose another 50-75 pounds.

Nevaeh Grace

Mia delivered her precious baby girl Nevaeh today. She had anencephaly. Nevaeh lived for one hour. Please pray for this family as they grieve for their sweet angel. It breaks my heart to know that another mother is missing her baby tonight. :*(

Thank you, Bree!

It amazes me that even in the midst of their own pain, amazing women reach out to comfort the rest of us. This butterfly was made by Bree, Ella's mommy, and someone with a story so like my own. Thank you so much, Bree. This means so much to me.

Sydney's angel wings came in the mail from Lea. They are even more beautiful in person. Thank you again, Lea!

We finally decided on the inscription for Sydney's brick at the Angel of Hope. The fall dedication will be some time in October or November. I'm keeping the inscription to myself for now, but it is kind of funny how we came up with it. I told Eric, we have to do this. The order is due September 20 (my birthday) and I've been thinking about it here and there, but 3 lines of 15 characters each is hard. Yesterday I mentioned it to him. I started typing out some things, trying to get it down to 15 characters a line. He made a suggestion that was quite similar to what I was thinking. I said, well I was thinking of something like that and a certain song gave me the idea. He said, that song gave me my idea too. Weird, huh?

I feel Sydney around me a lot lately. It's a very strong feeling. Yesterday, we were outside and a beautiful butterfly was flying all around. It kept flying all around our front step, where we were standing. I see butterflies all the time now. I don't remember ever seeing them as often as I do now. They make me smile every time I see them.

Six months

It has been six months since my entire world was turned upside down and I was left brokenhearted, with empty arms and a grief that no mother should ever have to bear. Some times it is hard to believe that six months have already passed, but other times, I can't believe it has only been six months.

My beautiful girl came to me in my dreams again. This time, she was born early and was the same size and everything. The doctor tried this weird treatment of submerging her in a tube of fluid to develop her lungs, but it didn't work. I took her out of the tube and everything about her was just as I remember. The shape of her little head, with the dark coloring where hair was ready to grow in. The long fingers, arms, and legs. And that sweet face. I cleaned her up and dressed her in a tiny soft sleeper and held her. While I held her, she opened her eyes. I longed to see her eyes, but they were still fused shut when she was born. I finally saw her eyes. They were a very deep blue. She moved all around in my arms, looked at me, and at one point lifted her tiny head up off of my chest. Then I just woke up. I hate to wake up from those dreams. I long for the next.

Waves

I'm at this point where my grief seems to come in waves. When it hits, the waves are huge and I feel like it will knock me over. It seems like I can keep myself occupied enough to not feel the full brunt of my grief all the time, but then it just hits me, out of nowhere and I'm a mess.

We are quickly coming up on the six month mark. I really can't believe it has been almost 6 months. I feel like I'm losing some of the details of her birth and our time together. Sometimes when I think back, I feel like I'm outside of myself, watching what is happening. I miss my baby girl so much. My arms still ache to hold her. I wish I knew what she would've looked like today. She was a pretty good mix of Christian and Hailey, but it's hard for me to imagine.

I'm kind of mad at myself right now because I agreed to go out of town for work on Monday and Tuesday, the 10th and 11th. Every month on the 10th, I've gone to the cemetery. I didn't even realize until after I said I would go that it was on the 10th. I guess I'll go to the cemetery the day before. They still haven't installed her stone. I'm not sure when that will be done. I may call them to find out.

I have decided that I'm over this whole "don't talk about Sydney" thing that some people we know have decided is the way to handle this. If they can't acknowledge her, then I don't want them in my life. This isn't some phase or something I'll ever get over. I'm carrying on with my life because I have to, but that doesn't mean I'll ever go back to who I was before. If people don't like it, we can all agree to go our separate ways, whether I'm related to them or not. Eric posted a Facebook status to that effect and a member of his family actually commented back and said, "What do you want people to say exactly?" Are people really so clueless? Would she ask that to someone who lost their spouse, parent, grandparent, or anybody older? Would it be so hard to ask how we are doing, if there is anything they can do for us (like taking the kids for a couple of days to give us a break). I wouldn't dare dream of them asking to see her pictures, going to the cemetery, or talking openly about her.

In my dreams

A few nights ago, something I've been waiting for finally happened. Sydney visited me in my dreams. It wasn't like I thought it might be, but she was there, alive and whole.

In the dream, I was pregnant. At first, I didn't realize that I was pregnant with Sydney. My dream self remembered all that had happened, it seemed. I thought, I'm pregnant, I'm going to have a baby soon, I'm 39 weeks pregnant, how have I managed to stay pregnant when I was 4 cm dilated at 20 weeks? It was then that I realized the baby was Sydney. I went out to go shopping to prepare for her arrival. In the car, I realized I hadn't felt her move. I started talking to her, moving my belly, trying to get her to respond. I thought, please don't let her be stillborn after all of this. Then she moved. She kicked and squirmed and my whole huge pregnant belly shook. It was so real, so vivid. I talked to her for so long, telling her how happy I was that she was there and how much I love her. When I woke up, I was so sad. I wanted to go back and live in that dream. I wanted to dream of going into labor and having her, to see her beautiful little face. I hope she comes to me again, in a way that I can see her and hold her.

I am not in a good place right now. Sadness and anger have taken over and I feel justified in both so I don't fight it. I am so angry with everybody around me. I feel abandoned and forgotten. Work is really hard because I am surrounded by other people now and have to try to keep it together. It is times like these that I miss working by myself. If I needed to break down, I could. A few days ago, we were all eating lunch and the TV was on. It was on Ellen and it was a repeat of her Mother's Day baby shower show. I ate as quickly as I could and went back to my desk. I was trying really hard to not cry and hold myself together. My boss came by and talked to me and then realized something was wrong. She kept asking me, what's wrong and I kept saying nothing, I'm just busy. She went to her office then called me in a few minutes later. I finally told her what was bothering me and started crying. At least she was sensitive to it and let me talk about it.

Nobody calls to check on me. Even when I do talk to friends or family members, they don't ask how I'm doing. They completely ignore the topic of Sydney. My grandmother (the dog funeral grandmother) calls every few weeks. She will ask me to send pictures. I haven't sent any since Christmas. She has never asked to see pictures of Sydney, so IMO she shouldn't get to see my other two kids or my nephew. I don't bring up Sydney with unwilling parties because they get obviously uncomfortable and that upsets me. I don't want her to be a bad memory. I want her to be what she is--my baby, a member of our family, a part of our lives. Apparently, according to some people, I'm not supposed to expect that out of others. Well I won't. If Sydney isn't acknowledged, they shouldn't expect us to want to be around them. I need my baby to be acknowledged and treated as a member of the family just as the other kids are. Why are the feelings of others more important than MY feelings? I'm tired of everybody thinking more about themselves than us. We are the ones who have lost our child. We are the ones who live with this pain while they pretend she never existed.

I wish I could crawl into bed and stay there. I need a break from life.

Angel Wings

Lea over at Nicholas' Touch has an angel wing memorial on her blog. She added angel wings for Sydney today.

Thank you so much, Lea! They are beautiful.

What was I thinking?

Today, my first baby turned 8 years old. This day brought about some unexpected emotions.

One of my birthday traditions is to watch the video of the kids' births. I realized yesterday that there was no way I could do that today. So I didn't. Then while we were out, Christian said, Mommy, we forgot to do something today, we didn't watch the video of me being born. :-\ I told him, next year, I promise. I felt so bad. I didn't realize how much that meant to him.

We spent part of the day at a local zoo/farm type of place called Grant's Farm. The place was packed and I swear, every family there had a baby. Every family except us of course. And I think probably 90% of those babies were girls. And then there were the little girls toddling around. As if that wasn't bad enough, on the tram ride (and you have to take the tram to get into the main part of the park) we were put in the first row, which is directly behind the area where they transport strollers. Right in front of me sat a pink stroller. At least it wasn't the stroller we bought for Sydney, but still.

We stopped on the way home to pick up a pizza and there was a little girl, probably right about a year old or so, with dark brown curly hair toddling out after her dad. It ripped out my heart to see that girl and know that I'd never see my own little girl toddling out of the pizza place behind her daddy.

The fucking universe hates me.

Walking with you--Naming our babies

Eric and I have very different tastes in names for our kids. Each time we try to agree on something, but I end up picking a name and he agrees to it. LOL We've picked several different names for each child, but we settle on it right before we find out the gender. Our firstborn is Christian Eric. We both love the name Christian and Eric is actually Eric's middle name (his first name is Jeremiah) and his dad's middle name. Our girl name then was Kaitlyn. When I got pregnant with Hailey, we first thought about using Kaitlyn for a girl, but changed our minds. I wanted the middle name to be Ann, which is my mom's middle name, and I didn't think Kaitlyn Ann flowed well with our last name. We had a list of about six girls names and we picked Hailey. Sydney had also been on that list.

When I got pregnant with Sydney, we discussed names a few times, but nothing was really sticking out as THE name to me. A week or so before our 20 week ultrasound, we finally picked names. Our boy name was Jackson. I really thought we were having a boy, which was the first time my intuition was wrong. We picked Sydney as our girl name, with two middle name choices--June, which is Eric's grandmother's middle name, and Sydney was due in June, and Alexis. I only wanted to use June if Sydney was actually born in June. I wasn't crazy about that, but the other two kids have middle names after family members. While we were in the hospital, we agreed that her name would be Sydney Alexis. I love her name. I love to say it, to see it written, or on things. There was never a moment for me when I thought about changing her name--she was always and will always be our Sydney.

Reality

Sometimes I wonder if I'm stuck in some kind of alternate reality. That in my real life Sydney is still alive and the real me is happy. But I'm stuck in this sad, painful Sydney-less world. It is so unreal to me that a tiny precious life can slip away and it seems like so few people remember or care, so unreal that it can't be true.

I've been in a really strange place the last couple of weeks, since Sydney's due date. I was pretty much ignoring that this is my reality. I feel terribly guilty for that. I don't want this to be my life. I want to be a normal, happy mom. I want all of my children here with me. I don't want to grieve anymore. I don't want to have to imagine what my baby girl would look like--I want to know. I hate this life, I hate this grief. I want my old life back, I want my baby back.

The last couple of weeks, I thought about Sydney a lot, but I let other things occupy my thoughts as well. I didn't cry. I went to a concert that I was really looking forward to and I had fun. I did have a couple of times where I thought, I should be home with my baby right now, not at a concert. But last night, I broke. Yesterday was Sydney's 5 month birthday. Five months since she came into my life and left it. We went to the cemetery and put out some new things. Then we went to Walmart to buy school supplies. On the way home, I was thinking about how Sydney should have been tucked into her little safari print carseat, dressed in a little pink dress, with a headful of soft dark hair, sucking on her binky while she fell asleep on the way home. It was such a vivid image in my head. I wanted that so badly. I didn't even realize until she was gone just how much I wanted that.