The Alchemy of Grief

Videos Of Baby Marc

2012-02-25T12:55:00.001-08:00

I am so extremely grateful that I took these videos while I was pregnant with baby Marc. I am so fortunate to have sonogram videos and things like this as tangible things to remember him by.

Baby Marc moving inside my tummy at 36 weeks!:)

Midwife Appointment 14 days before Marc was born and died. Wish I could tell that Jena to go to the hospital and have a csection that day!

These are all at 13 weeks

These are all at 10 weeks

What-A-Mess

2012-02-21T18:11:00.000-08:00

I have been ignoring my need to blog for too long. Part of me wonders if this may be the reason I am having such a difficult time lately. I usually pride myself of my carefully worded blog posts however I haven't been able to organize and articulate my emotions as efficiently as I usually do. Thoughts and feelings are mixed up and scattered in my heart and mind like a jigsaw puzzle with thousands of pieces. It actually makes a lot of sense if you think about it. I am nearly 15 weeks pregnant and almost 8 months out from losing baby Marc. I have the extreme joy of knowing that I have a little life growing inside of me and I have the extreme sadness of losing the one I was just beginning to know all at the same time.

I feel like a broken mess. Sadness, love, fear, anxiety, stress, joy, guilt, anticipation, anger, hope and a whole mess of other things that I could never describe are things that I feel a little of every single day. It is so exhausting! This is such a roller coaster of emotions. Everyday I have sweeping highs and deep dark lows. Sometimes I get a very brief moment, maybe ten minutes where I feel like I can do anything. For some reason this usually happens on my drive home from work. I usually plan out all the things I am going to do for the day. It is usually like 20 things that I know take longer than just one day but I feel happy and energized. Then I get home and that feeling is just gone and it makes no difference if I sit down and try to relax or I keep going and run errands or try to clean. There are usually a few happy, distracted hours that I get to spend with Marc before he goes to work but once he leaves it sets in again and slowly takes hold of me throughout the rest of the day until I am totally depressed and crying hoping that Marc walks in the door soon. I wish I could write about my steady climb to happiness. I wish I could report that I am stronger every day but I lately I just feel weak.

I have so much fear and anxiety mixed in with grief of not having Marc. I am worried about the same type of loss, a cord accident. Even though I know that only 1%-2% of pregnancies result in a late pregnancy loss no matter what the cause. I have general anxiety and stress about everything! The bad part about that is that I need to stay busy and plan trips and projects to try and ward off the deep depression but I stress myself out trying to do that. Most days I end up being so exhausted from the stress and anxiety that I just don't do anything and then the depression sets in. I thought I was doing better! I really cannot understand this process. How could I go from doing better to being so depressed, its like one step forward and then five steps back.

I do have good days though. I have times when I am laughing for real, usually when I am around people, specifically Marc or Amber. I feel like over the past 8 months I have depleted my internal source of positive energy and now it is so hard to pick myself up when I need to. For example, I started making a baby blanket for this baby. I got about twenty minutes into crocheting when I started thinking about making baby Marc his blanket, the blanket that is still hanging over the glider in the nursery that we rarely step foot into. I remember spending the hours crocheting that blanket and dreaming of the day I would wrap my little Marc up in it and rock him to sleep. I thought why am I making this blanket for this baby when he might not even get to use it. Then I felt bad because this baby deserves to have the same things that baby Marc had. This baby deserves a special blanket that mommy made while she was waiting for his arrival. Even if he doesn't make it here he still should have the same type of things prepared for him. Then I just got so angry that I could not have that dreamy wonderful feeling that I had when I was pregnant with baby Marc. I immediately started sobbing uncontrollably, I was actually hyperventilating and had to text my mom to call me so that she could calm me down since Marc was at work. I finished the blanket in three days but I didn't dare dream of this baby being wrapped in it. I have to catch myself when I realize that I say things like "if this baby is here at Christmas..." or "maybe we will get to do this with the baby..."

I thought reading to this baby might help me bond with him, something I can tell is harder than it was with baby Marc. Of course I love and want this baby but I can tell that things are different this time. When I was pregnant with baby Marc there was not one moment that I forgot I was pregnant, now I forget that I am pregnant quite a bit. I know I do it as a coping mechanism. I can't think about being pregnant all of the time because when I do I have all those mixed feelings and it's overwhelming. I assume that forgetting I am pregnant will get harder to do once I can feel him moving, at least I hope.

The sad thing is that before I could start reading to this baby I had to go to half price books to buy some new children's books to read. Although the trip to the bookstore was not due to a lack of great children's books already in the nursery. I just could not bring myself to read the books I had read to baby Marc or imagined myself reading to him. That makes me feel awful too! I need to be able to read those books to this baby. I need to be able to do all the things I imagined with baby Marc with this baby!

A study done in 1989 found that, regardless of the timing of the subsequent pregnancy following a loss, mothers in their descriptive study talked freely about having feelings of replacement. I know I will never be able to replace Marc and that this baby is his/her own unique person but I have instinctively done a few things that have made me feel guilty. First, we were on our way to get a sonogram and I told Marc that I was excited and I couldn't wait to see baby Marc. Second, my friend Amber and I were at half price books and I picked up a book that had a Andrew written on the inside cover. I put it back and told her that I did not want to buy a book that had some other little boys name in it but that I wanted Marc to be able to put his name in the book. I am glad there were not any kids in the children's section that day because I must have looked insane as a sat on the floor crying. Maybe I would have done those things even if Marc were here, like my mom who can't seem to call any of us by our name when all five of her children are in the same room. Maybe it was just one of those kinds of mix ups and if baby Marc were here we would laugh about it and it would mean nothing but he is not and since I don't understand all these feelings it made me feel guilty and hurt.

So like I said....this blog post is a mess. I tired to produce coherent thoughts but still feel like its all jumbled and I am too tired to figure out a better way to word and organize things. No real conclusion here. Just a jumbled mess of raw thoughts that I happened to be able to get together and off my shoulders.

The Best Laid Plans-Random Thoughts on Death and Living

2012-02-21T18:02:00.000-08:00

"Death is a natural part of life. Rejoice for those around you who transform into the Force."

YODA, Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith

I never really thought about death before baby Marc but his death was such a slap in the face that now I can't ignore it. At any given moment something crazy could happen while you are doing normal everyday things and we or someone we love could be gone in an instant. Case in point:

2007: Humberto Hernandez, a 24-year-old Oakland, California resident, was killed after being struck in the face by an airborne fire hydrant while walking. A passing car had struck the fire hydrant and the water pressure shot the hydrant at Hernandez with enough force to kill him
2008: Isaiah Otieno, 23, a Kenyan student living in Cranbrook, British Columbia, was killed when a Bell 206 helicopter crashed on top of him as he walked along a residential street
2010-Amy Rose Coxall, a 15-year-old British schoolgirl studying in Hong Kong, died of strangulation shortly after her scarf got caught in the wheel of a go-kart she was driving on a karting course.
2010-Jimi Heselden, owner of the Segway motorized scooter company, was killed when he accidentally drove off a cliff on a Segway at his estate at Thorp Arch near Boston Spa.

Ok ok...the likelihood of myself or someone I love dying from a freak accident like these is slim I know but then I think about my cousin Alex who was healthy and in his early twenties when he had a brain aneurism that killed him instantly. No warning. No battle with illness or old age. Just gone. Gone in just a few moments. Even though I have experienced the death of baby Marc it is still almost unfathomable. Someone can be alive and talking one moment and then just completely gone the next. My baby was kicking and moving with a strong heartbeat one minute and the very next was hanging on by a thread...that broke.

"How surely are the dead beyond death. Death is what the living carry with them. A state of dread, like some uncanny foretaste of a bitter memory. But the dead do not remember and nothingness is not a curse. Far from it"

CORMAC MCCARTHY, Suttree

Death is not a subject we talk about in society very often. I would say that it is hard to find people who are actually comfortable talking about death. To talk about death is morbid or weird and most people will probably change the conversation in favor of a lighter topic but one thing baby Marc is teaching me is how life is so fragile. Thinking about death and it's inevitability and it's element of surprise brings perspective and forces one to see what is truly important.
I used to need to plan things, need to know what was going to happen each year over the next ten years. How many kids will we have, how will they be spaced, when will I get a job, when will we buy a house, I just so badly needed to have a plan. What did that do for me? It only made me worried when things weren't right on track or had to be changed. I would waste hours of my present day thinking of the plans. Now I see painfully that we can't control everything and our plans no matter how carefully laid can be changed in a matter of seconds.
Of course we still need to plan, have hopes and dreams and set goals for the future. That is the happy kind of planning. I am talking about the obsessive and stressful type where you are so consumed with that specific course that you don't take the time to enjoy where you are at the moment.
At the moment I am consumed with stress, anxiety and all sorts of emotions but I do take a minute each day to think about how lucky I am to have what I have in this very moment. I do try to learn from baby Marc and live as much as possible in the present. Naturally I worry about things in the near future but I don't worry about long term things anymore. Not like I used to. We will talk about when to have baby #3 and #4 when we are ready, I will look a teaching job when the time is right, maybe Marc will go back to school, and maybe we will buy a house in a few years. Those kinds of things will happen when they happen and those decisions cannot be made right now with the limited information that we have. Those decisions have to made as you come to them because we never know what tomorrow holds and how what happens tomorrow will shape our future plans.

“One has to live in the present. Whatever is past is gone beyond recall; whatever is future remains beyond one’s reach, until it becomes present. Remembering the past and giving thought to the future are important, but only to the extent that they help one deal with the present.” – S.N. Goenka

Lift My Spirits So That I May Be Of Use

2012-01-10T20:48:00.000-08:00

Happy are they who know good and do good.
Their love for the good feeds them continually.
They are like trees planted near the river,
whose roots go deep and wide.
They thrive, bear fruit in season, and
weather drought without wilting.
Those who are not so grounded
will blow around like dry leaves in the wind.
Root yourself in Good, and live.

Psalms 1

It is amazing how some baby loss mamas decide to honor their baby by giving something of themselves to help others through this continual journey of finding a new normal. I have discovered so many helpful websites and programs and there are too many to cover in one blog post so today I will focus on three women who have all lost a baby and who have helped me immensely the past 6 1/2 months, not to mention the countless mothers they have helped and continue to help find peace.

Jennifer Stocks~ My Tangible Peace

On October 8th, 2000, Jennifer lost her daughter named Madison Grace to SIDS. She creates beautiful custom sculptures with your babies likeness for an affordable price. Here is an excerpt from her website.

“Now I pour my heart and soul out here because I have learned some things about myself and about the whole grieving process during the past decade. The first thing that I have learned is that there is just not enough information out there for bereaved parents. I'm not talking internet, but more along the line of books, studies, and reports, the things that are out there really only cover the first two years of loss not how to survive your lifetime.

The second thing that I have discovered is that I have found the tangible piece that I have been searching for. A friend emailed me a forward of Camille Allen's hand sculpted, "Marzipan Babies". Now, with a little more research I've learned that these creations are not made from marzipan, but out of polymer clay.

As of this year (2011) I am proud to announce that I have finished my 671th piece. I still enjoy my quality time spent pushing and sculpting my beige clay. When it comes to grieving there are no rules or guidelines. What I have learned from my research is that bereaved parents go out seeking pieces or memento's of their deceased children. They search for that tangible piece that will forever keep that child physically close. Although the memories will always be there, it's in that physical, touchable, loss that is the hardest for the parents to cope with. For years I would scan the shelves of stores, craft fairs, whatever, for SOMETHING that would bring a piece of her back to me. Every now and then I would indeed see something and I would buy it but it wouldn't give me the peace that I was so desperately searching for, it only satisfied that desire for a short time. By making these little guys I have found my peace, My Tangible Peace, and I want to share them with whoever is interested.”

She created this beautiful miniature sculpture of Marcus for us in December. I cherish it and I am so thankful she is there to offer this meaningful service.

You can find her here http://www.freewebs.com/mytangiblepeace/ and here http://www.etsy.com/shop/mytangiblepeace

Carly Marie Dudley~ Christian’s Beach

Here is a recent news article about what Carly does, it is much more concise and clean than I could be if I attempted to describe it. She wrote Marcus name in the sand in November, 2011.

By Margaret Price, Wanneroo Times

Healing hands... Carly Dudley with her husband Sam and children Ocea (2), River (4) and Scarlett (6). Picture: Bruce Hunt

WHEN Carly Dudley began writing the names of deceased children in the sand at local beaches three years ago, little did she know the journey it would take her on.

Now, more than 14,000 names later, Carly’s special “ministry” has generated many other initiatives, which bring comfort to grieving families.

These include “memory boxes” and miscarriage gift packs for King Edward Memorial Hospital, memorial services, a Luminous Light friendship group and a card service for special anniversaries, such as a due date or birthday.

Carly and husband Sam, of Banksia Grove, created Christian’s Seashore in 2008 in memory of their son who was stillborn on Australia Day in 2007.

They also have three daughters, Scarlett (6), River (4) and Ocea (2).

A dream inspired Carly to write “lost babies” names in the sand, usually at sunset, to honour their lives.

An initial three names from the dream quickly became 70 and then 2500 as word of the ministry spread worldwide via the internet.

Carly loads a photograph of each name on her site with words of remembrance from families as far away as the United States, Israel, China and Europe who want to remember a child, including miscarriages, on a “beautiful West Australian beach”.

The couple believe the service has helped their own grieving process while offering comfort to others who may have nowhere else to turn.

“I think what Carly does shows there is still so much beauty in life although you might not feel that way at the time and for a long time after you lose a child,” Sam said.

“She shows there is so much to live for.”

Depending on the weather, Carly spends several hours at Mullaloo Point most nights of the week responding to requests, which flood her website.

“I write an average of 25 names a night,” she said.

Carly said the “massive snowball effect” of initiatives from the ‘names in the sand’ project, such as the Luminous Light friendship group and memorial services, filled a need among bereaved families.

She said Luminous Light was a place for mothers of lost babies and children to “hang out” together, and to assemble packs including blankets, candles, photo-frames and teddy bears for the newly bereaved.

“On August 19 every year, the anniversary of when I started writing names in the sand, we deliver the memory boxes to King Edward hospital,” she said.

“This year we filled the entire chapel with boxes.”

See http://carlymarieprojectheal.com/ and http://namesinthesand.blogspot.com/

Rebekah Brewer Mitchell~MEND

Rebekah Brewer Mitchell is the founder and president of the MEND (mommies enduring neonatal death) organization which is a ministry that reaches out to women who have lost a baby due to miscarriage, stillbirth, or early infant death. Her son Jonathan was born and died on June 25^th, 1995. One year after losing her son she decided to create a legacy for him by creating MEND to reach out to other women struggling to find a way to live without their children in their arms.

Since then the organization has put on a walk to remember every year in which a beautiful ceremony is held during the month of October to acknowledge and remember our babies. Families set up booths with the tangible memories they have of their angles and everyone gets a chance to talk about their lost children. Each family who registers for the walk gets an ornament with their babies name, during the ceremony when your babies name is called you get to walk to this beautiful tree and hang your ornament. The walk ends with a breathtaking balloon release where pink balloons are released for baby girls, blue for baby boys and white for unknown gender. Families can write messages on the balloons and you can invite any friends or family who want to come so it is a great way to involve extended family in remembering and honoring your baby.

The walk came for us just three months after we had lost our Marcus and it was so incredibly healing. It was a very emotional day and I have a separate blog post about it if you would like to read more about our particular experience but it was so encouraging to see mommies lifting their subsequent children up to the tree to hang their baby’s ornaments.

The second wonderful event that MEND puts on is the Candlelight Christmas Ceremony. This is a smaller more intimate event where families come to remember their babies during the holidays. Holidays are a very difficult time for most baby loss mamas and Christmas especially. This quiet and peaceful ceremony is a wonderful way to take a step back during the busy holiday season and have a whole night to reflect on your baby’s life.

For more regular support a MEND support group led by Rebekah meets once a month in Irving as well as several other helpful groups such as a subsequent pregnancy group and an infertility group. Every quarter Rebekah’s husband Byron comes to the meeting to lead the daddy’s group where the men can have a chance to talk about their feelings separate from the main group. On facebook MEND has created a closed group where you can talk with other women going through the same thing on a daily basis. Both the support group and the facebook group have been a tremendous help for Marc and I during this hard time. We went to the first meeting available after Marc died and we have not missed a regular group meeting since. The subsequent pregnancy group is also wonderful since we are pregnant with our second child. Subsequent pregnancies are a scary time and it is so important to have other moms who know what you are going through.

I cannot thank Rebekah enough for all the hard work she has put into the organization she created over the past 16 years. MEND has spread from the DFW area to many other locations as well and continues to touch the lives of everyone who is lucky enough to find their way here after a loss.

Please check out the MEND website for more information about this wonderful organization. http://www.mend.org/support/home.asp

Baby Marc's Stocking Project-Part 2

2012-01-10T19:21:00.000-08:00

For Christmas I had emailed all of our friends and family and asked for them to please do one act of kindness in honor of my sweet baby Marcus and to email me a letter with what they did so that we could open them on Christmas morning and be comforted. My mom and I had to take turns reading because we were each getting so emotional. By the time the letters were finished more than an hour later everyone in the room including the men were in tears.

If you know you sent something but are not mentioned here please resend me your email if you still have it in your sent box. Something happened and some of my emails got deleted after I read them. I know I have a few people that I am missing here and I would love to print out your emails and save them in my memory box as well as add you to this list.

Thank you so much to everyone who was thoughtful enough to take the time to write us. These letters will be cherished for years to come. I have included everyone who participated and a short excerpt from their letter. I hope no one is upset with me for making these public but I just love to share and these are too great to keep all to myself.

Tyler Fetter-(baby Marc’s Uncle) Tyler lives on an air force base in Florida, he tried to do lots of little things like stopping to pick up an airmen who needed a ride back to the BX. He also made donations to the angel tree to help young children.

He wrote:”I just want you to know how much I love you and how excited I am for this new life you are now bringing into the world. As happy as it makes me, I know nothing will ever replace Baby Marc, and no one would wish it so. There is no way to measure or weigh a life, but it can be said that it is not the number of years we live, but the mark we leave upon the world. Baby Marc left such a mark in all of us who love him and through us he touches the lives of others. Though it is no fair trade, I truly hope the small things we remember and the little things we do in his name bring you some small comfort when it is the hardest. When I go, I hope to have left the world in a better state than I found it. It’s not right, it should be different, and I can’t even imagine how much pain you face daily from his loss. But in the end, that’s what he has done, and he will live forever in our hearts.”

Walter and Wendy Windrich: (baby Marcs Mimi and Opa), & Tori and Evie Windrich (baby Marc’s Aunties)- baby Marc’s grandparents did so many acts of kindness including helping a woman with her groceries, giving directions to people who were lost and other little everyday acts of kindness. My mom spotted a grandmother with her six month old grand baby and they struck up a conversation. She had the pleasure to tell her about baby Marc, she says that every time she shares her loss with others she hopes they will hug their children a little tighter thanks to his memory.

They also adopted a little boy with the same name as baby Marc and purchased all of his wants and needs from the Salvation Army angel tree.

As a family Tori and Evie decorated lots of Christmas cards and took them to the Conservatory Senior Living Center and handed them out while visiting with the seniors. They were so thankful to have them there!
Evie wrote:
"Dear Baby Marc, For the few hours you were alive those were the best hours of my life. You will always be in my heart, even though I don't show my emotions well I am still very sad. Just know all of us still think about you and love you very much!
(then she drew a picture of an actual human heart and drew a space for everyone of us including baby Marc inside.)

Tori wrote: "Since your mommy started the RAOK in your honor, I've been doing some things for you, things that are kind to others that I normally would not do. First off, I did the main Christmas card thin with my family, but I did some little things too. For instance, Evie was watching a movie so I took both dogs out for her and that was not pretty. I've also tried to be kind by not complaining when asked to do something. I helped shape cookies and did until there was no dough left even though I would have rather been on the computer. I know that is not much but I still love you and you are always with me and you will never be gone completely. Jena-I love you so much!"

My mom wrote:”We have heard of people who would pay for others items in line behind them at fast food establishments and we had always talked about it but never did it. This year we went through the drive through at Starbucks and noticed a woman behind us with two small children, when we got to the window we asked the Barista if we could please pay for the woman behind us and tell her Merry Christmas. I watched out the back window as she tried to pay but he refused her card and pointed in our direction. The look of shock on her face was enough to make us feel very happy. I didn’t think that it would be as good of a feeling doing something so small for someone else. I am happy that baby Marc’s memory can be carried on with random acts of kindness.”

Jessica Murray-(baby Marc’s Auntie) Jessica offered to let a girl from work who had a flat tire use her extra tow from her service plan on her car. She offered to help a woman who looked like she was having trouble with her groceries. She was driving on the highway one day and someone was trying to speed up to merge in front of her and she instinctively sped up as well thinking, “This person is not going to get in front of me!” Then she thought about baby Marc and the project and something clicked. She slowed down and let the person in front of her. While she was at Target she was in a hurry and was rushing to the line that seemed the shortest when a lady came from out of nowhere and got in line at the same time. She thought about just stepping up to the line since she was in a hurry but she thought of baby Marc and let the woman go first. The woman went from angry to very grateful in a split second. Jessica says she is going to continue to take a step back and think of baby Marc and the joy he brought us in his short life and realize that there are more important things that getting to the line first or being in front of a pushy car.

She wrote:”Marc has taught me to cherish every moment we have and to focus on what really matters instead of worrying about all the small things. He has made me realize how precious life is and how easily plans can change. He has shown me how strong of a person my big sister is, which makes me feel like I can accomplish anything if I have someone in my life to look up to. Driving home I was thinking about all the people in the world who rush about their day and take little consideration of the people around them. I know because I have been guilty of this as I am sure most people have. Because of baby Marc, I am a better person overall.”

Nora Biggs McMahon-Nora included her whole family in baby Marc’s stocking project and told her children to think of what they wanted to do in honor of him.

Watch out! Every one of these stories made us cry!

Shiloh-her son Shiloh noticed a Salvation Army bell ringer outside in the cold and was upset that he had to stand out in the cold all day. He asked if he could go to the food court and get the man some hot chocolate and cookies. He brought the man the snack and then offered to ring the bell while the man warmed up and ate, they gave the man a five minute break and the man told them that no one had even said hi to him all day! He told them he had never been offered kindness like that before. On the way home Shiloh said, “I’m pretty sure that baby Marc thought that was awesome. I bet he is smiling, but he probably wants cookies too.” (Seriously now, how can that not make you tear up?)

Sofie-her daughter noticed that one of her classmates at school is very poor. She is a very observant little girl and was bothered that her friend only has one pair of “broken” shoes and she often wears the same clothes more than once a week. When Nora asked Sofie what she wanted to do for baby Marc she would not tell her. Two weeks later on the last day of school, Sofie put 2 pairs of her shoes, 5 shirts, 1 skirt, 2 jeans, and 2 sweaters into a Kroger bag. She put the bag in her backpack and also put a bag full of food from their pantry into her backpack. Finally she put her new Barbie doll that was still in the box into her stuffed pack and took it to school. Nora got a call from Sofie’s teacher later that day asking if she knew that Sofie had brought all this stuff to school. She did not. When she went to the school to get it back she took Sofie in the hall to ask why she had brought all this stuff and began giving her a lecture on why not to take all these things to school when Sofie interrupted and said “Shhh mom, talk quiet, if she knows it was me that brought the stuff it won’t be random.” Nora said “what do you mean?” Sofie said “Mom this is for baby Marc, I am giving this stuff to Shaleeka but she can’t know that it is from me.” Nora explained to the teacher and the teacher was in tears. Sofie later told Nora
“momma, it is supposed to be random; you can’t talk about it anymore. It is just for me and baby Marc to know about so my friend doesn’t feel sad that she can’t give me stuff too.” <3

Brayden-Chose a baby angle from the tree at Fort Campbell and chose to earn the money for the gifts himself. In 18 days he earned $63.50 and spent all of it on his angel baby. He did odd jobs for friends and neighbors like raking leaves, taking out trash and washing cars. He went door to door explaining that he was raising money for the baby he picked from the tree. He told them about baby Marc and that he wanted to make sure his act of kindness was “good enough.” He was excited because they shopped at the PX so they did not have to pay taxes so every penny went to his angel baby.

Nora-Noticed that a woman with three small children was shopping at the grocery store and adding up everything she was putting in her cart with a calculator. She overheard the woman’s phone conversation and the woman was saying that she was getting the food they needed but that would leave nothing left so the kids would just be getting one small present each. Nora was saddened by this because if they just got one which would be from mommy and which would be from Santa. She kept passing her and noticed the woman was putting things back on the shelf, checking coupons every time and looked very sad. Her husband Steven checked out their groceries while Nora purchased a TJ Max gift card and an Applebee’s gift card and secretly told the check out person to swipe her card for the woman’s items. Nora slipped out before the woman could see her and heard the cashier tell the woman that her things had been paid for and watched him give her the gift cards. As she was leaving she saw the woman crying and hugging her oldest child.

Amber Wilson-(baby Marc’s Auntie) Tried to have a more forgiving and loving attitude this Christmas. She has very bad road rage... she let at least 5 cars cut in front of her every day in traffic when she drove home. That adds up to a LOT of people cutting in front of her!!!! But every time she thought of Marcus she would try to be a little nicer. She also paid for dinner at Buffalo Wild Wings for me and Marc and anonymously paid for three soldiers sitting at another table.

She wrote “I love you both very much and all of you babies (especially LK). I hope that 2012 beings happiness and peace. And I can't wait to meet Baby #2 (Olivia)!!!”

Kali Kundomal- Kali is the mommy to an angel, she lives in Roswell, NM child neglect and abuse is prevalent. She purchased baby toys, baby dining ware, sippy cups, toddler learning games, and paint and paint brushes for the organization CASA (court appointed special advocates)and their "Giving Tree" project.

She wrote: “I hope your Christmas is filled with as much joy as possible. I will be praying for peace for you during this holiday season!”

Melissa Autry- Melissa is the mommy of an angel named Lauren. Her family put together little stocking gifts with girl or boy ornaments and placed them on the graves of the babies where their daughter is buried. They delivered 48 gifts to the graves in baby land.

She wrote: “It is so unfortunate that we had to meet this way, I wish it was in a playgroup or our children were in daycare together or something of that nature, but I know that as long as I have supportive people such as you near me, my family will have the strength to go forward with our lives with Lauren in our hearts.”

Nikki Sharnbroich- Have been helping a family who has a father/husband that is losing his battle to cancer, they adopted two families for the holidays, they made it a goal to stop and acknowledge every homeless person they saw...they made kits for their car with socks, gloves, food, hand/foot warmers and some cash that they could easily hand out to them, they bought a grocery store gift card for a family who is living out of their car, donated groceries to the foodbank, etc...

She wrote: “What an incredible legacy that you have created for your sweet Baby Marc...I have followed your blog and your Facebook page from when you were pregnant and you have been such an inspiration. I cannot imagine losing one of my children but have lost my dear niece Hayley a few months after her birth, she is always on my mind and has made me and my family all better people. I have shared your blog with my sister-in-law and you have really helped her...she loves the Baby Marc stocking project.”

Rori Calloway- Rori is the mommy of two twin angels named Sebastian and Liam, she made ornaments for Priscilla in memory of her angel babies Hope and Faith.

Elizabeth & Ray Napolitan- Spent time helping out at the local soup kitchen.

She wrote: “The past year has taught us a lot and not taking things, friends and life for granted is one of them.”

June Lake- Donated a gift to a family in need.

She wrote: “I hope this makes their Christmas a little brighter and yours too. I wish you both a Merry Christmas and wonderful New Year!”

Adrianna Napaluch- Adrianna is the mommy of an angel named Avery; she brought change to the NICU vending machines at MCA.

She wrote: “I hope the thought of this change helping another family with a baby fighting for their life brings you warmth, hope, and healing this holiday without your beautiful son. Baby Marc, you will always be remembered and loved. I am sorry that we never got to meet. Your mommy is an amazing woman who has helped me so. ”

Carrie Walsingham- Carrie is the mommy of an angel named Ayden, she held open doors for people, returned shopping carts to the store rather than the shopping cart return and helped people with their shopping. She tried to be a more courteous driver and smile rather than yell when others were not so nice. Each time she was thinking of Marc. Not sure that any of it was enough to honor him she kept thinking. So in memory or my sweet baby boy she walked around the grocery store and gave away coupons to other shoppers. Then at the grocery store she attached diaper and formula coupons so that the next person could have them.

She wrote "Today I spent the morning thinking of your sweet boy. I must say I think of him and you often. Although we have not met I feel like we have. Your posts always seem to either reflect what I am feeling or something I have felt in the past, but had no clue how to express. My heart overflows with joy for you and your husband. My rainbow babies are my greatest blessing and I love being able to tell them about their big brother in heaven."

Ressa McCray- Rescued an adorable little dog from the Denton Animal Shelter.

She Wrote: “We will be thinking of you guys as you open Baby Marc’s stocking and read all the kind acts. Sounds like the beginning of a wonderful tradition.”

Holly Hungerford-Kresser and Family- Donated $50 to the local chapter of MEND in Baby Marc's name.

She Wrote: “I continue to think of both of you daily, sometimes hourly, sending you all the prayers and positive thoughts I can muster. Our births are forever linked in my head, especially since I was blessed to see Baby Marc on a sonogram with Jena. His memory has helped me cherish my own children more and to treasure the memory of being pregnant with our unborn child. Thank you for that; I know grieving publicly is difficult, but it helps others. It really does. We wish you the happiest holiday possible in the midst of your loss.”

Deborah Golden- Bought dinner for everyone at work on her shift.

The Hall Family(Mark, Jen, Ava, and Lilah)- In honor of baby Marc, they went as a family to Cooks Children’s Hospital in downtown with Ava's Daisy Scouts Group and donated new toys for children and babies. They also bought books for the Toys for Tots program.

She wrote: “We hope that you will find a little bit of solace in the fact that you have made the world a better place in Marc's memory, proving that something good can come from something tragic. Merry Christmas - Know we are thinking of you!”

Missy Schuchman- Started a nonprofit organization for her angel Landon and they raised enough money this month to purchase a bench for families to sit on when visiting their angel babies in the baby land section of the cemetery where her son is buried. This bench says in memory of ALL angel
babies gone too soon but never forgotten.

She wrote:”I have a list of babies that were on our mind ready for when the bench is placed. Though the bench has not been placed yet and though we have never met face to face; I read your posts on facebook and Marc has touched my heart. Baby Marc is on our list to read to ourselves when the bench is placed. This bench helps families stay close to their babies and his little life is remembered! God bless
you guys and Merry Christmas!”

Sara and Santosh Regmi- Sara is the mother of two sweet angel babies named Skylar and Samira, her and her husband bought toys and necessities for three needy children this year.

She wrote: “God’s peace and love to you both!”

Julie Edwards- Bought toys for a single mother’s little boy, she dedicated them to Baby Marc.

Megan McGinnis- Megan is the mommy to an angel named Madison, she donated blood hoping to give the gift of life so another parent might be spared our hurt and pain.

Amanda Shaw- Amanda lost her firstborn son Aidan Jackson in 2010, her family donated to the organization Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep. This is a wonderful nonprofit organization that provides free professional photography for babies who have passed away after 20 weeks. www.nowIlaymedowntosleep.org

She wrote: “I am so happy to hear about your little Rainbow. Having our daughter Abbey this year has been very healing. We love her so much and are thankful for everyday that God gives us with her. I hope for you a very uneventful pregnancy. Don't be afraid of loving this baby for everyday that God gives you together. Embrace every moment, every kick. Don't be afraid of buying things or having dreams for this baby or having baby showers. This baby deserves all the love you have to give. BELIEVE that this baby's destiny is to be in your arms....forever. I wish your entire family, you, your husband, baby Marc and your precious Rainbow a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.”

Melissa Bufe-Melissa is the mommy of an angel baby named Hadley, her family bought a Wal-Mart gift card and Christmas card and gave it to the first family that God led them to.

She wrote: “Inside the card we wrote: "This random act of kindness is in memory of precious babies who went to Heaven this year. Please think of their parents this Christmas. Merry Christmas and God Bless!" The family was so appreciative and I know they are thinking of you on this beautiful Christmas Day.”

Claire Miller- Purchased presents for a little girl who had to spend this Christmas in the custody of CPS, she had not been able to be placed with a foster family before Christmas. She asked for a few things including a haircut at a salon. She was able to get her everything off her Christmas wish list.

Robyn and Patrick Martin-Included her two children Zachary and Hattie in helping to honor baby Marc this Christmas, they planted a Lambs ear plant for us. She is going to give us the plant when it starts to grow. LOVE IT!

Priscilla Barrientos- Priscilla is the mommy to twin angels named Hope and Faith, their big sister Violet likes to call them Apple and Blueberry she organized a blanket drive to donate to Hope’s Door Women’s Shelter.

She wrote: “In all of Baby Marc's pictures, he's swaddled lovingly in a beautiful blue blanket. And, the blanket you made for our Iris was definitely a token of love. I realized that the women and children who are driven to this homeless shelter should have access to a nice and cozy warm blanket too. A little piece of love to be wrapped up in, love to you both this Christmas weekend.”

Emily Click- Emily is the mommy of an angel named Bentley, she helped a lady at her work out by holding her baby for her even though it was very difficult to hold a baby so soon after her son died.

Nolvia Varela- Nolvia is the mommy of beautiful angel Jacob Teran, she wrote Marc this sweet letter. “I am glad to have met your mom, she’s a wonderful woman and you are so lucky to have her and your daddy. You were too beautiful! I hope your parents and other family members can have a peaceful day today and take care of your baby sibling coming soon!”

Michele Robertson-purchased a drink for a lady at Starbucks and told her that she was doing an act of kindness for our sweet Marcus.

She wrote:”When I got back into my car the song “Angels among Us” came on the radio…baby Marc is an angel…Merry Christmas.”

Tangible Things

2012-01-04T21:04:00.002-08:00

I got my memorial tattoo for baby Marc is August of 2011, the month after he died but I have not had a chance to include the experience on my blog because I did not start blogging until October. I thought about what I wanted for several weeks. I knew from the start that I had to get something tattooed on my body. Losing my son had changed me, I would never be the same and I needed something that would be an outward symbol of these changes and also a beautiful tribute to my sweet babies brief life. I had thought about his feet print or maybe the Celtic motherhood knot but nothing I looked at seemed to inspire me enough. I wanted something that was colorful and beautiful, not just a simple black tattoo and I knew I wanted it on my foot. I started looking up meanings of different flowers and my friend Stephanie found the meaning of cherry blossoms and I knew immediately that is what I wanted. I read this part of the description and was instantly in tears.

The cherry blossom tree is known for its short yet brilliant blooming season which ends with an inevitable fall to the ground. The Cherry Blossom meaning and symbolism is translated into the traditional Japanese Samurai spirit, the belief that life is short and beautiful, like the Cherry Blossom Flower's life span.

How perfect! My sweet baby Marc's life was short but so beautiful. The cherry blossoms are only in full bloom for about one or two weeks out of the year, they are celebrated and cherished. It just seemed like such a wonderful symbolism. Not to mention they also have other meanings that went well.

The cherry blossom tree is one of the most popular good luck symbols in Japanese tradition. Cherry blossom meaning in tattoo also signifies overcoming an obstacle in life. The cherry blossom tree meaning in tattoos signifies fertility and nobility. This is because in ancient Japan, people threw parties to showcase their beautiful blooming cherry trees. And the members of the high society graced these occasions. It is said that the cherry blossom showers a person with love and happiness, thus indicating good luck.

I would have my symbol of baby Marc's short life and also a good luck charm for the future. I drew the tattoo myself and found an awesome artist, Hannah from Royal One Tattoo in Fort Worth. My mom and Amber went with me and they also got a portion of the tattoo that I drew in their foot. My sister Jessica lives in Austin and she got a different design but still cherry blossoms on her side in remembrance of baby Marc. I was glad that my friend Amber agreed to go first because I was nervous. I have one small tattoo of a treble clef and music note on my hip but I got that when I was 19 and it took all of 5 minutes. This was going to take about an hour and a half and although I had just delivered Marc naturally I still feel like I am a wimp when it comes to physical pain. As I waited for Amber to get her tattoo I remember sitting by my mom and breaking down. I was happy that I was there doing something to remember baby Marc but it had only been four weeks and all I could think about was what I should be doing instead. I should not be here getting a tattoo, I thought, I should be at home snuggling with my tiny newborn boy. I got it together and took my turn, it really was not that bad of pain but it was no picnic either.

I don't need physical reminders to think of my sweet boy but it is nice to have them around. I have Marc's pictures all over the house, I had a miniature sculpture made of him, I had his name written in the sand and the picture is hanging in my room as well, I have necklace pendants, buttons, a beautiful snow globe with his picture, he has an in progress scrapbook, and a memory box. It is nice to have these tangible things around to remember him with and it will be wonderful to have his little brothers and sisters grow up with his presence. Every time I look down at my foot and see my beautiful flowers I think of my sweet Marcus. I have five cherry blossoms in every stage of bloom and a one cherry blossom petal falling to symbolize the brevity of life.

Baby Marc's Stocking Project

2011-12-04T20:28:00.000-08:00

Our sweet Marcus would be five months old tomorrow. The holidays have been hard. Thanksgiving was completely awful. If you know me you know that I try with all my might to be positive and live my life as if Marc were here but sometimes you just have to let yourself succumb to the sadness for a little while. I know I have so many things to be thankful for but this Thanksgiving all I could think about was what I did not have, what I did not get to experience and what I should be doing. I should have been dressing baby Marc in a cute Thanksgiving outfit and taking him to see his daddy's family for his first Thanksgiving. I was up at 3:30am to open at Starbucks Thanksgiving morning and so when we went to Marc's aunts house I was sleep deprived and depressed. His family is so loving and the greeting and hugs were nice but overwhelming at the same time. As the family gathered for a prayer I could feel myself about to lose it and sure enough about two sentence into the prayer I broke down. Marc had to practically carry me to another room and I was sobbing so hard I was hyperventilating.

I am hoping that Christmas will not be as bad as Thanksgiving. I was downplaying the holidays for the past few months, I thought that they would not be that difficult. How could they be any worse than what I was already feeling? Now that the holidays are upon us I can see why they are hard. Part of it might be because in November we hit our four month mark. A time often talked about at the MEND support group as being a time when for whatever strange reason a new wave of grief floods into your world. Maybe four months is when some of the shock starts to wear off. I can see that because the moments where I have real clarity that this is my life now come more often. This is my life. This is my life, living without my baby. The realization that this is something I will have to endure always and there is no waking up from this nightmare seems more real than ever. Maybe it is because the holidays are a time when everyone seems to be so happy and they are spending time with their families. How can we be happy with such a huge part of our family missing? Usually I have my tree up the day after Thanksgiving and I have forced my poor husband to string the lights around the house but it is now December 4th and still no tree or lights. I still have pumpkins that I had planned to try and carve sitting on the front porch. We have been looking for ways to incorporate Marc into our traditions and to keep his memory alive in our family. I know that Marc and I will give baby Marc many little brothers and sisters and my hope is that we will be able to raise those children knowing about him and loving their big brother. We already started one thing that was suggested to us by some mothers in our support group. Every year we will pick a little boy from the Salvation Army Angel tree who is about how old Marc would be and get a gift for him. We also asked our friends and family who were planning on getting Marc a gift to do this as well and send us a picture or the angel tree info and what they purchase so I can put it in baby Marc's scrapbook. It was really hard to go shopping for the little 8 month old we picked this year and I cried after we bought him a coat and a thermal shirt. I could not help but think that I should be shopping for Christmas presents for Marcus. Marc reminded me that this is how things are and all we can do is find ways to remember our sweet boy and create a legacy for him. It is something that Rebekah Brewer Mitchell, the amazing woman who started the MEND (mommies enduring neonatal death) group, says often. She says that we have to create a legacy for our babies since they are not here to do it themselves.

I used to love the Elvis Christmas song Blue Christmas, and this year it takes on a new meaning for me. Marc and I will most likely have a very blue Christmas but there is something you can do to brighten our day. A day when I will be fighting off the "I should" thoughts. I should be watching a five and a half month old laugh at the Christmas wrapping paper. I should be taking him to get his picture made with Santa. The "I should be" list is forever long.

I should be watching him open his stocking on Christmas morning, I should have a stocking for Marc filled with baby toys but instead I am asking you to help me fill his stocking with things that will help create a legacy for him.
I am challenging you to please do one random act of kindness for someone between now and Christmas. It can be small, it can be big, just as long as it is something that is kind and as long as you as you are doing it you are thinking of our sweet baby Marcus. Once you have completed your random act of kindness please email me at jenaleajohnson@yahoo.com with a short description of what you did. In the subject line please write DO NOT OPEN RANDOM ACT OF KINDNESS or something along those lines. This way I will not read them, instead I will print them out immediately, fold them up and tuck them away into baby Marc's stocking. Marc and I will open the stocking on Christmas morning and instead of thinking of what we should be doing we will be able to read about all the good things you did in honor of our baby. This will be so comforting to us and I know I am giving you only 20 days for this project but it would mean so much if you could please consider doing this for us.

A Different Kind Of Marathon

2011-11-11T15:32:00.000-08:00

Last June I had just graduated from college and I was feeling what I imagine a lot of new college grads feel, "what now?" I needed something to work toward other than just getting a job. All through school your working for so long with this one goal in mind and that becomes your purpose, without that purpose I felt lost. My first solution was grad school but that was expensive and I really did not have a reason to go so I scratched that idea fairly quickly. I finally decided that running a marathon would be a good idea. It would give me a goal to focus on and work towards in this in-between phase of my life. I found the San Antonio Rock and Roll Marathon which would be run in November and it looked like the one for me. A full marathon seemed a little much to start out with so Marc and I decided we would both train over the next five months for the half marathon which is 13.1 miles. We got new shoes and began our training with a lot of energy.

At the end of August, after hearing me talk about how much I wanted to start a family and have a baby for many months Marc came to me and said "let's do it, lets try for a baby!" I was beyond excited. I was just waiting for him to be ready! We decided to start trying the next month because my insurance was kicking in at Starbucks in October. We also continued training for our marathon. When race day came on November 14th, 2010 I was about 6 or 7 weeks pregnant with baby Marc.

We were so happy and after months of training we were so ready to run our race.

Marc ran ahead of me and finished in about 2.5 hours and I ran the whole thing stopping only once for one minute to check that my heart rate was not getting too high for pregnancy. I finished in 2 hours and 55 minutes, my goal was to finish in less than three hours. What a great feeling it is to finish something like that! We joked that one day I could tell baby Marc that he ran a marathon before he was born.

The marathon was completed and over. I no longer felt that in-between feeling that I had felt after graduating. I was going to be a mommy! Working at Starbucks we open so early that I can work a full day and be off by 11am so that Marc could watch him while I was at work and we would not have to worry about day care. So what if I was having trouble finding a teaching job, I would just work at Starbucks 20 hours a week to keep insurance and be an almost stay at home mom for baby Marc's first year. I had my purpose now, it was to be the best mommy to Marcus as I could be! I started my "how to be a mommy" marathon training. I read about birth, read books on baby sign language, articles on circumcision, I read what was in all of the vaccines that he would be getting and by month 6 I had finished all the pregnancy books and was well into the Baby's First Year book. I invested about $800.00 in cloth diapers after spending literally weeks reading about which ones to use! I actually spent about 7 hours, no exaggeration, trying to decide which cloth wipes to buy. I painted a mural in his room, crocheted him several blankets and outfits for pictures and had so many clothes that I was convinced I would have to change his outfit twice a day so he would get a chance to fit into everything.

When July 5th came we were so happy and after months of training we were so ready to run our race.

Then suddenly and with no warning all our hopes and dreams for baby Marc and the things we were prepared to do died with him. My purpose died. In the weeks after baby Marc died I was desperately searching for something to focus on again. I think back to the way I felt after graduating, I had wondered what my purpose was but this new loss of purpose was so much greater than anything I could have imagined. I thought that registering for the half marathon again would be helpful, exercising releases feel good endorphins and maybe if I had a goal to work toward it would help. The weeks passed and for several weeks I did hit the gym pretty hard but somewhere along the way the grief sucked all my energy and I stopped training.

I am going to say some things in this next paragraph that are irrational and I know it but they are feelings that I can't fight and sometimes they are just there. I struggle with so many things everyday, missing my son so much and the grief that goes along with that but also feelings of failure or that I don't do enough. Marcus was my purpose, I am supposed to be caring for him and protecting him right now. I am supposed to be so busy with him as my purpose that I don't have time for anything else.

Without Marcus, without a baby to care for, I am left to care only for my grief. The grief sucks more energy out than I imagine a newborn could but still I feel bad for things like not being able to get a teaching job or not being able to keep the house clean enough. I take everything that I can't do so personally as a failure on my part. I mean I have already failed to protect my baby, the ultimate failure! Then at the end of the month when I am not pregnant again I have failed. When the hospital bills come every month I feel guilty that I am not able to help Marc by contributing more to our family financially. I feel guilty for the money I spent that probably should have gone to those bills but in those first months after baby Marc died getting out of the house to go to dinner or the mall with friends was a form of therapy. I guess there are worse things I could have resorted to other than just buying new things. Sometimes I feel like I am doing anything good enough, with no baby to take care of and no financial way to help what is my purpose.

Marc is amazing and he tells me all the time how proud he is of me and how strong I have been. He helps me to fight these feelings of failure. I can't imagine where I would be without him and he amazes me with his openness and unwavering support. With his help I have come to realize that I still have a purpose. I have purpose in our marriage and in the family that we will continue to build. We are on a new path and baby Marc is still my purpose just not in the same way.

Mom's with newborns complain how they can't clean the house or exercise because they are so busy caring for their babies. I am sure they feel similar feelings of failure, not being able to be supermom and get everything done.

I may not have my baby here to care for but I am working hard to care for this grief. The difference is grief offers no reward like caring for a baby. It's just hard and dirty work. Sometimes I just can't make myself get up and run or clean the entire house but maybe I can just run one mile, maybe I can just do the dishes. I am learning that I should be happy for the things I can do and stop beating myself up about the things I can't do.

I will be running this marathon with my grief for the rest of my life. I can only hope that my endurance will build and one day it won't be so exhausting.

The literal marathon is on Sunday and I am not prepared like I was last year. I am not confident that I can do it successfully but I am going to try. I may not be able to run the whole thing like I did last year. I may have to stop and catch my breath. I may have to walk or even crawl across the finish line but I have come to see that the real triumph is that at least I am out there trying.

"A failure is not always a mistake, it may simply be the best one can do under the circumstances. The real mistake is to stop trying."
B. F. Skinner

“The "what should be" never did exist, but people keep trying to live up to it. There is no "what should be," there is only what is.”
Lenny Bruce

Crossing the finish line last year!

Marc & I with our medals

We can do anything together!

A Poem From My Brother

2011-11-07T16:57:00.000-08:00

This is a poem my little brother Tyler Fetter wrote for me. I love it, he is amazing!

A flower snipped before it's bloom,
Holds beauty just the same.
It's petals held within a shell,
For a spring which never came.

It's easy yet to feel such gloom,
But sorrows but his cost,
And though great it's yet a shallow price,
To pay for what was lost.

Could you undo the world?
To spite the pain it wrought?
Though I'd gladly live it all again,
I shudder at the thought.

And while it's true he'll never live
The sights he ought to see,
He shall not wilt as we will age
And in our hearts forever be.

-Tyler Fetter

National Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day

2011-10-17T21:06:00.000-07:00

MYTH: A parent who has lost a baby wants to forget it ever happened and move on with their life.
TRUTH: In the words of Elizabeth Edwards, "If you know someone who has lost a child...and you're afraid to mention them because you think you might make them sad by reminding them that they died, you're not reminding them. They didn't forget they died. What you're reminding them of is that you remembered that they lived, and that's a great, great gift."

October 15th is National Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day (and Oct is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month). Everyone is invited to light a candle tonight at 7 pm in all time zones, all over the world.
If everyone lights a candle at 7 pm and keeps it burning for at least 1hr, there will be a continuous WAVE OF LIGHT over the entire world to remember our little boy Marcus and all the babies gone too soon.

The Ugly Guilt Monster

2011-10-17T20:37:00.000-07:00

I had a pretty good weekend. I dared to click the "happy" emotion in my period tracker app for my iPhone. It sounds silly but until I did this I had not realized how much I have been pushing the few happy times I am given away. The period tracker application is a neat little tool that keeps track of your cycle among other things like ovulation, days you are intimate, physical symptoms, emotions and weight.

As you can see there are little faces for different emotions you are having on any particular day. The only emotions that have been imputed to date have been things like tired, weepy, nervous, sleepy, sensitive, gloomy, depressed, fatigued, stressed, spacey, and sad.
I have been working on a mural and creating beautiful things always lifts my spirits a bit and so by the weekend I was in a pretty good mood. Saturday I slept in and woke up to my husband making me breakfast. The weather was cool and I relaxed with him in the morning and went to paint the mural in the afternoon. I had a really good day. I felt hope. I felt refreshed. I felt like I could handle this.
Saturday night I was messing with my new iPhone 4s and I went to track my emotions for the day. I had no problem clicking refreshed and in love however, I saw the happy face and paused. Should I click it?
Marc and I have had many talks about how we need to allow ourselves to be happy. I logically know that feeling happiness does not take away from my love for my sweet baby. Maybe a part of me is afraid that if I feel a little happiness people will think I am done grieving. I am not sure exactly what it was but it was so hard to click that stupid little smiley face.
Then...I just did it. I clicked it!
Immediately I felt a pang of guilt.
Guilt is not a new feeling for me lately. I broke down and admitted to our support group that I felt like if I pushed harder or got him out faster maybe things would have turned out differently. If I had been at the hospital, would have turned out differently? I have been told that the outcome would have been the same but were they just saying that to make me feel better?
The synonyms for guilt are things like condemned, criminal, damned, evil, felonious, responsible, rueful, sinful, and wicked. Wow! I don't feel evil or wicked.
Again, logically I know that Marc and I made our decisions based on the information we had at the time and we did not make those decisions lightly. I know that whatever we did, we did with our best intentions and we did what we thought was best for our baby. Still as a parent we are supposed to protect our children and in this case there was nothing Marc and I could do to protect him. Guilt is just another stage of grief I have to wrestle with.
By clicking happy, I felt like I was doing Marcus wrong by being happy without having him here. I had to step back and think...would Marcus want me to be miserable for the rest of my life? Do I really want to focus on my son's death and let it ruin my life? That is the easy way out. To give in. To let the grief take over.
I love my son but I realize I have to live for us both since he cannot live for himself. I have to focus on his life, as short as it was. I have to focus on the things he has given me not the things that have been taken away from me. Doing this will only cause more pain.
He has already given me so many gifts. His life is truly making me a better person. One of these gifts is a strong, deep empathy for the suffering of others. I used to think I was a fairly empathetic person but now I realize that I was just a sympathetic person. I would hear a sad story on the news and think "oh that is so sad" Now when I hear a story of another persons loss I can really feel it with my whole heart and this in turn makes me a more generous and loving person. What a gift!

But this morning I could feel the strength slowly being sucked out of me. I tried so hard to hold onto the happy, refreshed feeling from the weekend but it is now almost 10pm and my strength and happy stores have been depleted. Probably because I am missing Marc at work and I just realized I haven't had dinner but sometimes it just hits all at once. It also does not help that there was a new stack of bills waiting for me when I got home. The hospital bills are so stressful and we are left paying thousands of dollars for what? I don't have my baby to hold, why should I still have to pay? I spend so much time fighting bad thoughts or emotions and sometimes I just have to let them come.
I really wish I did not have to work and I could just spend every second with Marc doing things that made us feel good.

So I had two whole days where I felt pretty good. I see people posting that they had a GREAT weekend and wonder if I will ever be able to say I had a GREAT day again. I cannot fathom ever saying I had a GREAT day right now.
I guess three months ago I never thought I would have a pretty good day again, let alone two in a row! GREAT days are most likely in our future. I just wish I knew when they were coming so I could have a date on the calendar to look forward to.

"I was always fraught with guilt, and it's such a waste of an emotion. It keeps you out of the moment of being where you are."-KYRA SEDGWICK

Our Beautiful Slideshow by Keri Duckett Photography

2011-10-07T18:28:00.000-07:00

Wishing For Rain

2011-10-07T17:30:00.001-07:00

I want it to rain. I don't want a drizzle or flash flood that only lasts a few minutes.
These little continual storms are exhausting.
I want a torrential downpour!
I want to push my feet into the cold sodden earth and fall to my knees.
I want large heavy drops to fall down upon my face and take with them some of my tears.
I want LOUD thunder. I will scream and wail with it, holding my head in my hands, looking toward the darkened sky.
I need it to rain, this pain cannot be washed away but I need to be cleansed.
I will throw my hands out and fall completely into the ground sinking deeper into the mud that surrounds me.
I want to open my mouth and drink from the sky as if I could drink enough to fill this hole inside of me without drowning.
Just a drop in the ocean.
Maybe someday I will drink enough to want the clouds to leave. Will the sun come to warm me? Will I feel the warmth of the light? Will it awaken what has died within my soul?
-Jenalea Johnson

Let the rain kiss you. Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops. Let the rain sing you a lullaby.
-Langston Hughes

Every Hug Dilutes The Pain...Take A Shovel....If You Can A Wheelbarrow

2011-10-07T17:29:00.000-07:00

"There is no way to quantify the pain. Pain doesn't come in pounds or ounces or gallons. You just feel like you are standing before a mountain that you are going to have to move one spoonful at a time. It is a task you can never hope to complete...a mountain that you can never hope to finish moving. But...as you stand surveying that mountain of grief...a loved one steps forward with a hug that communicated clearly. You can almost picture that person stepping up to your mountain of grief with a shovel and saying, "I cannot move the mountain for you...but I will take this one shovel full of your grief and deal with it myself." It seemed to me that every hug helped to dilute the pain a little more...that every sincere hugger carried away a small quantity of the mountain."-From When There Are No Words by Charlie Walton

Ever since I have read this paragraph these words have been repeating in my head every time I receive a hug. Last week was my first week back at work. Returning to work has been much harder than I anticipated. I could not really pin point what they were until I talked with the MEND (mommies enduring neonatal death) group last week. One it was a place where I have lots of memories of being pregnant. The last time I spent time there I was so excited and happy, now I am anxious, weepy and sad there. Thoughts of things I should be talking about with my coworkers came flooding into my mind. I have been gone for two months, I should be telling them all about how my sweet baby Marcus is doing. Instead I am thinking about what I have been doing the past two months...no one wants to hear the dark places I have been. Another thing that makes returning to work hard is the fact that I can no longer have 100% control over who I let in. When I was staying home I could choose to only leave the house on days I felt strong. I could choose who I let come over and talk. I had the option of laying on the couch all day if I was having a weak day. I never know what feelings the next day will bring so I never know if I will feel strong enough to tell a customer that my baby died when they unknowingly ask how he is doing. Will I be able to make it through the work day without a complete break down?

I feel so fragile at work. It is so strange because at times I know I look normal on the outside but I know how quickly I can be broken by a particular song, words, a pregnant woman, a crying baby, something totally unexpected! Last week someone said "wow this year is flying by," simple statement but I had to hold back tears. I was thinking the time is dragging so slowly! I cannot wait until the end of the year! This has been the worst year of my entire life and I am ready for it to be OVER!

Then I feel like crying again. I think wait...how can I say this has been the worst year of my life. I was the happiest I had ever been in my life while I was carrying my sweet Marcus. Seven months of this year were the best months in my entire life! This is just one example of a downward emotional spiral spurred by an everyday conversation.

One of my concerns the week before I came back was how I would be treated at work. I was afraid that people would expect me to be back to normal. I was afraid I would make people uncomfortable if I cried. I was afraid they would be annoyed with me if I need a few extra breaks during a busy time or if I just could not handle it and needed to leave early.

Well I did break down several times last week. I did need extra time in the back. I did have to leave early four out of the five days I worked. I was making drinks Saturday morning on drive through bar and I was silently crying, tears were streaming down my face as I made lattes and I know the lady in the car at the window had to have noticed. I cry on the way home most days because I feel so much emotion throughout the work day and I just need to get it out.

But I did realize that my fears about my coworkers were unfounded. I am so grateful that I am surrounded by such a wonderful group of people at work. They have truly made me feel loved. They made me feel comfortable and did not shy away from my tears. When I cried they hugged me and I thought about them taking a shovel for me and it helped. I shared this metaphor with a few people and my boss Jenny said something that was really special to me, she said "forget a shovel....I'll take a wheelbarrow."
I anticipate that break downs at work will come fewer and father between as time progresses but I know there are more to come. I won't be able to predict them and that is a source of anxiety but I am comforted in knowing that I work with great people who will be there to help me up.

A lot of the BLM's (baby loss mammas) in the MEND group have shared that the support they initially received tapered off quickly and they were left with just a few special people who were there to stick it out with them.

"At some of the darkest moments in my life, some people I thought of as friends deserted me. Some because they cared about me and it hurt them to see me in pain; others because I reminded them of their own vulnerability, and that was more than they could handle. BUT real friends overcame their discomfort and came to sit with me. If they had not words to make me feel better, they sat in silence and I loved them for it." - Harold Kushner

This great book tear soup also puts it very well. It is about an old woman who has suffered a big loss in her life and she is cooking a batch of "tear soup." Tear Soup gives a glimpse into her life as she blends the different ingredients into her own grief process.

"There were also days when Grandy hungered for a thoughtful ear. Sometimes she would ask total strangers, "Care to join me in a bowl of tear soup?" "No thanks," most would reply, "I don't have tome for tear soup today." Even some of Grandy's friends hurried past her house and pretended not to notice the aroma of tear soup coming through her open door. Most people can tolerate only a cup of someone else's tear soup. The giant bowl, where Grandy could repeatedly share her sadness in great detail, was left for a few willing friends."

The simplest things that some of you have CONTINUED doing for me really do help. Your quick emails and texts that let me know your thinking of me have helped to brighten many of my dark days. I really have discovered who those true friends are. It is easy for me to sit around and think about how unlucky I am but I am reminded by you that I am blessed. I read that most people can tolerate another's loss for about a month before wanting the bereaved person to get back to normal. I have so many REAL friends who are continuing to offer support even when others have ceased to do so. I am not afraid to ask for your help. I still need you and I will continue to need you for a long time.

So please, take what you can. A spoon, a cup, or a bowl of my tear soup or a shovel...maybe even a wheelbarrow from my mountain. When it is your turn in the kitchen I will help you.

If your friend is the one making Tear Soup:

Be there for your friend, even when you don't understand.
Be a source of comfort by listening, laughing, and crying
Stick close to your friend and defend their right to grieve.
Allow your friend to make mistakes... or at least to grieve differently from the way you would grieve.
Send flowers.
Send cards. The message doesn't need to be long. Just let them know you haven't forgotten them. Send one every few weeks for a while.
Call your friend. Don't worry about being a bother. Let your friend tell you if they don't want to talk about their loss right now.
Answering machines and e-mail are great ways to keep in touch, allowing the bereaved person to respond only when they feel up to it.
Try to anticipate what your friend may need. Bereaved persons sometimes don't know what to ask for.
Avoid offering easy answers and platitudes. This only invalidates the grief.
Be patient. Don't try to rush your friend through their grief.
Give your friend permission to grieve in front of you. Don't change the subject or tell them not to cry or act uncomfortable when they do cry.
Ask them questions. But don't tell them how they should feel.
Invite your friend to attend events together, as you normally would. Let them decide if they don't want to attend.
Don't assume because your friend is having a good day that it means they are over their loss.
Be mindful of holidays, birthdays and anniversaries.

Choosing Happiness

2011-10-07T17:28:00.000-07:00

We are almost two months out from our loss. Some days are harder than others and I know I will continue to struggle with my grief for years to come but this week has been pretty good. Today I feel a rare moment of clarity.

I have several books on dealing with grief and one of the rules is not to compare your grief with others because the intensity and duration of episodes of grief is different for everyone. Still that is what I have been struggling with this past week. I have always been a positive, happy person and I have always felt like I had some built in natural ability to adapt to life's obstacles. That idea I had of who I was and what I was capable of was shattered the first few weeks after Marcus died. How could anyone adapt to this type of loss, it did not seem possible. I have never been faced with an obstacle that can compare with this one so I wasn't sure what was ahead of me. I still am not sure what feeling are going to arise as the days and months pass by but I can say that I am beginning to see a light at the end of the tunnel.

I read the blogs of other mothers dealing with losing their children and compare their feelings with mine. Most of the time their words sound as if they were reading my mind and reading their words helps me to realize that I am not alone in my thoughts and feelings. However when I read their stories and I see the depth of pain still being felt even many many years out I start to feel a little guilty. I feel guilty because I can already feel my natural happy self returning. I feel like this should not be happening so soon after losing our sweet baby boy.

Don't get me wrong my pain is by no means gone or lessened in any way. I still cry or get teary eyed many times throughout the day. I still feel a sharp pang when I see mothers out with their healthy babies. There are moments I hear so clearly the NICU doctors voice repeating, "Marcus is brain dead" over and over. I will always long to hold him and there will always be times I imagine what it would be like if he were here. I do not think there will ever be one day in my life that I do not think about him.

With that said, I feel like I will be happy again soon. There are brief moments throughout the day that I feel my love for life returning, only now it is more intense. A new appreciation for the things and people I have in my life has come over me. I talked with Marc about this yesterday, I told him I was worried that I should not be feeling these happy feelings yet. I told him I was worried that maybe I was feeling this way because I was somehow burying my pain and not allowing myself to feel it. Talking to him helped me to see that this is not the case. We have all the same sad feelings and thoughts that many of the other mothers and fathers in our position have. We allow ourselves to notice the babies which seem to be EVERYWHERE and think that should be us right now, the thing is we CHOOSE not to dwell on those thoughts. What good does it do to dwell on all the things we should be doing? We have both asked ourselves why this had to happen to us but how does it help our emotional health to constantly ask "why me?"
The bottom line is it doesn't! My insightful husband then said something that really resonated with me he said life is going to keep going on whether we are ready for it or not. The time we have left on this earth, with each other, with the ones we love, with our future children is not going to pause while we grieve so the sooner we feel ready to be happy again the better. There is no reason to feel guilty about our ability to bounce back from this. The sooner we can accept that yes, this horrible thing happened to us and make peace with the fact that we cannot go back and change what has occurred the sooner we will be able to live our lives and be happy.

“History has demonstrated that the most notable winners usually encountered heartbreaking obstacles before they triumphed. They won because they refused to become discouraged by their defeats.” - B.C. Forbes

Marc & I after running our 1st half marathon Nov 13, 2010. I was about 6 weeks pregnant with baby Marc.

A Letter From My Son

2011-10-07T17:26:00.001-07:00

This "homework" was to write a letter I would like to get from baby Marc. Here was the prompt.
Thank you for sharing....
You are right...
I understand...
I'm sorry...
I appreciate (or love)...
I wish...
I promise...
Thank you...

Mommy,

Thank you for sharing your feelings. You are right, none of this is fair, you and daddy should not have to be suffering so much. I understand that you did everything you could to make sure that I was healthy. I know that every choice you made was the best you could do for me. I wish that you knew how much I knew, wish that you knew how much I loved you back. Thank you for loving me so much. I know that you loved me, I felt it everyday. I heard you and daddy talking to me and singing to me. I'm sorry I can't be there with you now but I promise that I will never leave you.
I promise that you will make me a big brother and you and daddy will get to do the things you were supposed to be able to do with me. I promise that you will always remember me and one day you will be able to think of me and smile instead of cry. It's alright to be happy again, I know it doesn't mean you have forgotten me.
I love you, I love daddy and I'm sorry that you don't get to see me open my eyes or smile, but I smiled when I was inside of you.
I smiled when I heard your voice.

A Letter To My Son

2011-10-07T17:25:00.001-07:00

This post is the writing prompt or "homework" that I received from the psychologist last Thursday. Of course I put it off until the last day, until about 3am this morning, it is now 6:30am and this is just the first half of the assignment.

My sweet baby Marcus,

I am sad.....

     It makes me sad to think of all nights I spent dreaming of what it would feel like to breastfeed you, to bathe you, or sing to you. It makes me sad that I will never get to do those things with you. It makes me sad to think about how incredibly happy and complete your daddy and I felt our lives were while we were waiting for you. What a strange feeling it is to from such a high to such a deep dark low in just a matter of hours. It makes me sad to remember the days when I was so happy carrying you inside of me. Your daddy and I would sit in your nursery and talk about the things we were going to do with you as you grew older. He would lay with me on the couch for hours and watch your little feet and elbows moving around.
     It makes me sad to think of all the times I sang to you and talked to you while you were inside of me. Knowing now that this was the only time you would hear my voice and respond makes me sad.
     When your daddy and I do things that we would not be doing if you were here it makes me sad. I should not be able to go sit through a movie at the theater, I should be at home feeding you every two hours. I should not be able to go and have a glass of wine with a friend or have the time to do my crafts. I should be busy caring for you.
     It makes me sad when the rare and brief feelings of happiness come over me and I realize that I am feeling happy for a moment.   Basically I feel sad when I realize that I am not sad for a moment if that makes any sense at all.   I guess this overlaps with feeling afraid because I feel afraid that if I feel and look happy again others will forget that I lost you.
It makes me the most sad when I remember holding you and hearing you last little breaths as you died in my arms.

I am afraid...

     I am afraid that I will never have more children. I don't know why I fear this because I am healthy, I had beautiful and perfect pregnancy with you, it only took us one month of trying to conceive you and your daddy and I agreed to try to give you brothers and sisters very soon. I am afraid that if or when I do get pregnant again it will not be the peaceful, joyous time that it was with you. I am afraid that instead it will be an anxious and stressful time. I am afraid that this empty feeling I have in my heart will never go away. I am afraid that I will never feel whole again.

I am angry....

     I am angry that everyone else has their babies. All my friends and acquaintances that were due around the same time as you had successful deliveries. While I am happy for them, a big part of me is angry that they are getting to enjoy the things that I was cheated out of enjoying with you. I am angry that I did everything I could possibly do to make sure that you were healthy but I still lost you. I wanted you, we planned you, we carefully thought about you before you were ever conceived.
     I am angry that there are people who think you died because we had you at home when I know this is not the case.

I am sorry....

     I am sorry that I could not protect you. I am sorry that our best was not good enough to keep you alive.

I love...

     I love your daddy for being so loving and caring for me so gently in the days after your death. I love my mother, your Mimi, for sitting with me into the early hours of morning making sure I feel asleep that first week you were gone. I love her for washing my hair when we got home from the hospital and I could hardly move. It is so strange, of all the helpful things she did and encouraging words she said those first few weeks that is what I remember most. My mommy washing my hair.
     I love that I have all these beautiful pictures of you. I love the picture of your daddy reaching down to feel your head as you were being born, the look on his face is priceless. Although physically painful I love remembering the amazing feeling I had as you were making your entrance into this world. I felt so powerful doing it on my own without any drugs. I have never felt such an overwhelming feeling of love. I love the few hours that we had with you. I love that I was able to sing you a lullaby before you left us.

I wish....

     Wow, my wishes could go on forever. I wish things were different. I wish that I could hold you in my arms and sing to you again. I wish that I could tell you that on the 4th of July, the eve of your birth, that you hated the fireworks. They were so loud, you were kicking so hard and I thought how funny it will be to tell you this every fourth of July.
I wish I had more memories of you.
I wish that I could have seen your eyes. Just once to see them open, to see how blue they would have been.
I wish that I could have seen you smile, roll over, crawl, heard you cry or laugh, felt your fingers grasp mine.
I wish that I could fast forward through this time, through this grief. I wish I did not have to find things to distract myself with just to make it through the day. I wish that my eyes were stinging from being up all night with you instead of from being up all night crying because I am without you.

Thank you...

Thank you for the 40 weeks I got to spend with you while you were inside of me. Thank you for showing me how precious and fragile life is, because of you I will never take a single moment with the people I love for granted.

I have learned...

I have learned that without a doubt I chose the best man to be my husband and your daddy. I have learned that our relationship is stronger than I could have ever imagined. I have seen how generous and thoughtful my family and friends could be. How fortunate I am to have friends that do not shy away from me and allow me to talk about these sad things. I am slowly beginning to see that I am stronger and more optimistic than I thought I was.

I want for myself...

     One day I want to be able to look at your beautiful face in these pictures and not feel like I am in a deep dark pit. I want to look at your beautiful face and remember you with happiness. I want to be able to think about the days you were alive inside of me and remember them with a smile instead of this intense sadness. I want to give you lots of brothers and sisters and I want to tell them everything about you. I want to experience all the mothering things that I have missed out on with you. I want to be able to let go of the constant thoughts of what I SHOULD be doing right now and try to focus on what I am doing. I want to be able to look into the future with the hope and happiness that we had before we lost you.

Rainbow Baby

2011-10-07T17:24:00.001-07:00

I had never heard this term before but people on the grief support forums have a term for a child born after they’ve lost one-a rainbow baby.

"The term Rainbow Baby is the understanding that the beauty of a rainbow does not negate the ravages of the storm. When a rainbow appears, it doesn't mean the storm never happened or that the family is not still dealing with its aftermath. What it means is that something beautiful and full of light has appeared in the midst of the darkness and clouds. Storm clouds may still hover but the rainbow provides a counterbalance of color, energy and hope."

Getting pregnant again is all I think about. Sometimes I feel a little guilty that I have this overwhelming need to be pregnant again right away. I know that our next child will never replace Marcus but I do think that it will be healing for me. When it does happen, what a great way to think of baby Marc's little brothers and sisters.

Hard Days & My Amazing Husband

2011-10-07T17:23:00.000-07:00

The past few days have been so hard. I am having a really hard time looking forward and staying positive. Tears seem to just fall so easily from my eyes, sometimes they last for just a moment and other times they go on for hours. I have been wishing that I could just curl up in a ball and let this sadness consume me. On a particularly hard night this week I told Marc that sometimes it actually feels like my heart might just stop beating. Is that possible? Can you die form a broken heart?

In an effort to not surrender completely to my sadness sometimes I find an escape for a few hours. Organizing my collection of beads, counting stitches while crocheting, or mindlessly watching Netflix movies. Sometimes I get the energy up to leave the house and go for lunch with friends or a shopping trip but when these things have run their course and the distraction is over it is like crashing into a brick wall. Usually this happens in the evening, at the end of the day when I have finally become exhausted from the effort it takes to distract myself. I use up all of my energy on just making it through the day and then I just have nothing left.

Most of you who know me know that I have always wanted lots of children. I made Marc agree to at least three when we got married. During one of the most painful parts of my labor I just remember thinking how much I loved my little boy who was almost here and how if I never had a chance to raise another child I would be fulfilled to just raise him. It hurts to think about how completely happy and fulfilled we were before this and now to look at how far away that feeling is. Sometimes it seems like that feeling is forever out of reach.

Marc is amazing! I don't know how I ended up with such a wonderful man as my husband. I still have no appetite and Marc has to remind me to eat. He actually called me from work around 4pm to make sure I had eaten because he knew that I would forget...and I had. If it were not for him I am pretty sure that some new kind of alien species would have started growing in our refrigerator since I have not attempted to clean the kitchen...or anything around the house for that matter. He is always there to wipe my tears, he takes me in his arms and reassures me that we have to hang on to our hope because we will be happy again. He is constantly telling me how much he loves me, how strong I am and how proud he is to be my husband.
A few nights ago on another rough night, he reminded me of a very important portion of our wedding vows.
"I will share your pain, that it be divided." He told me that I do not have to carry this alone, that he will always carry a portion of it for me.
So for him I go ahead and force myself to get out of bed each morning.
I will try to smile for him at least once a day because our vows also say "I will share your joy, that it be multiplied."
For him, I will try to hold that hope that we will have more joy to share in the future.

I found this poem:

It must be very difficult

To be a man in grief,
Since "men don't cry"
and "men are strong"
No tears can bring relief.

It must be very difficult
To stand up to the test,
And field the calls and visitors
So she can get some rest.

They always ask if she's all right
And what she's going through.
But seldom take his hand and ask,
"My friend, but how are you?"

He hears her crying in the night
And thinks his heart will break.
He dries her tears and comforts her,
But "stays strong" for her sake.

It must be very difficult
To start each day anew.
And try to be so very brave-
He lost his baby too.

--Eileen Knight Hagemeister

I always feel better after writing so I will try to end on a more positive note. I found a father's blog about the loss of his daughter who was stillborn. Here is an excerpt from his blog that I really liked.

"For me, the question really comes down to, what is healing vs. accepting the new reality? Acceptance, in my book, does not necessarily mean healing, but rather coming to a point where a bereaved person realizes that no amount of sadness, anger, or hopelessness is going to make things different and the process of grieving allows them to start moving forward again.

In other words, it is not TIME itself that helps, but rather what you DO WITH THE TIME. If you curl up in a ball, pull the shades, and let your sadness take over, no days, weeks, or months off the calendar are going help make you feel better. But if you use that grieving time to reflect and express your sadness and anger in a healthy way so the pressure does not become unbearable, life can become worth living again.

Believe me, it is not that I don't understand that sometimes the sadness is so overwhelming it seems completely impossible to ever think of being happy again. But, I also don't believe that we are dishonoring our children and the love we feel for them by allowing ourselves to smile, be happy, and feel hope."

My Words for Baby Marc's Memorial

2011-10-07T17:21:00.000-07:00

These were the words I managed to get out at Marcus's memorial.

Dear Baby Marc,

Just as we were getting ready to say hello we are now here to say goodbye.

We had opened our hearts in welcome to you and it hurts that we cannot fulfill all the welcome we had to give. While we loved you without seeing, we wanted to see too: the particular shade of blue your eyes, the color of your hair, and who you might resemble. We wanted to hear the special sound of your own laughter, to watch your personality unfold and to see how you may have changed the world. But while these things have been taken away from us, my sweet baby, I want you to know how much you are loved.

From the moment we knew you were coming- I have loved you more than anything I have ever loved in my life. I will always cherish the few precious memories I have of you, like how excited I was to tell your daddy you were coming. The feeling of your little elbows, feet and fists as they explored your home inside of me and the hours you daddy and I spent watching you move. I will never forget the look on your daddy’s face the morning I woke him and told him you were on your way or the incredible feeling of giving birth to you.

Even though you will not be physically here with us we will carry you in our hearts always. We will carry the few beautiful hours we had you in our arms and keep your spirit alive with stories for your brother and sisters.

As you daddy told me, although your time with us was brief, your short life has impacted and changed ours forever. Because of you we are better people. You will always be a reminder to never take anything for granted.

Everything good I do will be for you.

I love you forever,
Your Mommy

Broken-but-Blessed

2011-10-07T14:34:00.000-07:00

I felt it was time to start sharing my story. I feel like this will be a healing thing for me to do.

I woke up at 4:30am thinking my water had broke. It was not a gush so I was not sure that my water really broke. I waited two hours a half hours! Everyone was sleeping and it was so hard not to wake Marc up but I wanted to be sure. I was still leaking water at 7:30 and I could not wait any longer so I sent a text to my midwife, Ginger-who assured me that what I was describing was my water breaking. I had very mild contractions all morning with no pain. Ginger came to check at 11ish and I was 1cm, so my midwife left and said to call when I felt painful contractions.

I could not just sit around and wait so I wanted to go to a movie thinking that it would kill time. So we all went to see Cars 2 around 2:30. A little over half way through the movie I could tell the contractions were increasing in intensity and duration. Marc kept asking if we should leave but the movie was almost over so I waited. On the drive home something changed and the contractions got much more painful and all I was thinking was I want to be home now! Someone called the midwife because as soon as we got home I was already feeling pressure. Ginger arrived about 5 or 6 I am told but at this point I had no concept of time. I was in a lot of pain but coping well with the birthing pool. I do not think I could have done it naturally without the water. It was amazing how much it lessened the pain. Marc was amazing! He was so supportive. During our pain coping techniques birthing class I thought for sure that I was going to want him to rub my back and do the things she showed us but it turned out I did not want him to touch me or even breathe on me too much! However I needed him sitting behind me and I needed to hold both of his hands and squeeze them very hard during contractions. I was dilated to about 7 cm now and very quickly I wanted to push really bad but I wasn't dilated completely so with Marc and Ginger reminding me to breathe I fought the urge. Baby Marc's heart rate was strong the whole time.

Close to 7pm I was told I could push. Finally! It was painful but pushing felt so much better than trying not to push. I pushed for only 30-45 min. When baby Marc's head came out, Ginger felt the cord around the neck.. It was very tight. She told me to push hard because she needed to get him out quick because his heart rate was at 120 and she didn't want it to drop more. I pushed hard and he was delivered at about 7:30. Ginger placed my sweet baby on my chest but he wouldn't take a breath...she suctioned his mouth, moved him around, gave him air by mouth, then quickly clamped the cord, and started CPR. I was in shock at this point, the moment I had dreamed of was going so drastically wrong. I sat in the birthing pool holding Marc, praying our baby would be ok. My mom immediately called 911 and the medics arrived in like 4 minutes. They rushed baby Marc off and Marc and Ginger went with him. I had to stay to be checked by the midwife assistant and to sign a release saying I did not want to be taken to the hospital. If I would have gone with the ambulance they would have taken me to Harris not Cooks to be with my baby. The medics called to tell is the baby was doing better and was in NICU and this is what I was told on the way to the hospital. But by the time I arrived maybe 45 min later the doctors had done many tests and told Marc and I that baby Marc was brain dead due to the loss of oxygen from the cord being wrapped around his neck. The doctor read all of Gingers notes, he assured us that there was no one to blame and this would have happened even if I would have given birth in the hospital.

Marc and I both were in shock. We could not even cry. I was thinking why can I not cry? I should be hysterical. I think now that it is coping mechanism for your brain, a way of allowing you to handle a massive blow like this without completely losing it. It was such a numb feeling.

Marc and I had to make the decision to take our sweet baby Marcus Alan off of life support. They gave him pain medication to make sure that he was not hurting and we took turns holding our baby. I held him and sang to him. I told him everything I could think of telling him, how much I loved him and would miss him. I promised him that everything good I do in this life I will do for him. I counted his fingers and toes, caressed his beautiful little face. We talked about how much he looked like Marc, but that he had my nose. It was so surreal to be holding this perfectly formed little baby but to know that we would not get to take him home. He was so beautiful he just looked as if he was sleeping.

My sweet little baby, our sweet Marcus died peacefully in my arms at 11:45pm. I am so grateful for the few hours we got to spend with our baby. We should have had a lifetime but since we don't I cherish the time I had my baby with me. The hours he was in my arms and the months he was inside my womb. I am thankful that I took the time to talk to him while he was inside of me. I am thankful that I made sure to cherish the hours I spent with Marc feeling him explore and kick. I am so lucky that I hired my amazing birth photographer Keri, she had been at the house during his delivery and offered to come to the hospital and take more pictures. They have already brought me so much comfort. I love having a beautiful portrait of my son to hang on my wall and I love that I have a family picture to carry with me. We will hire her again to take pictures of his brothers and sisters.

Everything about my pregnancy was normal and uncomplicated. The birthing process was amazing, I had completely natural childbirth and I was only in labor 15 hours - it was only painful for about 4 or 5 of those. Everything was normal up until the very last moments. I made the decision to have baby Marc at home because that is what I believed was best for him and I do not believe that had I been at a hospital the outcome would have been different. My labor was progressing normally and very quickly and his heart rate was strong. There would have been no indication that something was wrong until we could see that the cord was around his neck. By then it would have been too late for a C-section at the hospital. The odds of a baby dying from a cord accident is one out of every thousand babies and there really is no way to predict it in an otherwise normal, uncomplicated pregnancy. You just never think that it will happen to you.

The past three weeks have been the hardest three weeks of my life. I have never felt such intense sadness. At times my heart and chest literally feels as if it is being squeezed so hard that I have to actually remind myself to take a breath or it might actually stop beating. I think of all the things I should be doing right now. All the things I have been cheated out of. All the things my sweet baby has been cheated out of. It was so hard when my milk came in, a reminder that I have no baby to feed. I tell myself that I need to let go of those things I have fantasized about doing with baby Marcus for the past 10 months. Nothing can change what has happened so what is the point of dwelling on these things. But sometimes I cannot help it. I should have a three week old right now. I should be giving him his first bath, I should be taking newborn pictures, I should be up at 8am after being up all night with a newborn instead of being up at 8am after being up all night writing about losing him.

But then I try to be positive.
This is a horrible thing that has happened to me, to Marc, and to our family. But I am still a very lucky woman. I am so lucky that I am healthy and Marc and I will be able to make baby Marc a big brother. I have an amazing man to walk with me through this. I did not know that I could love him more than I already did but everyday his strength and courage proves me wrong and I do love him even more. He is my rock and I could not handle this without him.
I am lucky to have amazingly supportive family and friends who love us and baby Marc.

I know that the only way to bring honor to Marcus Jr's life is to live my life the best I can. To not take any moment for granted. I will be a better mother and wife because of him. Right now most of the time my heart is heavy and hurting but the past week I have had moments, very brief moments of lightheartedness, a moment where I feel hopeful, where I feel strong and able to get through this. However these moments are so brief that I often feel frustrated once they are gone, I desperately want to hold on to them but they go so quickly.

Time will not heal this wound. There will always be an empty space in my life where Marcus should be. In 10 years when Marc and I have other children and we are taking a family photo I will grieve for my child who will not be able to be in that photo. Every year on July 5th I will think of how old Marcus should be and the things I should be able to do with him.
I can only hope that time will allow me to hold on to those moments of hopefulness and lightheartedness for much longer.