Easter eggs (pictures)

My mom's friend who hosted my baby shower for Lucas around this time last year (wah!) has an easter egg dyeing night every year before Easter. This year my mom called and asked if she could take Lucas. I told her no but I would bring him by when I was done volunteering at the hospital.

So that's what we did. Pardon me looking like crap, Luke has decided to sleep as little as possible and I can't be bothered with makeup in the few precious minutes I have to get ready without him screaming or emptying out our bathroom drawers and cabinets.

My baby is looking very toddler-ish in this picture!

Wow!

Let's just stick my hand in!

What's so funny? (Note the green hand)

Diving right into the dye

Me and my baby. (He does not mind it when we put stuff on his head.)

These are fun toys! (He cracked like 4 of my mom's eggs.)

This is fun!

Serious business! (This was before the hand turned green. My mom, me, and Luke.)

Eggs!

Picture with our hostess! (Who is also making Luke's birthday cake because she is crazy talented!)

Easter was good. Joe had to work. Luke and I spent the day with my family. (My sister called at 10 and said to come over and bring my appetite. That was easy.) Luke played and played and played. Then we went to my grandmother's house for dinner and met Joe there. It was a pretty quiet night. My grandmother gave Luke this car with a dog in it that plays the Most Annoying Music Ever but Luke LOVES it. He claps his hands and dances and laughs every time it says or sings something, so I'll deal with it (for now. If the batteries run out...I might take my time replacing them.) She also gave him a stuffed animal duck which he found pretty amusing too. (And made me think of Brooke and baby duck Eliza.) The "easter bunny" brought him a ride on train that has a bunch of different spinning toys and stuff on it. The seat lifts up and has a spot to store toys and things. Luke's favorite thing to do is to fill it with plastic easter eggs and then empty it. He has ridden on the train too but he's not crazy about it yet, I don't think he likes feeling out of control when someone is pushing him.

This was the first time in two years that we didn't go to the cemetery on Easter. I should feel guilty about it, but I don't really. (It's 45 min away and I didn't feel like driving out there myself when I was already really tired. And Saturday we were busy with the Easter bunny and trying to get as much done around the house as possible since it was Joe's only day off.) Maybe this is progress? I definitely thought about Olivia a lot, Easter is always hard for that. In fact, Saturday night we were at Applebees getting dinner. Luke started getting a little whiny and then something at the ceiling caught his attention and he stopped, transfixed. I looked up to see what had his rapt attention and it was a pink sparkly streamer with a butterfly at the end of it, hanging right over our table. So then I looked around the restaurant and they had streamers everywhere, but all of the other streamers had bunnies and eggs and flowers and ducks...no other butterflies except the very one we were sitting under and I wouldn't have noticed without Luke staring at it. So, take that for what you will.

Luke has been taking steps here and there for a week or two now. On the 6th, he walked about 6 or 7 steps in a row from Joe to me, the most he had ever done without lunging forward/falling/grabbing something/crawling. Today he started walking around the room, on his own, towards stuff he wanted. *sigh* So I guess he's an official walker now though he's still predominantly crawling. How fast it goes. It's so hard to believe that at this time last year, he wasn't even here yet.

Easter Bunny

So the Bass Pro shops here do free Easter Bunny and Santa pictures every year (and also let you take your own if you wish.) I am a sucker for a good (or free) deal. I was iffy on doing an Easter bunny picture because Luke is too young to understand it, a lot of the easter bunnies now look pretty creepy to me (including the one at Bass Pro), and I wasn't sure we wanted to mess with it. Today is Joe's only day off work for the week and Luke has been sleeping badly (or really I should just say NOT sleeping) this week, so I am extra tired too.

Alas, the mommy guilt won. I can't *not* get Luke's picture with the easter bunny for his first Easter. Which also happens to be his Last First Holiday until/except his birthday. (Wah!) We went to my mom's friends last night to dye Easter eggs, which Luke loved a lot (especially dipping his hand in the green dye), and also grabbing and smashing multiple eggs. I think we should have some cute pictures from that soon.

Anyway, so we went, after stopping at McAlister's for lunch first to get Luke covered in mac n cheese. We got to Bass Pro about 1 and it was packed as usual. (It's actually usually pretty busy all weekends.) The line to see the Easter bunny stretched to the back of the store. We got in it, Joe started whining but Luke was good (better than Joe.) Luckily the line moved quickly. But not quickly enough for us not to notice about 2 families ahead of us was a couple with a little boy just barely older than Luke, with a daughter between 2 or 3. I didn't even notice them at first until the dad was taking the little boy off to see the fish while mom and daughter stayed in line. The daughter tried to go with her dad and mom says, No Olivia, you stay here with mommy. And how's that for an Easter weekend sucker punch? That line could not move fast enough. And then they kept talking and her mom kept saying her name over and over again. Enough that Joe had walked away to look around and then came back and even he noticed them. He asked if I was okay and I said yes but ugh. Their turn came and the little girl smiled for the picture while her little brother cried. It never stops sucking that she isn't here. And even though Olivia's name is her name and we knew it was popular when we chose it, it sucks sometimes randomly hearing it when we're out like that. If the little girl's name hadn't been Olivia, we probably wouldn't have even really noticed or paid much attention to them.

Anyway, Luke didn't love the Easter bunny, but he didn't have a total meltdown either. He made a face like he might cry but then just sorta looked around and by then it was over. So we'll call it a success. I think this particular Easter Bunny was rather creepy looking so I wouldn't have really blamed him for crying, especially since this was his first experience with costumed characters.

Why we will walk...

We really owe the Pre-Eclampsia Foundation, especially the forum and regular (and formerly regular but now MIA) forum members a lot.

In part, I am still alive, thanks to them. And Lucas is here, thanks to them. Olivia is not here, but they gave me a place I could talk about her and learn from people who had been through similar experiences. I think they also have probably saved my sanity (or at least what was salvageable.)

My case of pre-eclampsia and HELLP syndrome (or just HELLP syndrome, if you've been through my medical records and are as technical and rule-following as I am) was not normal at all.

My blood pressure never got very high. My kidneys never spilled protein (at least not that we know of, they never ordered a 24 hour urine test since I always easily passed the dipstick tests with no trace of protein, even in the hospital). The technical diagnostic definition of pre-eclampsia is two blood pressure readings of 140/90 or higher at least 6 hours apart and 300 mg of protein in a 24 hour urine test. Those were not my symptoms (although my doctors still say I had pre-eclampsia which kinda makes me crazy because I'm too literal.) Though most people consider HELLP as a form of severe pre-eclampsia so I guess that is where they are coming from. (In most cases people show signs of pre-eclampsia that turns into HELLP.)

What I did have was SEVERE pain. And swelling. The pain started as a pinch in my lower shoulder blade and back. At first, I chalked it up to normal pregnancy stuff. And it quickly (by that first night) got so bad that I considered going to the ER, except for Joe was out of town on a sailing trip with some friends and I didn't think I could drive myself there. (Duh, in hindsight, I could've called my parents. SHOULD HAVE called my parents.) I am a person who goes to the regular doctor, maybe once every five years or so, and the ER even less than that, so for me to consider going to the ER for pain that is so bad- that should have really gotten my radar up. But I thought it was normal pregnancy stuff and was going to tough.it.out. It was a miserable night of shifting and NOTHING being comfortable, I got the heating pad out and lived with it under my shoulder, and that made it almost tolerable. I remember going to one of my younger brother's baseball games and shifting uncomfortably in my chair and trying to rub the "knot" out and my aunt looking at me sympathetically because I was clearly in so much pain.

And then just as quickly as the pain came, it was gone. For days. And then it was back. And gone again. One of the times it was gone, happened to be a regular OB appointment, I told her about the pain, and she was mildly concerned but not too much since everything seemed mostly normal, but she mentioned that "since you are now over 20 weeks, if you have to go to the hospital, go to L&D". The next week I was back again, the pain was so bad that morning as I was getting ready to teach in Hell City, it made me throw up, I could barely stand. How in the world I still managed to get ready, drive myself 25 miles, and sort of teach (silent reading day, kids!), I have no idea. I mostly sat at my desk but moving around got easier and easier as the morning went by. I already had planned for a half day since I was supposed to have a growth ultrasound, and on my plan time, I called my OB's office to see what they thought about my pain and maybe getting an antibiotic for my "kidney infection"--I thought maybe I had a kidney or bladder infection for an embarrassing reason I will not write about here but if you've been pregnant, you probably know what I'm talking about. They said, "uh, you need to come in", and managed to work some magic to get me in to see my OB in an hour or two.

My blood pressure was normal. My urine was clear. I was no longer in pain by the time she saw me, and I had a hard time pinpointing exactly where the pain was even coming from...under my ribs? my ribs? my shoulder blade? my back? all of the above? IT.JUST.HURT. She figured it was probably the position that the baby was in, and recommended I try prenatal yoga. (I will never ever ever do yoga because of this.) Then we saw on the growth ultrasound that Olivia was way way smaller than she should have been (like had barely grown in 4 weeks), and she mentioned the words "pre-eclampsia" and "delivery soon". (As in, I might be heading towards it, and if the baby did not start to grow better, we would have to deliver soon...)

The pain was on and off for most of the week, usually gone during the day, and there at night, which made me think it probably WAS just the baby and how she was positioned or whatever. I posted about the "stabbing pain in my ribcage" on a fertility website message board and lots of people chimed in that it was normal. And my doctor said it was normal. So I powered through, even though it seemed like every time the pain came back, it was worse than the time before.

And then Sunday night rolled around. I started off uncomfortable, working on lesson plans for the week while Joe went to bed, and the pain got worse and worse and worse. And the heating pad didn't help. Tylenol didn't help. Heartburn meds didn't help (sometimes in the past with "the pain", heartburn meds had helped, for some reason, maybe entirely coincidental.) As I got increasingly miserable, I started googling. Pre-eclampsia, especially, since that was the main thing I had to go on since it was the word my OB had mentioned, but that was really confusing since I didn't have high blood pressure. I ended up on the Pre-Eclampsia Foundation webpage. And I ended up joining and posting. And by this time, the pain was getting so bad that I was starting to have trouble breathing because it just hurt. And some people nicely posted, "get to the hospital, [you dummy]". I called my OB at 3 in the morning on her exchange line and she pretty much said the same thing. So I made up a quick lesson plan for the sub (yeah, idiotic), emailed it to our secretary, emailed the secretary and principal that I would not be in, woke up Joe, and we headed in to the hospital.

I brought a book to read while we waited and my purse, because I seriously thought they were going to figure out what was wrong, fix it, and send me home. I was tragically, beautifully naive. (I still haven't finished reading that damn book.)

By the end of Monday, I had been diagnosed with HELLP, transferred hospitals in an ambulance, had an emergency c-section, Olivia had been born and died, and I was put on awful magnesium sulfate to prevent me from seizing immediately after her delivery.

(Even though I was in a lot of pain, my initial bloodwork was nearly normal with my liver enzymes just slightly elevated. They kept me anyway, and my OB reordered the labs for six hours later. In that time, my liver enzymes more than doubled while my blood platelet numbers dropped by 100,000...normal is around 250,000. It got very bad, quickly, but it started out almost normal, and I'm also lucky that my OB and the hospital didn't just send me home when things looks mostly normal at first. If they had sent me home, I know I would have NEVER went back for the same thing again on my own.)

In one of the many conversations I had with my OB weeks later, she mentioned that if I had not gone into the hospital when I did, I probably would have came in by the next day seizing or worse.

So anyway, The Pre-Eclampsia Foundation was the place that told me that this was Not Normal. This was not something that prenatal yoga would fix or that the baby kicking my rib cage was likely causing. And "hey, dummy, get yourself to the hospital!" (This seems totally obvious NOW, but at that time, I thought they would think I was an idiot or a big wimp, and send me home.) I am lucky that one of those earlier episodes of severe pain did not result in me going into organ failure or worse, especially considering I had the pain off and on for about three weeks. I have no idea how much longer I would have tried to tough it out, had I not come across the PE website and forums, possibly a lot longer.

There are many women and babies who are not as "lucky". A few months later, my aunt in another state, lost her coworker due to HELLP syndrome. The coworker was an ultrasound tech, married to a doctor, she thought the pain was normal, "toughed it out", and it killed her. Pre-eclampsia and HELLP kill women across the country each year, and an appallingly high number of women die in developing countries from these diseases.  "Globally, preeclampsia and other hypertensive disorders of pregnancy are a leading cause of maternal and infant illness and death. By conservative estimates, these disorders are responsible for 76,000 maternal and 500,000 infant deaths each year." --The Pre-Eclampsia Foundation http://preeclampsia.org/health-information/about-preeclampsia

Obviously Lucas could not be here if I had not survived, but he also is here in part thanks to the brave couples who came before me. When you are in the less than 1% , with no family history, and then you are told that for another pregnancy, your risk of getting pre-eclampsia again is as high as 60%+, and a 12% chance of HELLP again, it's pretty damn terrifying. But then I read the stories of women who had first pregnancies like mine on the PE forums, and had healthy take-home babies. And it gave me hope that I could do it too. And while we were in the trenches of ttc and then a stressful high risk pregnancy, they lamented over my charts and frustrating cycles, then as I stressed over miscarrying, and gave me tips on how to make lovenox shots less painful, and questions to ask my doctors, and what testing to expect or ask for. And we made it. I have no idea if it was pure luck, a guardian angel, the hundreds of lovenox shots, the daily aspirin, or all of the above, but whatever it was, Lucas is here. And we are so lucky to have him.

This is the first year we will have a walk for the Pre-Eclampsia Foundation in St.Louis. I am helping with the planning. And I am so excited to have one here. The money the foundation raises goes for research to develop tests like this and to keep the forums going for anyone who may be googling like I was, and to raise awareness which may save lives. Even though people may have heard of preeclampsia, they don't always know what to watch out for (and sometimes they do but are told its normal), they don't always realize how serious it can be, and some tend to believe in myths like eating lots of protein aka the Brewer diet, or eating less salt, can prevent it. There is no known cure except for delivery (and even after delivery, it tends to get worse before it starts getting better), and there is no known prevention (but lots of guesses and hopes.)

We walk in honor of Olivia and the 500,000 babies worldwide each year who die from preeclampsia and HELLP. We walk in honor of the 75,000 women worldwide each year who don't get to go home with their babies or significant others. We walk in honor of all of the babies born too soon who spend days, weeks, months, away from their parents in NICU's. And for those who don't survive the NICU. This year, Joe, Luke, and I will walk.

If you would like to join us or help support the PreE foundation,  (Walk is $20 for adults, $10 for children, includes shirt. Saturday, May 12th, at Millennium Park in Creve Coeur, MO), you can register to join our team or donate here:  http://www.promisewalk.org/pfpw/teampage.asp?fundid=1741&nnaffundid=49  (team name is Brooks, the link to the registration page is in the center of the page below the picture and main page description ).

This and that

Everything has been pretty chaotic lately which does not leave much time for sleeping, let alone blogging, but I will try to get a post done before Luke notices me on the laptop and makes his way over to "help" me type. So bullet point update it is.

- This deserves a separate post, which I might do later. One of my friends and fellow babyloss mom's lost her husband (who I was also friends with though I didn't know him as well as her) about a week and a half ago. No one should have to bury their daughter and then their husband within 6 months. A lot of us are still reeling from this while also trying to help as much as we can. It just sucks. They have been on my mind all the time and she is probably sick of me texting her 3 times a day. I know that like babyloss, this can't be fixed or made better, but oh, how I wish I could.

- Olivia's due date was the 23rd. It's still a very bittersweet, mostly bitter and not very sweet, day for me. Oh, what could have been. I can't say how many times we end up in a group of several or many boys, babies and older kids, with no girls or one girl. Ironically, a lot of my local babyloss friends have lost girls, so the absence of girls makes her and their absence even more glaring.

-Luke is all over and into everything, all the time! He still loves dog food though we are getting better at keeping him away from it. He had pizza for the first time the other day and LOVED it. He is cruising everywhere and it probably won't be long before he's walking, though I really hope he takes his time with it. We are not encouraging walking AT ALL. He has two bottom teeth and one upper tooth that just finally became visible and another upper tooth coming soon. He is not good at sleeping, either naps or bedtime lately. He is talking more and more and seems to be getting more comfortable around strangers. We had his 9 month pictures last week and his 9 month well baby visit, all is well. He was much harder to get pictures of this time around then he was at 6 months, he'd stay somewhere for a few minutes so she could get a few pictures, then decide he'd had enough and start crawling away. I am excited to see the pictures though. I can't believe I need to start thinking about his first birthday soon. Oy.

-School is okay. So far, I have all A's, but it's only the 3rd week. I have two teachers who aren't very good at teaching. (I had to argue that cc is not an abbreviation for milliliter. Really? Poor Brooke had to hear all about this and approve my argument.--Yes, I know that they are the same volume, but the question was specifically the abbreviation for a milliliter, thus cc is not correct since it is the abbreviation for cubic centimeter.)  My third teacher is awesome (and makes the class easy.)

-Volunteering is okay. It's either really slow or really busy, and not much in between. I don't really mind it, but being gone 4 nights a week plus having to do stuff for an online class is hectic, so I will be glad when volunteering is done. (2 months done, 2.5 months to go.)

I think this is all for now.

An Olivia present

Maybe about a month ago, Franchesca (who made my blog pretty) posted on Facebook that The Sufficient Grace Ministries was doing a calendar giveaway, for a calendar with quotes (from various people) made by either her or CarlyMarie (from the "To Write Their Names in the Sand" website). So I entered, and didn't give it much more thought, I usually don't even enter giveaways but I figured I didn't have anything to lose.

A few days before Christmas, I got an email from the Sufficient Grace Ministries telling me that I had won a calendar and asking for my address, of course I was very excited and emailed them back immediately, though I never really expected to receive the calendar before Christmas especially with the post office probably very slammed right before Christmas.

Christmas Eve day found me on one of those "down" moments. Too many pictures on Facebook of little girls in pretty Christmas dresses by their decorated Christmas tree just hit me a little too hard when I was not expecting it. Joe was puzzled as I sat on our loveseat watching Luke play on the floor below me with tears streaming down my face, trying to figure out what was wrong and how to fix something that is not fixable.

I also happened to be anxiously watching the mail because I had ordered some breastmilk storage bags from Amazon (they have the best price, FYI, and free shipping.) I was out of bags and had some milk in bottles in the fridge that *had* to be frozen within the next 2 days or would have to be used or get thrown out. So I was going to run out and buy some overpriced bags at the store if they didn't come that day. Amazon had estimated the arrival on December 26th, which wouldn't have worked at all, but I had watched the tracking info and they were supposedly in our city the day before, so I was hoping that they would show up. As soon as I heard the mail truck, I ran out, and not only were the bags here, but something else. I was puzzled because I really didn't remember what it could be (I'd done a lot of online shopping this year), then I saw the return address label, and there it was, the "Lost For Words" calendar right when I needed that little pick me up the most. (Some people might call that a sign, I'll just say it was awfully nice timing.)

I ended up winning CarlyMarie's calendar. It is beautiful and all of the quotes are fantastic, it is on nice heavy cardstock paper and I wouldn't have regretted buying it if I hadn't won it. Although I like it much more, the way the events unfolded. It is now hanging in our kitchen, and this is the January quote, which I can relate to all too well...


I never welcomed Winter into my heart, though she has been there since he died. The Summer of my life sometimes feels like a distant memory. Although it may have dimmed and faded, my light is eternal and like his soul and mine, they will burn and stay alight forever. 

-Carly Marie Dudley

http://www.redbubble.com/people/carlymarie/works/7946018-january-2012-lost-for-words

Christmas in pictures/video

 

(These are not all his presents, they are all the presents in general- we actually only gave him a couple.)

Here he is "helping" me wrap presents, the night before Christmas Eve.

"walking" with my dad on Christmas Eve

 

2 of many Olivia ornaments, Lucas's only ornament so far. (For a moment I felt guilty that we have 5 or so Olivia ornaments and only one for Lucas, but then I realized it's our third Christmas without Olivia and only our first with Lucas, he'll catch up.)

(I never did find stockings I liked for Lucas and Olivia, then found the last 2 super cheap the day before xmas eve . I've since had a much much nicer Lucas stocking made by pottery barn kids after xmas with his name on it, they were out of the angel stocking that I plan to have made with Olivia's name next year. I made Joe's stocking our first year of marriage, pretty pathetic, I found the Santa and reindeer as a suction cup window decoration, took the suction cup off it, glued it with fabric glue to the plain red stocking, then put his name on it with glitter glue/paint. It has held up amazingly well, I'd say.)

Christmas with and without.

Well, we all survived Luke's first Christmas, and our third Christmas without Olivia.

Christmas has been hard every year (well, maybe not as much the first year- when we were still mostly numb and avoided it all), but this year was especially challenging, as we tried to balance celebrating our first Christmas with Lucas with missing our daughter.

It's the little things and not so little things that are a punch to the gut: Baby's First Christmas ornament that we only have for one baby, stockings, visiting the cemetary on Christmas morning instead of going to church, friend's toddlers all dressed up in front of their tree.

Most of our time at home with just the three of us, I kept thinking about how different it should be but isn't. This is our third Christmas, and it still really sucks that she isn't here.

I think now that we have Lucas here, we felt forced (by ourselves/mommy guilt)to do the Christmas stuff again that we haven't done or to the same extent the previous years. This was the first year I put our tree up since Olivia died (and I waited until the last minute, the 23rd, before I finally did it, and seriously contemplated not putting a tree up at all since it's not like Luke will know or remember the difference- this year at least.) But he LOVES the tree- more than presents and wrapping paper and boxes. So I'm glad I sucked it up and put it up. Anyway, we put the tree up and stockings, shopped (mostly online, thank god for the internet) and wrapped presents, etc. I made and sent out Christmas cards. All of that normal stuff.

And I mostly felt normal. The night before Christmas Eve, after we put the tree up and Lucas to bed, he woke back up while I was in the middle of wrapping presents. I let him crawl around and "help" (which he did by climbing on presents, pulling ornaments off the tree, etc.) while I tried to finish and avoid a trip to the ER with an injured baby. (Sucessful, though it took till 2 am to finally get done.) Even though Lucas wasn't especially helpful, he was really cute, and I thought about how much better this year is with him here vs. last year when he was just in my belly. He really has filled our lives with so much light and laughter and happiness...better than anything I could ask for for Christmas.

We went and saw extended family- Christmas Eve with my mom's side (then at my parent's house later since my siblings both worked Christmas day), Christmas Day we did our own Christmas, then to the cemetery, then to my dad's family. (Joe's family is all in PA.) Luke did pretty well with the choas and so many people and our schedule and everything totally off. He got plenty of presents, although he was pretty ambivalent about unwrapping them. All in all, it was good. Bittersweet as always, but a lot of sweet to go with our bitter this year. Hopefully next Christmas will be even better.

Effing facebook, or, watching a trainwreck

So in case you didn't know, Facebook is up to their usual tricks, next week they are rolling out their "timeline" thing- so now everyone's page will be in a timeline format and all of your old posts and everything can come back to haunt you. You can preview what yours will look like by clicking on your name.

So, back in 2009, I whined about my job in Hell City and the spawn of satan 6th graders on FB probably at least 3x a week. (I know, I know, it is amazing that everyone hasn't hidden me.) I decided I should probably go back and clean that up, even though I try to keep my settings pretty locked down, I might want a job again someday, etc. etc. (Although cleaning up my FB page definitely confirms that it shouldn't be in teaching, 90% of my posts prior to Olivia and Luke were countdowns to summer or spring break or hoping for snow days, etc. Again, pretty amazing if I'm not hidden to most people. It was annoying even to me, in hindsight.)

Anyway, of course in the process of that, I stumbled on my last few posts teaching in Hell City and before Olivia died (some that I deleted , some that I kept up). God, it's eerie and sickening and I don't know how else to explain it, seeing those posts Before and After. Franchesca/Small Birds studio (who made my blog pretty), posted the other day about seeing a picture of herself before she lost her daughter and how there's just something different in pictures now. I totally agree with that. The innocence and naivety and faith that things usually turn out okay, that I had and felt, is not there anymore. I mean, now I know that sometimes things turn out okay (like with Lucas), and sometimes, they really, really, really don't (like the babyloss mom community.)I still can't believe that even after my OB was talking about delivering Olivia at around 24ish weeks due to her bad growth, while I was worried, I had no sense of the impending doom or urgency that I should have had- like seriously, what the hell was wrong with me? (My now 25 year old brother was a 29 weeker in the 80's and he's perfectly fine and healthy, so I think maybe part of it was that I thought if she did get delivered extremely early, as long as it was 24 weeks or later, they could save her and it would be fine, albeit a long NICU stay...because that world I was in...babies didn't die.)

Also, it's crazy how much I whined about school/teaching, but when I was having that stabbing upper right quadrant/ribcage pain that you know- was my liver on the verge of rupturing for 2ish weeks- nope, not a peep whining about that. That was going on through most of mid-late September and I am sure did not help me be less whiny or stressed in general. But working every day from 6 am till 10 pm and barely stopping to eat (my lunch every day was with 100ish 6th graders who were seriously the spawn of satan and could not behave then either...what the hell kind of school makes teachers eat lunch with middle schoolers? School in Hell City, that's where!)

Anyway, here it is, the last couple months of my pregnancy from facebook:

July 15, 2009
is excited that on Aug. 15 we get to find out if it's a girl baby or boy baby! If only that didn't seem like forever away...

August 15, 2009
BABY BROOKS IS A GIRL!!!

August 21,2009
Baby Brooks (7 photos)
First "pictures" of our baby. Expected arrival Jan. 23, 2010!

August 22,2009
is hopefully going crib shopping today...for the 3rd time...

August 31, 2009
knows it's way too soon to be burnt out already....but I'm burnt out already.
(this was the 3rd week of school when it became apparent these kids were the spawn of satan)

September 14, 2009
wishes it was January...or better yet...MAY!
(already knew I wasn't teaching there next year)

September 20, 2009
finally ordered the crib! I guess this means we should probably start cleaning out the baby room. Now, if only my work would fire me so I'd have time for this.
(seriously would have been happy to be fired, at this point I didn't feel like I could quit without losing my teaching license...and obviously someone who orders a baby crib at 21 weeks is living in a world where babies don't die)

September 21, 2009
so it's not looking good for the January baby to be a January baby after all...hopefully she at least hangs in there until November.

friend asks-what's wrong!?!?!?

Response: She's not growing very well. At my last ultrasound, she was 8 days behind, and now she is 2 weeks behind, so they are thinking that I may have pre-eclampsia or something wrong with the placenta. If she continues to fall even more behind, then they want to get her out sooner than later. 24 weeks is considered viable and I'm 22 weeks now, but hopefully she can stay put until at least Nov. because she'd still be very very early even then.

(why the hell I was so calm about all of this, I don't know. And I wasn't exactly "calm" but I kind of want to smack myself in hindsight. Also, the reason they only said I "might" have pre-eclampsia was because my blood pressure was still perfectly normal and I was not spilling protein, but I was very swollen and in a lot of pain.)

September 24, 2009
is DONE. I'm either quitting or going on medical leave, I am so not doing this anymore! And by the way, crying is very effective classroom management...it really freaked the 6th graders from hell out.
(not one of my finer teaching moments. But this was after my principal- who knew everything that was going on with my pregnancy- called me into her office during my plan period and chewed me out for an hour for "not disciplining" one of the biggest spawns of satan...because he was so bad some of the other kids were going to her and complaining about him...when I pointed out that I had written him up multiple times even that week, sent him in the hallway (which we weren't supposed to do), called home, given him detention, exactly wtf else was I supposed to do with the kid...her helpful response was "I've never seen a write up" and then she looked at the computer and there they were...20 minutes later I'm at lunch with same kid, he throws a milk carton across the table, I'm just done and send him directly to the office since we had just had this long talk, she sends him right back to my class as soon as lunch was over- thanks for the help.) Like I have said, I have *at least* as much PTSD from teaching in Hell City as I do from losing Olivia. I do not talk to a single person still from that entire school and I have a couple of school spirit t-shirts from the school that I really want to burn.

September 25,2009
is very happy it's Friday and today is most likely my last day...one way or another..l am DONE. Spirit day indeed.
(it really was my last day there, not for the reasons I had thought.)

September 25, 2009
will hear back from the doctor on Monday. In the meantime, I need to find the meanest sub ever.
(I had called the doctor sobbing during my plan period begging her to put me on medical leave. We had talked about it at my appointment earlier in the week but she had said bedrest isn't proven to help--which is still true even now-- but she also didn't realize the extreme stress I was under at that time. The nurse took my call and all the info and said the doctor was out of the office and would call me back Monday. I did talk to her Monday, but it was at 3 am and then in the hospital.)

September 30, 2009
Olivia Caetlyn Brooks was born at 8:48 pm on Monday, Sept.28 via an emergency c-section. She passed away about an hour later. Angie and Joe are doing as well as can be expected, we thank our wonderful friends and family for your prayers and support.

October 2, 2009
was released from the hospital today and physically feeling almost normal even though I'm supposed to be recovering from a c-section. We are both doing okay. Thanks again to everyone for all of your thoughts and prayers, they have really helped us.

October 22, 2009
turned in my work laptop today, I think I'm pretty much done with that place now--very glad that I'm out of that nightmare, at least.

It still amazes me how it went so very wrong, so quickly. But I guess that's how it usually does go with babyloss, and our drama actually dragged out longer than most since things started going wrong with the bad quad screen at the end of August, then they noticed she was several days behind (8, but a week off is considered normal so they weren't too worried yet but going to watch it..I didn't post about any of that.) Anyway, I probably could have done without that trip down memory lane, so thanks Facebook.

18 years

A couple nights ago my friend Jackie and I met someone who lost her daughter (I think her first child), eighteen years ago.

Her baby lived for 17 hours and then died of Group B strep, that was before they commonly tested for it. She said that a year later, they made it a routine test.

So she beamed at us and said that now she feels so lucky and glad to have an angel. And grinned at us like we were in this secret, really cool club.

And I might have unintentionally gave her my "are you smoking crack?" look because it was so over the top and I was so caught off guard and dumbfounded by it.

I was telling Joe about it yesterday when we were driving to the Angel of Hope statue and he was also flabbergasted.

This isn't to say that there aren't good things that have happened as a result of Olivia's death. I have  new, fantastic, friends, that I wouldn't have if Olivia were here. I'm probably a better person overall. I'm definitely a better mom to Lucas because of Olivia. I will have a new career. Etc. I mean, I'd still trade that all to have her back, but since she isn't coming back, I can at least recognize that some good has come of it.

But I really can't imagine ever being so dang happy about it and acting like I'm glad that I have "an angel" instead of a living daughter. As I was trying to explain it to Joe, I said, "It was like she was saying that she was glad or happy that her daughter died. " I will never be glad or happy that Olivia died, I can't fathom that or what it takes to get to that point. Self- preservation, maybe? I don't know. But I would like to think that 18 (er, 16) years from now, I won't be *happy* about it.

Like Brooke says, all sorts of people lose babies, even tacky and crazy and weird people. (Some people are probably crazy and weird and tacky before they lose babies and some people maybe it's an after effect. I'm sure I've had my share of crazy and weird days, but some of the things you hear are just way way beyond that .) I think maybe we can chalk this up to another person who is just out there, maybe.

Wherever you are

This has quickly become one of my favorite books to read to Lucas, although unfortunately we have a nice hardback/paper copy and he always tries to grab/eat/chew/tear it, so I have to read fast and keep it out of his reach. The illustrations are fantastic and we just got "It's Time to Sleep, My Love" from the same author with equally breathtaking illustrations. (p.s. They sell Nancy Tillman's books at Kohls for $5, as well as the stuffed animal characters illustrated in her books for $5, and all the proceeds go to charity from the book/stuffed animal sales. )
I always feel like I'm reading it to both of our babies, which is pretty obvious why when you read it:

"Wherever You Are My Love Will Find You" by Nancy Tillman

I wanted you more
than you ever will know,
so I sent love to follow
wherever you go. 

It's high as you wish it. It's quick as an elf.
You'll never outgrow it...it stretches itself!

So climb any mountain...
climb  up to the sky!
My love will find you.
My love can fly!

 Make a big splash! Go out on a limb!
My love will find you. My love can swim!

It never gets lost, never fades, never ends...
 if you're working...
 or playing...
or sitting with friends.

You can dance 'til you're dizzy...
paint 'till you're blue...

There's no place, not one,
that my love can't find you.

And if someday you're lonely,
or someday you're sad,
or you strike out at baseball,
or think you've been bad...
just lift up your face, feel the wind in your hair.
That's me, my sweet baby, my love is right there.

In the green of the grass...in the smell of
the sea...in the clouds floating by...
at the top of a tree...in the sound
crickets make at the end of the day...
"You are loved. You are loved. You are loved," they all say.

My love is so high, and so wide and
so deep, it's always right there, even
when you're asleep.

So hold your head high
and don't be afraid
to march to the front
of your own parade.

If you're still my small babe
or you're all the way grown,
my promise to you
is you're never alone.

You are my angel, my darling, 
my star...and my love will find you,
wherever you are.

Thanksgiving 2011

Oh, how far we have come. I remember Thanksgiving a couple of years ago was just brutal. Olivia died at the end of September, I was released from the hospital in October, then Joe's family was here and we buried her, and suddenly it was November. When Thanksgiving hit, I was just coming out of that self protective numbness blurry fog that is the first six-ish weeks. Why we tortured ourselves trying to go places that first Thanksgiving, I don't know, but it was a big mistake. We wisely stayed home and pretended Christmas didn't exist that year. Last year, we were just freaking terrified about what might happen in the months ahead.

But here we are in 2011 and we have a healthy, happy, wonderful little boy to show for the terrifying pregnancy that was last holiday season, and he has brought us a long way in healing. While we won't ever be exactly the same people we were pre-September 2009, I never thought that I could or would ever be this happy again. Yes, there's a lingering sadness or a scar, behind the happiness, but the happiness is there. But there's also a sense of pride in how far we've come, and a resiliency I didn't know I had.

Anyway, our Thanksgiving was good. Lucas was happy and good and we had a nice day with family.

Could this Thanksgiving have been better? Of course. It will always be "could have been better", but for what it was, it was better than I imagined it ever could be again. It still sucks, but oh, it can and does get better.

Life sentence

The heartbreak of infant loss

By Laura Schubert

Did you know that October is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month? I'll bet not. Despite the infant mortality crisis that's been at the forefront of Milwaukee's public health news for months, the only people who have more than a cursory comprehension of what it means to lose a baby are those who've lived it.

Infant loss is nature's cruelest practical joke. It's investing all of the required time and effort into pregnancy, only to be robbed of the result. It's cradling a body that grew within your own and trying to reconcile the cold, lifeless form in your arms with your memory of the baby who turned double flips in your womb.

It's worrying that you'll forget what your child looked like and snapping an album's worth of photos that no one will ever ask to see. It's sobbing so hard you can't breathe and wondering if it's possible to cry yourself to death.

Infant loss is handing off a Moses basket to the nurse who's drawn the unfortunate duty of delivering your pride and joy to the morgue and walking out of a hospital with empty arms.

It's boxing up brand new baby clothes and buying a 24-inch casket. It's sifting through sympathy cards, willing your foolish body to stop lactating, clutching your baby's blanket to your chest in hopes of soothing the piercing ache in your heart.

It's resisting the urge to smack the clueless individuals who compare your situation to the death of their dog or who tell you you'll have another baby, as if children are somehow replaceable.

Infant loss is explaining to your 7-year-old that sometimes babies die and being stumped into silence when she asks you why. It's watching other families live out your happy ending and fighting a fresh round of grief with every milestone you miss.

It's being shut out of play groups for perpetuity. It's skipping social events with expectant and newly minted mothers because, as a walking worst-case scenario, you don't want to put a damper on the party.

It's listening to other women gripe about motherhood and realizing that you no longer relate to their petty parental complaints because, frankly, when you've buried a baby, a sleepless night with a vomiting toddler sounds something like a gift.

Infant loss is pruning from your life the friends and relatives who ignore or minimize your loss. It's recognizing that, while they may not mean to be hurtful, the fact that they don't know any better doesn't make their utter lack of empathy one whit easier to bear.

My baby girl would have been 5 years old this month. I don't know what she'd look like, what her favorite food would be. I've never had the privilege of tucking her into bed, taking her to the zoo or kissing her boo-boos. I will never watch her graduate or walk down the aisle.

Infant loss is more than an empty cradle. It's a life sentence.

------
I know lots of people have posted this on blogger and facebook, but its too well written not to repost.

I'll add a few more...

Infant loss is...

-hesitating every time someone asks how many kids you have, or "is he your first", because there never is a good way to answer, and sometimes answering with the truth just leads to really crappy comments.

-never looking at anything quite the same way as you did before


-figuring out how to do family pictures when one family member is always missing


- living with random flashbacks of the worst moments of your life


-struggling with your spouse being sad when you aren't, or not being sad when you are, or just grieving differently


-Books for children like "We Were Supposed to Have a Baby But Got an Angel Instead" and "Someone Came Before You" and wondering when you will be able to read it without crying, and when is it appropriate to start reading anyway. And wishing you could burn that damn book and get your baby back instead.


Feel free to add yours, fellow babyloss mom's

6 month pictures sneak peek

So he turned 24 weeks old a week after these were taken (last weekend), but he's technically not 6 months till Oct.27th so we are pretty impressed with his sitting. (He did wobble but Joe was behind him with hand out to catch him every few minutes.)

Have I told the story of the lamb? Things went crazy so quickly the day Olivia was born...I called my parents from the hospital that morning just to let them know I was there but "everything is fine" because we still insanely naively thought it was. Then it wasn't fine and I was in an ambulance to level III NICU hospital and my parents were on the way. When it became clear we were delivering, when they prepped me for c-section my mom ran down to the gift shop and bought a little lamb. She gave it to us right before we went in to the OR. Joe put it in his pocket, and when they gave her to us, got the lamb out and held it next to her. We bought 2 more lambs, 1 is buried with her, 1 we gave to my mom, and the original lamb from the delivery room is in our memory box. So when I was pregnant over a year later, a month or so before Lucas was due, it occurred to me to try the gift shop to get a lamb for him. The gift shop inventory changes a lot- we walk by it every month to get to the support group and they ALWAYS have different stuff in the windows, so I wasn't very optimistic about finding another lamb, but sure enough, almost 2 years later, they were still there. So Lucas has one and we include it in some of our pictures as a symbol for Olivia.

Anyway, here are the pictures that we have back as our sneak peek, we are very excited to see the rest!

To anyone in our area, we can't recommend our photographer highly enough. She is the sister of another baby loss mama and also volunteers with NILMDTS (Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep- an organization that sends professional photographers out to take pictures for families for free in the hospital with their child.) So I liked her a lot just knowing that (which she does not mention but her sister told me).

Anyway, we are in love with all of the pictures we have so far and I think we did a good job of remembering Olivia with the main focus being on Lucas since it was *his* photo shoot after all.

SHARE walk for remembrance, 2011, Part 1

Lucas and my mom and balloons

Joe and Lucas

Lucas and me, wearing our Olivia butterflies and the butterfly we made for Brooke's Eliza
since Brooke wasn't able to make it, Lucas was determined to get that glittery foam goodness into
his mouth so we had to ditch his butterfly

Little brothers ARE awesome indeed.

Jackie and me, moms to an angel and a rainbow

This does not even come close to capturing the crowd, people in green are bereaved parents.

Again, only part of the crowd.

There are a few more pictures I have to share that other people took, so I'll make that as a Part 2 post when I get them.

The weather was PERFECT. The crowd was huge. It was a nice day to remember all of our babies who left too soon. Seeing so many people I knew there made me realize just how many people I have met in this journey. I am grateful for all of them.

October 15

October 15 is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day. Today we honor the babies we carried but never met, those we held but could not take home, and the ones who came home but couldn't stay.

To my friends, you and your angels are in my thoughts and prayers today, and everyday. I will be forever thankful to have walked this journey with you all by my side. ♥

 

(Stolen from a friend's facebook status, but I know I can't say it any better than she just did.)

 

Best picture ever

Last weekend we had Lucas's photo shoot, I will put the "normal" pictures up when they are all done. Our photographer was/is AMAZING, I cannot recommend her highly enough and her rates are crazy low.

Anyway, she got this picture for us (while Lucas was having a big breakdown but luckily you can't tell), which might be my personal favorite "family" picture ever.

October 15th is Pregnancy and Infant Loss remembrance, so this picture is perfect timing. Tomorrow (technically today since it is 1 am- I can't sleep- too many thoughts going on in my head) we will be at a Remembrance Walk for our daughter and all of the other babies that left much too soon. 

Olivia's birthday

It's hard to find the words for yesterday. I started a few different blog posts and erased them, so maybe we'll try pictures instead.

It was a beautiful day. Just like last year. I bought the same happy birthday butterfly balloon and the same heart balloon as last year (but this year decided to write on it), and this year added a pink flower balloon. One for each of us.

 And Lucas was dressed for the occasion but totally uncooperative for pictures, he was fascinated by grass.

Actually, Lucas is a mellow happy baby most of the time overall but yesterday he was especially cooperative (with the exception of pictures and then at bedtime he'd fall asleep for 5 minutes, wake up when I put him in bed, and then was wide awake chattering away like it was the middle of the day. Finally I put him on the floor to play and let him wear himself out.) I was concerned about trying not to cry in front of him much since he's not quite as oblivious now, that was a failure, but luckily he didn't seem concerned about it.

 

 We left flowers, and broke the rules again this year and left a little doll and winnie the pooh figurine (last year they let the stuff we left stay for almost a year- technically since its a national cemetery "stuff" is against the rules but they tend to let it slide if it is subtle and plus Olivia's grave faces away from the street).

Then we released the balloons (Lucas participated)

I had my eye out for butterflies, but there weren't any. No animals or insects of any kind, but strangely enough, right after the balloons were out of sight, a big orange butterfly flew quickly across the street, past us, and was gone...too quick for me to get a picture and even Joe nearly missed it because it came and went so quickly. If I hadn't been looking around, I would have missed it too.

Then we stopped by the angel/park on the way home (this is where we will be back next week for Lucas's early 6 month pictures- fingers crossed the weather cooperates)

 The angel always accumulates lots of stuff.

We added a baby doll and teddy bear and another winnie the pooh figure to the collection.

And a flower to Olivia's brick,

More uncooperative baby pictures (but at least he's smiling).

I had to go to the bathroom and when I walked back up to Joe and Lucas, this butterfly practically flew into me. (It looks a lot like the same butterfly at the cemetery but I'm sure it isn't since they are 20ish miles apart.)

Then we came home and ate cupcakes. They had sprinkles and tinkerbell on them.  Joe and I went through her memory box and cried a lot more while Lucas played and laughed at us.

It was a nice day, for what it was. We received so many nice messages and texts and emails, and even an incredibly nice and unexpected card. That definitely made the hard day a little easier. But it was definitely still sad and hard and draining. It also definitely helped to have Lucas to squeeze a little extra tightly, poor kid. Although I think being pregnant with him for Olivia's first birthday forced me to keep it together a bit more and this year I tried but really couldn't.

Happy birthday, baby girl.