Two years.

Two years ago my brother died.

They that love beyond the world cannot be separated by it.
Death cannot kill what never dies.
Nor can spirits ever be divided, that love and live in the same divine principle, the root and record of their friendship.
If absence be not death, neither is theirs.
Death is but crossing the world, as friends do the seas; they live in one another still.
For they must needs be present, that love and live in that which is omnipresent.
In this divine glass they see face to face; and their converse is free, as well as pure.
This is the comfort of friends, that though they may be said to die, yet their friendship and society are, in the best sense, ever present, because immortal

-William Penn

Recurrent Pregnancy Loss- Habitual aborter without current pregnancy.

The girl who cried wolf.

Well. I didn’t think I’d ever be here. Those words. They raise my hackles. I am not an aborter. An aborter is a mother that chooses to destroy her child. Who chooses herself first. Who chooses to go forward alone, leaving pregnancy behind. Who chooses.  Its an ugly ugly word. One with no place among women swimming in grief. It implies a selfish act. Not a devastating reality that these women would give anything to have be different.

It’s been a long long time since I have graced this blog with any new posts. And after the last six months I got to where I needed an outlet, somewhere  where I could therapeutically release the angst I am holding.

Two weeks ago we found out about our second miscarriage. Second in seven months.

I have had to announce and retract pregnancy news twice.

We went on Friday to meet with a specialist. Someone whose job it is to fix broken women. To run test after test on women until they have answers or they run out of money.

Our new doctor outlined a game plan he belived in. Gave us odds and a timeline. Gave us pamphlet after pamphlet and a sheet outlining where our thousands will be going. But he got to leave the room and go on to the next helpless case. He wasn’t left with a handful of paper and dreams that are circling the drain.

There are two ways to look at our odds.

There is a 70-80% chance our next pregnancy will be completely fine. That sounds reassuring right? High numbers.

There is a 20-30% chance you will lose another baby. That’s more like it. When normal women are given a 10-15% chance… 30% is damn high.

Then we look at the odds we have faced over the last four pregnancies. Amniotic Band Syndrome 1:15000 (0.006%) Death by ABS? Even more rare. Nailed that one.

First miscarriage? Made it to 6 weeks- 8.4% chance of miscarriage.  (Baby was due March 22, 2015. 9 weeks diagnosed missed miscarriage.)

Second miscarriage? 15-20% chance. Lightning never strikes the same place twice right? Wrong.  (Baby was due Aug 12^th, 2015. Bleeding at 11 weeks, confirmed miscarriage days later. Baby never grew.)

I am batting at a 25% success rate for pregnancies. 1:4 are alive. My body has killed three. Three.

What is to stop me from looking at my history and assuming the next pregnancy will be anything less than a bad outcome.

Those lines. Those damn positive double lines that should fill me with joy and excitement now will bring fear. Anxiety. Hopelessness. Inevitability. Resignation.

“Your next one might be fine. Don’t worry. You haven’t killed any babies Holly. It’s not going to happen again. Maybe it is in Gods plan.”

I don’t want to hear it.

Do you blame me? If our next pregnancy is fine… If we even want to get back on that fucking horse- then I don’t want to hear it.

It would be a miracle and I recognize it. Don’t try and fix me. Words will not make me better. Your cousin’s sisters aunt that had this happen went on to have 8 healthy children and won the lottery. Congradufreakinglations. Let me morn.

Hope is the most dangerous thing to give to anyone. I don’t want it.

Freaking 2015.

14 Months

After we hit 12m I thought I'd stop the monthly updates and just focus on little things:) 

BabyA can say:

Uh oh

His name

Mama

Dada

Uh uh

GG

Aqua
Bubbles
Keys
Wow

He can sign:

More

Please(same as more)

all done

Shake his head "no"

Friends

We are working on the potty- he know to get toilet paper and dab his man parts and put the paper in the potty

He is walking everywhere now

He eats almost everything! He tried salmon, loved calimari, likes pine nuts, olives , red bell peppers, peas, pasta, blueberries, rice, tahziki sauce, peanut butter

Hates: eggs, avocado, zucchini, 

He is working on using his fork and spoon, loves to put his fork in his mouth (pre loaded with food)

He is the smartest, most amazing, most sunshiny baby in the whole world:) his giggles melt my heart and sometimes when he is over tired or hurts himself only mama can fix it. That's my favorite. 

Mimi has been in town for a couple weeks and we are having a ball running errands and shopping for the baby. We are working on wearing hats and sunglasses without taking them off the second they go on. We found one hat, a straw fedora like one, that he loves. He doesn't take it off when I put it on. It is channeling his uncle Bryan 100%. 

What A Weekend

Hubs and I traveled north a bit so we could spent the weekend with his brother and his brothers wife because we had a wedding on Saturday and needed them to watch BabyA along with their son. We get up there Friday night and BabyA is having it rough. He cried every half hour for half the night. How do I know? Well I spent all night in the bathroom with food poisoning. Worst experience ever.  I spent Saturday asleep most of the day until the wedding, which I got ready for and we went to anyway. I couldn’t even hold my arms over my head without getting dizzy… so I rocked a simple hairstyle that was still wet when we left.  The wedding was our friend from college that met her hubby our senior year at a party at my house. So missing this wedding wasn’t going to happen.  I made it through the ceremony and cocktail hour but when food came out I had to leave.  I sat outside while Hubs ate then he took me home. Which was lame, but  I went to sleep at 8:30 and didn’t wake until almost 8 the next day. I felt so much better. My MIL and FIL were there too to celebrate my SILs bday so we all had breakfast and then the thee of us ladies left to spend the day at the Spa. I LOVED the spa. It was a natural hot springs and so wonderful. We spent 6 hours there relaxing in the waters and indulging in spa food. Mud bath, sulfur pools, aloe moisturizer, and floating in a pool on foam mats for an hour.  It was the best experience of my life. I was so relaxed and rejuvenated that I offered to drive home that night. I HATE driving. Hate it. But when we got back I had been recharging all day and hubs looked like he had been steamrolled by the baby. Hubs eyes were barely open when I got back. So I told him I would drive. Then we got home and the cold I caught while my body was compromised kicked in. Now it’s Wednesday and I finally feel half alive. Mon and Tues I had a major sinus headache and sore throat and runnynose. (this post is mainly about the fact I have been sick)

Nothing else has really been happening. BabyA likes to bite. He broke a vessel in my face and now I have a red mark. He likes to eat things now that he didn’t before. Like chicken. We bought Frozen, and BabyA didn’t sit well through it so he went to bed. Aaaaaand that brings us back to today.

365 Days

Right now I am fighting sleep. Dreading waking up one year from the day my brother didn't. No longer was he here this day last year. No, one year down.. A lifetime to go. 

I keep thinking of the cliche bookmark/inspirational poster/fridge

Magnet about Someone walking down the beach and noting that they see two sets of footprints. But then when life got hard they old see one set. "God why did you abandon me in my time of need? When I needed you most I was walking alone." And God answers "you only see one set of footprints because when you couldn’t go on, it was then that I carried you." 

I have had a really rough past couple of years. I lost my son and sunk so far down into the worst season of my life that I look back and cannot recognize the woman in the hospital. Unshowered, makeupless. Red eyed and face swollen from tears. Sitting in a wheelchair holding onto her husband at her lowest point. Sobbing over the body of her son at the only baptism he would get.

Those next months, and throughout that year, God carried me until I could stand again. Then a year later- finally having regained my balance- I find out my brother never woke up. My 20 year old brother died. I was there when he was born, crawling, first steps. 3am Romeo and Juliet over Christmas break. Silly ping pong. Watching him beat Zelda because I was afraid. Letting me sleep in his room when I was scared after the Sixth Sense. Tagging along. Annoying the crap out of me. Tattling.

There are some days I still need to be carried. Some where it hurts all the time. Nights where I cry until my nose is stuffed over my son and my brother. 

But tragedy has tempered me. I have come through it stronger in my faith and stronger in myself. I will carry the weight of my pain for the rest of my life. But I know when I can't handle it anymore that I am not alone. I can lean on God until I can support myself. I don't know what I would have done without God. I couldn't have handled it alone. 

I Am The Proud Owner Of A Toddler

I don’t really own my child, don’t worry… I know that. More importantly though is that he is a walking child. My walking child. Last night BabyA took his first independent steps. It was only a matter of days away with the growing amount of confidence he had in standing. He had gotten to where he could go up and down from sitting to standing without help, and while standing he could clap and dance. So last night, he was standing next to me and I handed him a book (Little Mouse, The Big Hungry Bear, and the Red Ripe Strawberry )while he was holding the book he took three wobbly baby-godzilla steps toward me. I immediately grabbed him and ran into the kitchen to get hubs so he could see, and we took him back to his room and made him walk to each of us over and over for the next ten minutes. He was taking steps! He was walking! I still need to get a video of this amazingness but haven’t yet. 

In other new BabyA news… we have been wearing fewer bibs. The drooling is finally under control (mostly) and he no longer needs a bib 24/7. It only took a year and 12 teeth. BabyA knows some tricks now… or I guess he has learned some skills because he isn’t a puppy. He can sign for ‘more’ and ‘all done.’ He can clap, and wave, and blow kisses, and dance on command if he likes you. He knows what his binky is if I ask him to find it. He looks for daddy if I ask where he is. He puts a ball into the hole in the toy when he is playing. He knows the quickest way to get mama’s attention during Independent Playtime is to unplug the camera or his night light (he is not allowed to touch those and knows it). He makes the ‘uh uh” sound when he does things he knows are off limits and tries to speed do them before he gets caught. He can make it look like a tornado went through his room in about 5 minutes.  He can open the front door by himself, which was terrifying the first time.

He went to the circus on Valentines Weekend with Hubs and I as our treat and sat for the two hour show happily. He clapped along with the audience and stood on one of our laps to see the whole time. It was pretty adorable and the people around us thought so too. He also tried cotton candy while we were there and was enthusiastic about the sugar in his mouth but not quite about the sticky hands.

We attended a friends son’s first bday and he got his face painted (hated) and played in a bounce house (hated) and tried all sorts of foods (loved) and rode a train around a track (loved.) 

In Holly news: I have BabyFever. Everyone in my church is pregnant. It's everywhere and it is contagious.  Though I will not be doing anything about it for a while. I have a timeline I am sticking to.

 I have never hated somewhere as much as I hated Hollywood. I would have though that my name being in there would give it some grace... but no. Traffic is the worst. I get so frustrated in traffic and want to just plow through all the cars on the road or buy a helicopter.  The only neat thing about our day in Hollywood was seeing where the Oscars will be and watching them set up the red carpet and all that jazz. BabyA wasn't a fan of the car ride so I will be chalking him up to a 'kill me before making me go again' too.

BabyA has been having a couple weeks of digestive issues (read poop problems) and I think it is from Milk. So we are cutting that out. But he loves yogurt so I will see if just cutting out drinking milk will help. Poor lamb.

I am filling up my weeks with social things- which is uncharacteristic of me. I am getting in on the church-group-love and scheduling play dates, walks, and storytimes with other moms from church and LOVE having a full week and things for BabyA to do. And me having adult time. And exercise. In a related not my job is getting harder and harder to do with a baby. The clock is ticking on that.

Baby is napping and my house has been hit by a Babynado. (See above picture and multiply that by every room)

Happy 2nd Birthday Max

My second baby is crying to himself in his room right now, protesting nap time with all the umph his two foot frame can muster…I pray that my first baby is in there with him, watching over and comforting him always. Tuesday was Max’s second birthday. The day that marked 760 days away from earth and away from my arms. My 27 week old first born went to heaven before I met him… and that isn’t right. I remind myself that if I hadn’t lost Max, I would never have met BabyA. But that is comparing apples to oranges… if I had Max I would have never known BabyA and therefore wouldn’t miss him.  The comparison only works in hindsight and let’s face it… there is nothing you can actually change with ‘if only’, and ‘but.’ 

For Max’s second birthday we got a big cupcake and shared it as a family. I had been emotional all day remembering my first little man, and really struggled to keep it together in public while we quietly celebrated. BabyA ended up with more of the cupcake than he probably should have, but it was a special occasion and we don’t make a practice of eating cupcakes for dinner. I felt really alone that day… It feels like Hubby isn’t affected anymore. I know that isn’t fair or true… but I still feel it. He didn’t even remember it was Max’s birthday. I feel that I will be carrying the burden of remembering for the rest of my life. 

I am sitting here drinking coffee, listening to the two songs that got me through that 2 month hell after Max died, crying. Will there ever be a day that I can think of the boy I lost and smile as I remember instead of cry? 

I have had too much death surround me the last two years. I pray 2014 leaves my family intact.