Eye of the Hurricane

Dear Harper,



It's Independence Weekend here in the great nation of the U.S. of A.. While most Americans are celebrating the birth of a nation I am celebrating the loss of a treasure.

July brings so many feelings for me. Vividly remembering our time together. Your pregnancy was anything but easy. Little did I know that the worst was only coming.

July 4, it was a beautiful day. I remember it vividly. I was on light activity, but it was a holiday so we were planning on going to the farm for a cookout. The sun was shining brightly, it was warm but not overly hot just yet. I rested on the swing on the patio while your brother and sister played in the yard. I was sluggish and tired but that was nothing new. The day went by smoothly, just taking it all in and thinking you would be with me the next 4th, you'd be nine months old and probably starting to cruise. Daydreaming of what was to come.

I slept well that night, which was a feat in itself. I had become restless worrying about you. In hindsight, worry is nothing but a waste of energy because what will be will be.

July 5, the sun was blaring early in the day. It was gorgeous. Your grandma had bought the kids a swimming pool to occupy their time. They were up early and begging me to join them in the pool. I didn't have a bathing suit so I meandered outside in my pajamas and slid down into the warm water. You immediately started kicking like crazy. The kids splashed wildly as you moved around my belly. Their little hands laying on my skin to feel you kicking. They giggled intensely at this, it was the first time they had ever felt you. You loved hearing them so happy, it only made you dance more.

This day stands out the most in my brain. This memory is one of the most vivid of the entire pregnancy. I have so many pictures from this day, your brother and sister playing in the pool and making goofy faces. These photos litter the house, but I want it no other way. They are memories from one of the happiest times of my life.

I went to bed that night, exhausted but feeling incredibly happy. I should have known that this was the calm before the storm. They say when you are on the verge of dying that you miraculously feel better in the days before passing. And I felt better than I had in weeks. I was so happy, energetic, and feeling over the top good. This was the eye of the storm. This was the calmest it would be before I weathered the worst to be.

You have to weather the storm to see the rainbow

The next few days passed as all the others, I was tired, and didn't do much other than lay in bed whilst your brother and sister played. Brianna was prepping for Kindergarten and was excited about school. (That quickly changed)

July 8, I went to the doctor for one of twice weekly visits. Everything seemed okay. There you were kicking away on the ultrasound, your heart rate happy and healthy. My OB had cleared me for light activities and had said I could ride with your dad to get the oil changed in the car. I came home and went back to bed as per my normal routine. I showed Kaden and Brianna your ultrasounds and we talked about how excited we were to meet you. Sleep went as usual that night.

July 9, the day that will live in infamy in our family. The day a piece of my soul died. The day I became incomplete. I woke up, and you were slow but active. We decided to head on to get the oil changed. You gave us a couple of big kicks before we left so I knew you were okay. We drove to the dealership to get the oil changed, my iPod blaring James Brown, your sister's choice. I danced in the seat of the car as we drove down the interstate. The only word to describe our family at that moment was happy. The trip took much longer than intended, I was tired. I was hungry and your siblings were too.

We made it home and had a snack, then as per my routine I crawled into your brother's bed and rested. Your dad decided to take the kids to see Despicable Me in the theater while I took a nap. I didn't feel well at all and you had been quiet for a bit. I rested while you rested. I woke up after they returned and felt no better. You were still quiet, I was worried. I decided to eat dinner and if that didn't perk you up I would head to the hospital.

Dinner came and went and I asked your dad to drive me right into the storm. I knew as we pulled into the parking lot of the hospital that I would not be coming home. This was the moment that I actually felt my heart shatter into a million pieces. As the nurses scanned my belly, faking that they didn't know how to use the machine properly as they waited for my doctor to arrive. My doctor came and delivered the news, and I was wheeled into a different room. They induced labor and so the wait began.

I waited for you, 3 long days. And when you came, though I felt empty and broken, you were the most beautiful thing I had ever laid eyes on. You were placed in my arms, and my heart broken a million times over. Perfection, too beautiful for this life.

I thought the worst of the storm was over, little did I know that I was only laying low in the middle waiting for the worst to come. I took myself out of the eye of the storm and pressed forward, wading through the raging waters so that I could see the rainbow on the other side.

May God give you...
    For every storm, a rainbow,
    For every tear, a smile,
    For every care, a promise,
    And a blessing in each trial.
    For every problem life sends,
    A faithful friend to share,
    For every sigh, a sweet song,
    And an answer for each prayer.
                                   ~Irish Blessing

So while everyone spends their weekend barbequing, lighting off fireworks and spending time celebrating the birth of our nation, I silently celebrate the moments we had together. I quietly think about you. There are always tears, but there are smiles. And while I am shaking my fist at those shooting off fireworks at 3 AM, I am doing so with a thankful heart that you gave your life so that Bird could have hers.

I may not understand the why's or the how's but I believe that Bird was meant to be. I had made the choice that you would be my last baby and as time passes I find that I believe that Bird was still in waiting, and to keep me from making the wrong choice, you gave yourself so that she could live. So this independence day, I celebrate you, MY hero. MY baby. MY Harper.

I love you my sweet, sweet girl. More and more every day.

Love always,

Mommy

Do not stand at my grave and weep,
I am not there... I do not sleep.
I am the thousand winds that blow...
I am the diamond glints on snow...
I am the sunlight on ripened grain...
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you waken in the morning's hush,
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of gentle birds in circling flight...
I am the soft star that shines at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry—
I am not there... I did not die...

 

May God give you … For every storm, a rainbow, for every tear, a smile, for every care, a promise, and a blessing in each trial. For every problem life sends, a faithful friend to share, for every sigh, a sweet song, and an answer for each prayer. ~Irish Blessing - See more at: http://cardsbysandrarose.com/product/general-get-well/51873-irish-get-well-wishes/#sthash.hjwbYMgm.dpuf

Little Black Dress

Dear Harper,

Sunday your baby sister turned 11 months old. How can this be? I was just holding you, I was just about to turn 28 and now here I am, about to turn 30 and you would be about to turn 2. Life is flashing away before my eyes. My friend Sarah in Texas said she calls it "2nd year blues" and I think she is right. Her son, Max and you share a birthday.

Sunday was also International Bereaved Mother's Day and it was River's birthday. My heart was laden with love and prayers for Deanna that the day would be easy on her.  What a day already...We were going to spend the day with Sammi & Mallory for our standing date Sunday. I got in the car to go and "She Talks to Angels" by the Black Crowes was on the radio...fitting.

Our friends, Elisha and Daniel, welcomed their second child into the world on Sunday as well, sweet baby Mason. I had gotten the text that her water had broken before we left to go to Sammi's but she was having trouble with labor stopping and so on. I thought it would be Monday before he was born,I was determined to go see her when he was born, that's what friends do, they see each other when their babies are born...they see each other when they die too. Daniel came to see us at the funeral home instead of a hospital with you.

I was looking for something to wear to the hospital. I had been with Sammi & Mallory all day, I had on my old sweat pants and a ratty t-shirt, unacceptable to wear to the hospital. My jeans were in the laundry and it was turning out to just be one of those days where none of my clothes were fitting right...it was a sweat pants day. Sammi was keeping the girls so I could go down and see Mason (and his momma) and I had to find something to wear.

Your daddy sat on the bed in our room watching me filter through everything in the laundry basket and everything in my dresser, even my yoga pants were dirty. I finally gave up and went to the closet, I thought I might be able to find something in there. I did...I found a hefty serving of heartache.

As I was slipping my fingers over the hangers and moving them from the left to the right looking to see what I had that I could wear to the hospital I saw something black in the very back that I hadn't remembered seeing there all the countless times I looked in there. I move everything to the right so I can pull it out, wondering what it is, only to find that it was the dress I wore to your funeral...a little black dress.

The dress had been purchased, I remember the day I bought it, with the intent to wear to your baby shower. We were doing something elegant for you, something like a tea and I wanted to wear a nice dress. It hung in Kaden's closet forever, because I was living in his room while you were in my belly, I wasn't allowed to do stairs. I bought it the same day that Mom bought the invitations to your shower. So much hope, so much intention.

I held the hanger up, the dress hangs solemnly off of it. I turn it and look at the front and back as tears fall down my face. It was like watching all the intentions of that little black dress fall to the floor. The song "Lightning Crashes" by Live was running through my brain. I felt it through my whole body. I hung the dress back in the closet and stood there, staring at it. My heart was beating sporadically because I wasn't expecting something so small to do so much to me...but then again you were so small and took my heart.

Sunday, it's a day of rest, and for me it was a day of mourning, a day of rejoicing, a day of sorrow and a day of joy. That little black dress left me in a daze and thrown for a loop...I cried all the way to the hospital to see Mason.Second year blues seems so fitting...

Terrible twos aren't just for babies anymore are they?

Time goes on and I can breathe, and I can function without but Sunday...the grief just washed me in a stain of black...a veil of grief. I love you Bean, I miss you so much.

Love always,

Mommy

Fear....less

Dear Harper,

It's funny, we are approaching 22 months since you left my arms. You would think that the longer you are gone the easier it would be for me to live. That's not the case,  I am fearful that I won't remember your smell, your face, you tiny hands and feet. I am fearful that I will forget what you felt like in my arms.

These fears make the pain magnified. It makes my chest want to implode because it is hard to breathe, it hurts, it makes my heart work twice as hard to beat. It is in these moments when I hold my head up and realize that I can move on, that the fears are invalid. I look at pictures and see your face. I can hold your blanket when I  need to remember your scent.  It is forever engrained into my soul, the way you smelled. Like newborn baby, before a bath and that standard pink baby lotion combined to make the most heavenly smell, your scent. Yours and yours alone. None of your siblings smelled like that, it is only you. I forget often, just how light you were in my arms. I see the tiny clothes on the wall in my house and remember just how small and fragile you were. Life flashes before my eyes, all those moments with you played out again, my heart stops, even if just for that moment.

I let the tears fall freely for you. To stop them makes the pain worse. To hinder them is like trying to hide my love for you. The more days that pass the more those fears arise in me. I really thought things would be easier this year and they are not. I think it is because I am watching your baby sister do all the things you should be doing. I am overjoyed because I get to be excited for her milestones, but also saddened because I am missing yours.

I wanted you so bad. I want you before I knew I had you. I loved you with every ounce of my being the moment that test said "pregnant". I loved you while I laid in the hospital, in labor with you, knowing you weren't coming home. I love you still, I love you like you are here. I am so scared that I am going to forget all of the things from your birth. All the pain, the heartache but also the joy because you were so perfect and beautiful.

The fear of forgetting makes the pain ten fold. You won't ever let me forget though, you are always here by my side, in the good times and the bad, you are here, never letting me forget how much I love you. I see you everyday in your sister's smile, or Birdie's giggle. I love you Bean, never forget that.

You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You must do the thing which you think you cannot do.

Eleanor Roosevelt

I love you, always & forever.

Mommy

Have you ever seen the rain...

Dear Harper,

I was driving home on Saturday night, it was late and you see I had just gone to get Brianna from Aunt Julie's house. It was a sleepover gone awry, your big sister was homesick so I drove the half hour down to get her. Aunt Lee went with me because daddy was already in bed asleep and I hate driving by myself and it was a half hour drive each way. We listened to my iPod on the drive and it was all fun, bouncy, loud songs (and some of your baby sister's baby Einstein stuff.)

On the way home I turned it down low so your sister could doze in the car. I dropped Aunt Lee at her house on my way home and I turned the radio up slightly. Your message was coming across loud and clear, I love when that happens. As I turned the dial up just a couple of notches the song ended and the next began...Tears in Heaven. I smiled a little smile. *Thanks baby girl* I whispered in the quiet dark. This was, of course, one of the songs I played at your funeral. (It still feels unreal to type those words...at your funeral.) We played Somewhere Over the Rainbow too, it just seemed fitting for you. I let it play through, these songs no longer make me cry but smile because of how much I love you.

As I crossed the railroad tracks and headed toward our house the song changes again. Have you ever seen the rain....the words pierced my ears.

"'Til forever on it goes through the circle fast and slow,
I know, and it can't stop, I wonder.

I want to know, have you ever seen the rain?
I want to know, have you ever seen the rain
comin' down on a sunny day?"

Tears burned my eyes, by this time I was sitting in my driveway, it was almost midnight but I couldn't turn the car off, I couldn't just turn this song off. It was so much of how I have felt in the last year and a half, so much of what I was feeling in that moment.


I realize now, why when the stages of grief are pictured it is done in a circle. It never ends, you are just at different stages at different points. At that moment in the car I felt myself circle through all of them again. I hurt so bad in the 3 minutes, I longed for you. But in that moment I knew that you are always with me.

I had experienced the calm before the storm, I had seen the rain. Everyday, as I look into your brother and sister's faces, I see the rain comin' down on a sunny day

I miss you Bean, and I love you even more.

Love always and forever,

Mommy
I wanna know...have you ever seen the rain

Acceptance...

Dear Harper,

I need to talk to you, I need to tell you about grief, about my grief. I recently saw a picture that was the stages of grief. It supposedly comes in seven stages.

1. Denial
2. Anger
3. Bargaining
4. Depression
5. Guilt
6. Obsession
7. Acceptance

I can vividly, just as if it were yesterday, remember the moments of each of the stages as I passed through them. Denial was immediate, they told me your heart had stopped beating and in words that I will never forget the doctor, as he ran the ultrasound wand over my belly that still held you looked at me and said "It's not good kiddo." I denied every moment that was happening to me, you were still alive in there, just sleeping. Ashton Kutcher was going to pop around the curtain any minute and punk me. He was lying to me, why would he do something like that. I felt my heart break into a million piece, it is a moment when I stopped breathing, I stopped living for just that speck of time. You were fine and I was going to have you in my arms in October...deny, deny, deny...isn't that what addicts do? I was sure this was just some horrific dream...it wasn't.

Denial seemed to pass very quickly though, apparently my mind is one of action, and all of a sudden as I was slowly trying to make the proper phone calls all I could do was try to bargain with God. I asked him to take me, you needed to live. I begged, I told God that I would do anything for you to live. Bargaining was taking place for the next several hours. I bargained anything and everything that I could think of just for you.

Then as they wheeled me from one room to my private room where I would labor to have you, bargaining left. They gave me medicine to ease the pain and it didn't help. They gave me medicine to induce labor, and after everyone left the room and all was quiet God and I made a bargain, while the bargain I would make would not bring you back to me, it would allow you to live on forever because I wouldn't let anyone forget your name. I asked God to bring me through this pain, I asked God to allow me the strength to make peace with your death. I bargained with him to help me so that I could help others. I decided I would not live in anger from your death, but peace so that I could help others going through the same losses that I was enduring.

It took almost 3 full days for me to be in active labor to deliver you. There weren't a lot of feelings in those 3 days because the hospital and doctors kept me so well medicated that I am not sure that I knew totally what was going on. But then you were born, your sweet face was there for me to look at and the depression set in. I held you and I was proud just like when your older sister and brother were born. I showed you off to my family and a select handful of friends. You were BEAUTIFUL. But I had to give you back, and I would never see you again, not here in this life anyway. I wanted to die, I wanted to curl up and die. I was sad and the medications they gave me didn't work. I laid in bed for days, I only had days to be on my own because your daddy had to go back to work and so did grandma and grandpa. It was the summer, I had your big sister and brother to watch after. I was still very sad, I laid on the couch and let them destroy the house without a care in the world. People came and went and I am not sure that I even noticed. Your sister had a birthday and I don't remember it..I was depressed and I was a non-existent mom in that time.

You were born July 12, 2010 and your memorial service was on July 15, 2010. I laid in bed, on the couch, wherever I could and always in my pajamas for almost a month. But then it was time for Kaden & Brianna to start school and it just snapped me out of it. I threw myself into volunteering for Brianna's class and that helped. It helped me start getting my body back into shape, and getting out of my funk. I still missed you terribly but I was feeling okay.

Anger came in between depression and guilt. Every time I saw on the news someone who was mistreating a child I would go crazy. I was angry because I knew someone who didn't take care of herself while she was pregnant, she smoked, drank, and did drugs but she got to go home with her healthy baby. It made me angry I had to give my baby to God while she did nothing good for her body  pregnancy but her baby went home healthy.  I would NEVER wish the loss of a child upon even my worst enemy, but I was angry at how unfair it seemed to be. I know stillbirth does not discriminate but I was angry that she didn't seem to want her child like I wanted you and she got to keep her baby and I had to give you up. I had to hurt for you, I had to spend my life without you and that made me mad.



Obsession really set in when I came home. Your sister and I were in the hospital for a week after her birth and I was okay while I was there but when we came home it was just me. I stayed up all hours of the night, watching every breath she took. I watched every little thing she did. No blankets, no heavy sleepers. I would sleep during the day when someone else could watch her so I could be up all night with her. I didn't obsess over your death, just found something to shift that obsession over to. It took 7 months before I would let her sleep with me watching with a blanket. The obsession made my body physically tired, you could see the lack of sleep all over me. I obsessed over every little thing with her.

She is now 9 months old, you would be 20 months old. I have accepted that there are things I cannot change about life. I have accepted that I am a baby loss mom. I have accepted that while I will never heal from this wound it is okay for me to live my life. I accept that I may not understand everything, but I do know everything does happen for a reason. I accepted that you are not here with me in this life but we will be together again one day. It has done a great deal for me because I feel like since I have accepted your passing, even without full understanding, that I can celebrate you in a better way. I  have taken your death, moved forward and never let your name be forgotten. I stand here as a shoulder for other bereaved parents, an ear for their cries. And I'll never let you be forgotten. 

I accept that you are my angel, and I feel okay with that. I miss you but I am okay.

I love you sweet Bean.

Love,
Mommy