13 months

Today is 13 months.  I wonder if the 25th of every month will ever have a different meaning for me.  If I will ever wake up on this day of the month and not think about how long Sophia & Ellie have been gone.  I think I know the answer to this and really I am okay because it has become somewhat of a ritual for me and another day for me to always remember my daughters.

Having passed the 1 year mark, I do feel better.  I feel as if a weight has been lifted from me.  I am still sad, it still hurts, I still cry.  I don’t think those things will ever stop happening, but maybe acceptance has started to settle in.  Then there are those moments when I start thinking of what should have been.  Or when I see a baby (or twins) that would be around their same age.  It is really hard not to let those thoughts take over, but I guess that is part of the grief we live with.

Things have been very busy around here.  Emma’s 6th birthday was last Friday, her party was Saturday, lots of end of the school year activities going on, doctor’s appointments,  and now we are just waiting for Baby G to arrive.  Still are unsure of a name, but your input has really helped!  Two of my dear girlfriends threw a surprise baby shower for me…it was a HUGE SURPRISE!!  They knew I didn’t want a shower, but it was so nice.  Very small with just close family and friends and really perfect in every way…except someone could have told me to dress a little nicer!!  So that got the ball rolling for me to start getting things ready for the baby.  I’m not quite all the way there yet, but it will happen and for now we just wait.  Really hoping it happens soon though…keeping my fingers crossed, there is a full moon Thursday!!

artist of the week

I am being featured as "Artist of the Week" at Small Bird Studio. Go on over and take a peek and enter the GIVEAWAY for my etsy shop!! And while you're there, take a look at little Jenna's baby brother Joseph...soooo cute!!

and the winner is...

Commenter number 15...Rikki!!!!! Yay Rikki! E-mail me and we will work out the details for your necklace! Congratulations!

I have a lot to write (I think) but not very much time to do it right now. But I do want to let you know that I am extending the 15% off of any purchase in my shop until midnight (pst) on Wednesday, May 12th. So that gives you the rest of today to use this discount if you are interested!

mother's day giveaway

Don't forget...the giveaway ends tomorrow (Tuesday.) If you haven't entered yet, go to my last post to read about itand then leave a comment there to enter to win!! Good luck!

thanks & mother’s day giveaway

Thank you for all your help with the choices I have ahead of me. Please keep the advice coming, because I still am unsure of so many things!!

To clear a few things up on the names, Gigi is pronounced just like the letters GG. Elia is like the beginning of Ellie and the ending of Sophia. Gia is like the letter G followed by the short /u/sound. And Gracie I think is self explanatory. I have created a poll on the side bar, so you can be anonymously honest and vote on which one you like best if you would like to. Thanks for the input you have given me so far…it has really helped ease my mind with the possible names we have chose.

Ok…now for Mother’s Day. Last year Mother’s Day was extremely difficult. It had only been 2 weeks and one day since I had the girls. I think I was numb. I did the usual things we always do, but just felt empty inside. We did add one more thing to the day and that was a visit to the cemetery, I never thought I would be visiting a cemetery on Mother’s Day to be with my children. How quickly life can change. I really don’t know how I managed to even get out of bed and function on last year, but I did. This year is different. The pain isn’t as raw. It still hurts to know that all my children aren’t here to celebrate this special day with me, but I think I am accepting it…kind of. I feel caught in limbo. Caught between missing Sophia & Ellie and all the things we would be doing with them right now and between accepting this new baby into our lives. It is a weird position to be in and I don’t really know how to describe it. It is almost like my heart is in two different places, still grieving for the ones I am missing and yet so full of love for the one I am going to meet soon.

I hope you all have a peaceful Mother’s Day. I hope you are recognized for the wonderful mothers you are to all of your children, whether they are here on Earth or soaring in the sky. To let you know that I appreciate you as the mother you are and the friend you have been to be, I am doing a giveaway. Someone IRL asked me to make a necklace for her. She has experienced losses of her own and wanted something to honor those lives. This heart is stamped with a line from a poem written by e.e. cummings:

i carry your heart

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you
here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart
i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

I think this poem beautifully describes what many of us who have lost children feel. Our babies are with us wherever we go. What we do, they do, what we feel, they feel…we carry them anywhere we go.

To enter to win this necklace, just leave me a comment. I will be randomly choosing a winner on Tuesday, May 11th. And just in case you didn’t get the perfect gift you were hoping for, you can order from my etsy shop and save 15% off any order now through Tuesday. Just enter code MDBLM in message to seller.

Happy Mother’s Day to all of you.

To my sweet Sophia & Ellie,

You girls have made me the mother I am today. I love you for all you have brought to my life. Although you two are missing from it, if not for you, I would be missing so much more.

I love you!!

xo,

Mommy

help me please!! :)

Okay…here is what I need your help with.  I have many of the big items I need to bring baby girl home.  No, they are not out of the closet, not cleaned, not set up, but I do have them.  However, it has been nearly 6 years since I have brought a baby home and it amazes me how many things have changed, so I need some advice from those of you who are doing this now or have done it more recently than me.  Please feel free to give me your input on the items I am struggling with making a decision on and anything else you may think I need to know!!

First of all…I need a diaper bag.  I have no idea what I want.  I have looked at Pet.unia Pick.le Bott.om and like theirs, but just don’t know what else is out there.  I want something cute and fashionable, but not over the top…it is after all a diaper bag.

Next, a sling.  I was going to buy this baby sling from Ser.ena & Li.ly.  It was on sale even!  But the sale ended on April 25th, Sophia & Ellie’s birthday, and I forgot to order it.  So now I am thinking about what else is out there…what slings have you used, who makes a good one, who doesn’t?  I just don’t know!  And with the recent recall on slings, should I even be using one at all?

I also will be buying a new breast pump.  I am looking at Med.ela’s which is what I used in the past, but want to know if you have tried anything that you maybe think is better.  And if you have a recommendation, where did you purchase it?

I want a cover for the infant carrier I have.  My carrier is black and gray, not very cool for the warm summer months ahead, so I want something to cover it.  I know I could make a cover, but I really don’t feel like finding a pattern, getting the material, and figuring it all out right now.  So if you know of a good brand, please let me know!

I have been looking at inclined sleepers too.  Baby girl will be in a bassinette for the first few several months, actually she will probably end up in our bed, but I saw this sleeper and this one.  They are very different, and I don’t know which one would be better to use!  So please give me your thoughts!

And one last thing that we need some major help with…her name!  Hutch & I NEVER agree on names.  We have not had names for any of our children before they were born, not because we wanted to see what they looked like and then decide, just because we can never make a decision.  Actually, we did have a name picked out for Brady, but we thought he was a girl, so we had to re-pick!  Anyway, a few months ago I thought of a name…it is a little different, so I was apprehensive when I told Hutch about it.  I asked him to have an open mind and think about it before reacting and saying NO!  So I told him the name and he said he had been think of it too!  So weird, but we had watched slept through a movie a few weeks prior to this and it was one of the character’s names, so I think it had been planted in our brains.  Within in the next few days, I was at work.  I have a crate that my students put their library books in when they are ready to be returned.  I was teaching and happened to look in the basket and there sat a book titled with this same name.  A little while later, I heard a girl at our school being called by this name, and then I was telling my hairdresser (we really haven’t told anyone IRL) about the name, she thought it was cute and we should go with it.  After she put my color on, she was doing another client whose daughter is pregnant with a girl and they are going to call the baby this same name.  So, you see, I keep getting these little signs, but we are still unsure.  The name is unique, and to some it may sound more like a nickname or something you would name a pet, but I love it and keep coming back to it.  Hutch has came up with an alternative that I really like too, but we still aren’t sure.  He has also came up with a middle name that I love…see if you can figure out why!  So here they are…please leave me your honest opinion, it will not offend me.  I want to know what people think of it, so I know if I want to subject my child to it.  Now you are all probably thinking it is really bad, so anyway here they are…

Original Name with Hutch's idea for a middle name:  Gigi Elia

Alternative first name and middle name:  Gia Gracie

Please give me your thoughts on all these things…I need all the help I can get right now!  Baby girl will be here within the next 5 weeks and I really need to have things more ready than they are right now.  Thanks for your opinions!!

April 25, 2010

So Sunday morning I woke up and could feel the grief inside of me.  It was hard to believe that exactly 365 days ago, I woke up not feeling well and a few hours later was in the hospital giving birth to my little girls.  It was very hard for me not to replay moments from that day over and over in my head.  I was also difficult not to imagine how different our lives would be if we could have just skipped that day last year…if our girls were born safely and were here with us.  I could almost see them in our home; in our lives.  Oh how I wish that were true.

Sunday morning I had a mass said for Sophia & Ellie.  We went and although it wasn’t difficult to get through there were a couple times my mind wandered off to that day exactly one year ago I got teary eyed.  However, I was able to control my emotions and got through the mass without a complete breakdown.

All morning it was hard not to look at the clock and think about what was happening last year at that moment..especially at 10:35 when sweet Sophia was born and again at 10:49 when precious Ellie was born.  I really lost it at those moments, just to think of what was happening and reliving all that pain was hard. 

At 12:00 we headed to the cemetery to get things ready.  The girls’ marker needed to be cleaned and I needed to unload everything.  Everyone arrived and at 1:00, I said a few teary words and we released the butterflies.  The little stinkers must have been sleeping in their box, they really didn’t want to come out.  A couple fluttered off right away, but most of them stayed in the box or close by, they loved the flowers and hung out there for a little while too.

Next we gave all of the kids 2 balloons, one pink and one purple.  We sang happy birthday to Sophia & Ellie and sent them up into the sky to find their way to the sweet birthday girls.  The kids really had a wonderful time…they loved the butterflies and thought the balloon release was pretty cool too.  

We gave out the cupcakes with the cards attached and thanked everyone for coming and sharing this special day with us.  I let them know that next year our plan is to do the March for Babies in honor of Sophia & Ellie, so plan on being on our team and raising lots of money.  Our local event is always towards the end of April, so I think it will be a wonderful way to honor my girls year after year.

Everything really went smoothly, especially when you consider I didn’t have a plan in my mind.  I was so touched that our family and friends chose to share this time with us…it really meant a lot to me.  Even on Sunday, I was unsure if this was how I wanted to spend the day, but afterwards, I was very relieved and happy with my choices.  I think being around so many people helped to ease my mind and the things I did really helped to occupy my thoughts. 

I received some very special gifts for the girls on Sunday as well, very unexpected, but very special.  My brother and sil gave us a beautiful figure of two babies together wrapped in angel wings…pictures will be coming later.  My bil & sil had a star named after the girls.  My friends gave us two heart shaped ivies.  Another friend gave me a Birthday Cake scented candle and a beautiful outdoors plant that we planted this past weekend.  My mom made a special floral arrangement…the container has two babies on it, one on each side.  She used Gerber daisies and roses and it was absolutely adorable!  The girls were also given some sweet flowers and roses that we left at their grave.

I also received so many e-mails, messages, comments, cards, and sweet gifts from all of you as well.  Having little messages pop up throughout the week and on Sunday really helped to get me through the difficult moments.  Just to know you were out there thinking of us brought me comfort.  Thank you!!

There was one more gift that I received that day…It is not something tangible, but to me it was the best possible thing ever.  It was a message from my girls.  I am not going to go into details of how I received this message because it is really just too complicated, but I trust in this person and believe in what she is telling me, she has no reason to be anything but honest with me.  She has been a great source of comfort to me and I appreciate her more than I think she will ever know.  Here is the message I received from her: 

Your baby girls are fine. I know it's hard for you, but they are peaceful, happy and fine. Also, they like the attention.

Reading this really made me emotional.  To hear that they are fine and happy gives me peace.  And knowing that they like the attention…well that just made me chuckle because I can see them laughing and giggling and being excited by all the things that were done for them on their first birthday.  I love you Sophia & Ellie and I hope you enjoyed your birthday celebration!  xoxo

Now that the first year has passed me by, I feel more at ease with things.  I still miss my girls like crazy, but I now feel like I can concentrate on this new baby a little more.  As some of you know, i have NOTHING ready.  We don’t have a name, we don’t have a place for her to sleep, I don’t have the car seat ready…NOTHING!!  Hutch & I did go out and buy a few things this weekend, but I still feel so unprepared.  That is what I will be focusing on in the next couple weeks.  I have some questions and need some advice, so I will be posting about that soon and any input you have is greatly appreciated…it hasn’t been that long since we had Emma, but everything just feels so different this time.  Oh well, I guess I will figure it all out, but stay tuned to give me your two cents on a few things!!