Right Where I AM- 9Months 3Weeks and 5Days

I decided to join in on the "Right Where I Am" blog project by writing my first letter to Michael-

To my sweet Michael

Well baby boy, it has been almost 10 months since your Dad and I had to say our hellos and goodbyes to you. Everyday of these last 10 months have been the hardest days of my life. There have been some happy moments mixed in, but mostly sad and bittersweetness. The 9 months we had you here with us were the happiest I have ever been. As I sit here late at night while the rest of the house is fast asleep, I am thinking about all of the memories we should be making. Instead of holding you close and spending sweet alone time with you, I am alone with only tears and your unforgettable memory sweet boy. Your Dad and I have tried to make you so proud of us. We both miss you and wanted so much more for you and your life. You deserved better! You didn't deserve to die so soon. Our hearts are broken by your absence, but mostly because we can't do anything to change it for you. We had so much love to give to you...we still do, but I think we have a hard time figuring out how to express it to you and to each other.

I imagine by now you would be trying to crawl. For some reason I think you would be walking before you turned a year old too! I try to picture who you would look like, but you looked like both of us when you were born, so I have a hard time seeing your growing face. I think that is the hardest thing that I am having to come to grips with. We can't watch you grow up or change, progress, succeed or fail. To us you will always be a baby. I try to think of you as the age you should be, but again I have a hard time seeing you as something you never were and will never get the chance to be. I wish there was some way we could send our love to you. Maybe a love courier with a confirmation return to let us know that you got it.

You as an abstract person/spirit is so unfamiliar to me. I have had such a difficult time knowing how you NOW fit into my life and what I can do to try and keep you and your memory alive- in our family. As much as it feels so good to be writing this letter to you Angel Bear, it hurts too because you are not here to get it. You will never get to feel us hug you or taste ice cream.

For now darling boy, I hope you can cut your dear Mom some slack while I try to figure all of this out. I wasn't prepared to raise you as a memory, I was prepared to raise you as a rambunctious little boy. This is all a work in progress. You still deserve to be loved with all of the love that we have for you. You are always with us Michael, and you will never be forgotten!

-Longing to hold you in my arms,

Love,

Mommy

Only one card....

But it was the best one! M got a very sweet Mothers Day card that he hand wrote for me. Even though his is the only one that deeply mattered, I felt forgotten this year and still do. Last year Mothers Day was full of happy giggles and smiles for this girl. I received tons of cards, text messages and flowers from friends and family. This year it was silence, shaded with gloominess and heavy tears. I got one card from M, no flowers and 2 text messages from girlfriends. I tried really hard to be the strongest MOM I could be and not let this get to me. But it is so hard to have Micheal gone and no one to acknowledge that he was the reason I became a MOM. Yes, I did say MOM! Even though I do not have a live child or currently am not with child, I am a MOM. I am tired of feeling like this. Always having to remind people that I am a mom, and I do have a child. I guess it stems from the lack of support we have gotten from people we know or who claim to care about us. In the beginning after we lost Michael I was so afraid that people would forget about him. No one says they forgot. They just choose not to remember I guess. This all sounds very bitter and jaded maybe because I am. Maybe I just expect too much from people. It's all very sad and unfortunate. Maybe next year if we have a live baby, people will be be more willing to acknowledge my motherhood. Maybe...........

TheKnot/ Our Wedding Website!

TheKnot

Let's show some SUPPORT......PLEASE WATCH THIS!

One of my dear BLM friends, Annette, has gone above and beyond showing her strength by pouring her heart and soul into this video. The video is her audition for the Biggest Loser. Please take a few minutes to watch it and pass it along to anyone who may find some inspiration!

Missing him never goes away.

There really are no words. None that can truly grasp the essence of the emotions felt by me or any other parent that looses a baby. I know I haven't been blogging as much so this post may be out of the blue and pretty depressing but it will be short. I MISS HIM! All of the time! He was my first.....my baby, my son. My little boy that I had so many plans, hopes and dreams for. The little man I anticipated holding in my arms as I fed him from my breast while admiring how handsome he was.

ALL OF THAT GONE, NEVER TO RETURN AGAIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I still have the unfair question of WHY, and just like always missing him, that question will never go away either. We may have a functional answer to the question on the surface as to WHY Michael died but it is useless to me and my heart that aches for him constantly. I don't think I can or have been able to accept the fact that I will be grieving for the rest of my life. Like the naive person I am, I have been looking for that time when I will be able to breathe with out the stabbing pain in my chest, or be able to walk by random baby stuff with out that gut wrenching tear slicing through my stomach. I am living my life to the best of my ability, but some days, like today-IT'S JUST HARD.

Grief is unrelenting and unpredictable. It has no right or wrong and it is non-specific. But everyone that has been affected by grief can say the same thing, it changes your life and leaves you alone. This can mean something different on so many levels to a lot of people, so take it the way that fits you in your own life because on one level or another it is true.

Thank you and a new bathroom...

So the majority of you that read my blog are not the same people whose blogs I read. I am pretty sure the few readers/followers that I do have, don't have blogs of their own....and that is TOTALLY fine. I just wanted to take a few minutes to thank all of the beautiful, strong and grieve-stricken BLM's that have opened their hearts up and poured their grief, happiness, fear and whatever else they may be feeling into their blog posts. As I have taken on a PRN weekend position and continue to go to school full-time, I don't get to blog as much as I would like. But those of you that share on you blogs have helped me in ways you may never know. Your posts allow me to pull myself out of my own head. THANK YOU from the bottom of my heart. If you are a BLM and I am not a follower of yours, let me know!!!! I would love to read your blog. I do have to warn you though, my lack of free time doesn't always allow me to blog frequently or leave many comments, but I DO READ!!!

Now as for life around here, we are well. BUSY, but well. M started demo in the bathroom this weekend in preparation for a contractor to begin construction. I was pretty bitter about it in the beginning. I love our old bathroom, the tub especially. I have written a previous post about my sentimental attachment to that bathtub. It is titled I AM STILL HERE. SO, you can understand why I am a little hesitant to get rid of anything in that room. We still have it, but it has been ripped out and is sitting in the back of our pickup truck.

I put up a fight about this, but later realized that my resistance was not really about the money, the bathroom or the tub. It was really about preserving what little tangible evidence I have of spending time with Michael while I was pregnant. I came to that realization late last night when I found myself laying on the bathroom floor, sobbing and wailing because there was a gigantic hole in the floor where our tub use to be. I felt like I was look at myself......a once complete put together room, that has been demolished and now a huge hole has been left in the middle of it. A hole where my heart and first child used to be. It was such an intense pain and I screamed, which is pretty unusual for me. If anything can be called usual on this journey of grief. I say usual because I have not broken down or yelled like that since Michael died. For the last 6 months, I have been pretty stoic in my grieving process, but last night I experienced something so different. I have tried to rationalize it in my mind, but there is no rationale when it comes to grieving the death of your own baby.

I still find it amazing how some situations in my life can manifest themselves into deep emotional triggers of my grief. I am sure this has something to do with my grieving style, or lack there of. Either way, loosing Michael has changed me FOREVER. He has taught me more about love, life and loss in a moments time than I could have ever learned in a life time without him. We don't have him here physically, but we have his memory present in our hearts and in our lives every second of everyday. M and I live and breathe the essence of Michaels life in each breath we take. Our ability to cherish life has been intensified because we know we aren't promised another one.

Mommy and Daddy miss you Angel Bear!

Faces Writing Challenge

At the time that Michael died, I was in a daze. A serine yet psychotic state of mind. My brain really shut down and I was emotionally absent from this Earth. It was hard to really tell who was being a good friend or who was just absent. I do remember the kind faces of my loving mother, step-dad, and supportive aunts!

They gathered around M and I with such heartfelt love and tender whispers of comfort. I was pretty much bed ridden for the first couple of days as I recovered from the surgery so cooking and cleaning was out of the question. My mom and her sister, my Aunt Shell, as I call her, had been at our home cleaning and cooking the day that I was discharged from the hospital. It was so nice to come home to a spotless home that smelled like lavender and the family lasagna.

I know that it may sound weird or gross to some people but it was the most comforting and nostalgic smell I could have had surrounding me. My mom had also asked me before I got home if she could spend some time in the nursery. I was nervous about letting her pack up the things that we would no longer need, but I was so distraught that M and I both thought it would be best if she did it because if we had to do it we both may have just gone off the deep end. I didn't think I was strong enough to have to do all of that packing so I didn't. However we did not want the crib, changing table or rocker taken down and to this day it is still where we left it.

My mother, step-dad and my aunt bought some large Tupperware containers and thoughtfully packed all of the diapers, blankets, onesies, booties, and jumpers up. I haven't thought of what they must have talked about or how many millions of tears that fell that day while they took on that torturous task. The tears are falling like crazy and my heart is being ripped apart all over again just thinking about it. I sometimes wonder if I should have let them leave that task up to me, but I don't know if I would still be here if I would have. I don't know if I ever truly thanked them for doing that.

That night Aunt Shell and my mom shaved my legs for me while I was in bed since I couldn't get into the bathtub or bend down much in the shower. My mom did one leg and my aunt did the other. It was a simple task but it was very appreciated! They rubbed lotion on my legs after they were done. The entire time they took care of me they were so sweet and kind. I could have never imagined that the visit they made was to help me plan my sons funeral in sorrow, and not to help us welcome him home with joy. I remember feeling guilty a few weeks later that their trip was for such a sad reason, but while they were here I felt their pure love.