Two Years

Dear Claudette Elyse,
Saturday the 29th will mark two official years since we held you.
In that time frame a lifetime has changed for your mommy.  You may have noticed I haven't blogged in a long time. I thought the unexpected arrival making you a big sister would bring so many words and thoughts to my mind, but really it has confused me and made me numb most days.

With each passing day without you I feel a bit more lost. I am hoping one day I will wake up and make sense of all this reality, but until then I just am trying to be the best version of mommy I can be. That probably comes off like a feeble attempt to most people, but you and I know I am doing my best.

Last year you inspired over 700 random acts of kindness. Local media was so inspired they wrote of your impact. It was awe-inspiring.

This year mommy planned on spending time with you on your birthday at the place  I feel closest to you, the ocean. Life gave us another big curve ball and grandma got very sick and we couldn't go. But we are very thankful your brother and sister have another Thanksgiving with their beloved grandma, so we count that as a win.

So we decided we would go to Boise and spend your birthday with Auntie Aryn and Auntie Audra and family. Nope, our 28 year old furnace had other ideas for that too.

So here we are two days before your birthday without plans (you know mommy likes to have her plans). Heck, your headstone hasn't even been decorated. In all truth, I don't really like visiting you out there and haven't been since spring. But you know that.

So with Thanksgiving, Black Friday and then D-day ahead of us how do we memorialize you this year love?
Well, I think the big reason God kept changing our plans is because his was better...always is right?

A little over a three months ago, the earth lost an incredible little man named Mattie that likes using his little body to change the world like you. He was adopted at birth into an incredible family, I MEAN INCREDIBLE! You know the kind that has 3 crazy, cool biological kids then decides to adopt 4 crazy, cool adopted kids most with special needs because that's just who they are. They gave a voice to the non-verbal little guy and he changed the world with his short visit here (sound familiar?). I fell in love with him via FB post and Instagram pics. I wept when he coded multiple times and everyone thought his life was over then. I grinned despite myself when he went on to live and laugh and love on this earth for close to another year.

This was a picture taken at his birthday party: 

Yep, his family likes awesome parties too! 

So I got to thinking since you and me Claudie like to help change the world one person at a time how we could help this incredible family. See the Loux family is self-employed you know doing things like helping bring home orphans to loving families and empowering people who feels powerless by giving them health and vitality through their wellness program. It's pretty cool to watch. I met Mattie's mommy because she was going to help us bring home our baby...and she is just not in the way we thought. 

So Mattie needs a headstone! You know yours was paid for by an incredible organization. But their funds are low and they were only able to help pay for a little of what was needed for Mattie's. I know I have friends that are EXTREMELY GIVING! 

So in honor of you sweet one and your new heavenly buddy, Mattie I am asking all my friends to give just a few dollars to help this sweet family have a headstone for their son by Christmas. I did the math and even if all my friends gave two dollars we would have a headstone for Mattie!!

Think we can do it sweetheart? Ya, me too!

Love you more than words and happy 2 years old in heaven,

Mommy 

CLICK HERE TO HELP THE LOUX FAMILY AND CLAUDIE AND MATTIE CHANGE THE WORLD

October 15, 2014

Today is the National Day of Remembrance for Pregnancy and Infant Loss. In the late 80s Reagan made this a national holiday that now gets international recognition...well kinda.
I feel blessed to live in a time that now gives some recognition to the millions and millions of babies we have lost. To think what my mother in law and others not so long ago had to go through and silently grieve the loss of their children is so sad to me.
But the fact remains we really have done little to change the overall hushed culture of pregnancy and infant loss in this country.  One in four women suffer in silence daily with the pain of miscarriage as if it is something unimportant or embarrassing to speak about it openly.
We discuss stillborn loss as something that "just happens" to some of us and although awful there is nothing really that can make a difference even though we know that over 88% of cases could have been prevented.
And although we have some studies showing what may or may not cause SIDs, we really know little more than we did 20 years ago.
Why?
Why do we spend billions researching diseases that kill  fifty or less adults a year, but we still have barely put a penny into the whats and hows of something that kills one in four babies?
I think that answer is very complicated and yet very simple.
We as a nation don't care about the least of these. Yes, I said it and yes I know the backlash I will get for it. But how can a nation that kills just as many unwanted babies care about the wanted ones?
So us mommies through grassroots efforts refuse to suffer in silence anymore. More and more of us are shouting from the mountain top, "my child mattered!"
Social media, the Return to Zero movie, and many small groups, that are finally working as one large group, has helped the world understand our babies matter no matter how many breathes they took in this world.
Please help us save our babies and make sure EVERY one of there lives matter by speaking about the ones we have lost with confidence and love in our hearts.

THEY MATTER...Every single one!

Always an Empty Minivan

I wrote a post awhile back lamenting how we never got to fill our minivan:

The Empty Minivan.

Well it turns out that minivan will never ever be filled, because we sold the good old swagger wagon.

We sold it because it has almost 150,000 miles and need more repair than we were willing to pay, but we also sold it because our perspective has changed on life.

Instead of sitting around lamenting our empty mini we decided to get a more practical car for our needs. I know, I know it's just a car. But for us it was symbolic of all we have lost and it was time to start a new chapter.

A big step of our new chapter started last week when, I had a doc appointment. It had to be at the office where I last saw Claudie alive and first heard she wasn't alive. I must be walking around in some kind of grief bubble still, because it didn't even dawn on me it would as hard as it was. But it hit, HARD. As soon as I pulled up in the parking lot I started getting flashbacks. Like crazy real flashbacks on a Lifetime movie and had to blink and shake my head in hopes they would vanish. But by the time they called me in to the ultrasound room, I sat on the table I was shaking uncontrollably.

"Is something wrong," the ultrasound tech asked?

I uttered something about 38 1/2 weeks and baby and then trailed off into uncontrollable tears. All the while I was texting Dustin something fierce.

"Where are you?"
"I am in the ultrasound room."
"Are you coming?"

The ultrasound tech took it as she needed to give me reassurance of this baby right away and quickly tried to find a heartbeat. Yes, I wanted to hear a heartbeat, but really that is not what I cared about at the moment. At that moment all I could think of my sweet little curly-haired, red lipped beauty, Claudie. It was so hard to focus on the machine. Tears and shaking overtook me.
In hopes of making me feel better she turned up the heartbeat volume.

Louder. And Louder. I cried.

I couldn't stop. What became clear to me at that moment is something I have always known, this is not a replacement child.

A heartbeat on the child growing within me will never be a substitute for the one whose heart will beat no more.

I realized a part of me so wanted that to be the case, but instead a new permanency of her death was felt. Claudie will forever be gone. She cannot be replaced.

Now are plans are different, because we have discovered they aren't our plans at all, but rather Gods, so we must mold our minds and hearts around whatever new reality is given to us. To embrace it with the only certain thing we know about the future, it's uncertainty.

For now that comes in the form of selling a van, but I  have a feeling that is just the beginning of many things we will have to evolve and change in the coming months...I don't even want to think about her nursery.