The Last of the Firsts....

Well today, March 31st, not only marks Easter for most of the population but also the last of the "first" anniversaries for us with Jacob.  Today was Jacob's original due date.  It was one of the first milestones we had to face after he died and only two weeks after he died.  It was hard then and surprisingly to me it's kind of a hard day today too; I mean what is a due date really?  I don't count on them as none of my children have ever been born on their suggested due dates, yet still it marked a date we'd been anticipating 9 months with Jacob and so it's forever part of his short life and now our future as a result. 

 

We were asked to be God parents for our friends son, Peter John, and were/are very honored.  Originally the baptism was supposed to be in December but as usually happens with things, plans change and so his baptism ended up falling on today.  It really didn't occur to me that it was a "Jacob anniversary day" until this past week.  I think for survival, I try to block some of them out just for mental health, but this one was interesting just because Peter John is a boy, and a cute one at that, with lots of dark hair, like Jacob was born with.  Holding him through the service reminded me of what it's like to hold a baby and hold a boy.  It feels like it's been forever in some ways since I've held a baby and so it was surreal in that aspect.  It's hard not to think of what might have been or what Jacob's own baptism would have been like.  Still the energy it takes to "hold it together" sometimes is more exhausting than I am ever prepared for and sometimes, like today, it really sneaks up on me and catches me off guard.  It's hard to be faced with the reality sometimes that as wonderful and joyful as things can be, as baptisms are full of joy and new beginnings, there is also heartache and memories.  As a mother who's lost a child, there are so many times like this.  In fact, it's often the most joyous of moments that the realization really hits that our Jacob is really gone, we can't have him here and it's just the way it is.  It makes for an interesting emotion that seems indescribable and I was never aware of until Jacob died.  An emotion not of happiness or sadness but both wrapped up together in one package.  I would not even know what to call it, can't think of anything to call it.  Surprisingly the last baptism we were God parents for was for our friends and their daughter, our God daughter, Cassie. I was 8 months pregnant with Jacob during that baptism and am 8 months pregnant now.  I can only pray that that is where the similarities stop. 

 

As we finally move forward into a new phase of life, the phase after all the "firsts" without Jacob and onto anticipating and preparing for our new baby girl; Adam, Allie and Jacob's new sister (still yet to be officially named) I can only hope that God will give me the ability to focus on this new life that he has given us, for whatever time we have with her.  Selfishly, I pray that God can, if need be, preform a miracle if anything is wrong with her and that she can live a long and joyful life here with us on Earth and not one with her brother in Heaven.  I want to trust God that he will not put us through the loss of another child, but as I write this I know of more moms than I wish I did who have suffered more than one loss.  No matter how many we loose here on earth I know one day our family will all be together and it is because of Easter, the resurrection of Christ, that I believe this with all my heart. It is honestly the only thing that has really kept me going through all of this, other than Dan and the kids, the belief I have that one day, in the future, I WILL see Jacob, it WILL happen I just don't know when or how long from now.  I have to confess that every time I hear thunder or a weird storm sound, part of my heart leaps in hope that maybe the end of the world is upon us...I listen for the voice of God or angels to sing, a clap of thunder lounder than any I've ever heard, but as of yet, the only thing that follows is a normal storm and a slight sigh that today is not the day to see my sweet Jacob...not yet...not yet. 

 

So on this rainy Sunday, one year later, with the baptism of our newest God son Peter, I hope that I can find renewed hope to get me to the end of this seemingly endless pregnancy.  Our forth childs birth will be a step onto a new path and I hope that this new path holds a lot of joy and a new horizon that a year ago just seemed black and empty.  May you too, find hope in today and may you all be blessed. 

The girl at TJ Maxx saved my day....

So, out of the most unexpected places, I found myself stumped in a good way today. The day started out awful, I won't go into detail but just drama and that was all before church.  Church was, as usual, just a time where I say "Shhhh" and "No" and "Stop" over and over and over again to the kids along with running after Allie who I swear is faster than a fox.  Came home and after resting, sort of, made my way to the grocery store...something I detest and as a mom I find myself grumpily going there more than I ever want to.  So, I decided to stop at TJ Maxx to look for a new purse...you know, since what I've been using (my free Similac formula purse from getting 3D pictures of Allie) was ripping apart at the seams, yes, I'm sooo trendy, NOT.  Anyway, no luck on the purse but did find some other things and as I approached the cashier she said the familiar "Oh! When are you due?"  May I said... "Oh great....boy or girl?" Girl I said and then she asked if this would be my first to which I said this sounding like an idiot..."well this will be my third....well, really this will be my fourth." and knowing I sounded crazy since I had no idea how many kids I had, I started to explain expecting the all to common look of horror that washes over strangers faces as I tell them the truth about Jacob and that he died at birth.  To my GREAT surprise as I told her and explained, "Well, this will be our fourth. Our third died at birth about a year ago and so...." The fabulous TJ Maxx stranger cashier didn't skip a beat in telling me "Oh I know all about that.  My aunt lost a baby at birth.  Only got to hold him for 20  minutes but she did hear him take his last breath." I was so shocked that I was having a NORMAL conversation about babies dying with a complete stranger and we continued talking as she scanned my items.  "Oh and my sister lost her son and now she's pregnant again....etc." And on she went about all the babies she knew that has passed away and then said how much she was looking forward to her next neices' arrival later this year, as if we were talking about normal things.  Sometimes these strangers really catch you off guard and when someone allows you to feel normal and okay to share your loss and shares their own experience it breaks all the anxiety I carry around with me all the time still when I'm out and about.  I could not articulate it to her as I was in so much shock because this type of conversation so rarely occurs for me, but she managed to make what has been a very emotional week end on the best of notes.  I felt normal and part of a world where it's okay to talk about Jacob and not feel like I've just terrified another person by bringing up my "dead baby".  What a gift she gave me in the most unlikely of places.  People, good people, do exist and I am ever so grateful that God placed me at register #1 with a lovely honest cashier!  

Now if anyone knows where I can get a purse that the kids can spill milk on that is not over $50 let me know! I'm not spending $149 on a purse that will be inevitably stepped on, spit up on or cut with craft scissors.  Have a great week everyone:)

Happy Times With Jacob

One Year Later

So I am finally able to post these pictures. These are the maternity pictures we had taken on March 10th exactly a year ago. I wanted to post them the other day but did not have access to the correct computer. This was a day I had been praying for. Much like this year, the days had been very cold and dreary but this day was in the upper 50's maybe even lower 60's making it possible and comfortable to go outside for pictures.  It really was a wonderful day.  Stacey, our photographer, was so laid back and totally cool with the changing moods of the kids, she put me at as much ease as anyone could given trying to corral everyone and try to get those "good shots". My favorites are actually some of the ones where Allie is crying or Adam is not looking, getting his nose wiped by dad, because those are all the real moments.  How she got all the great pictures she did, that must have been divine intervention as well as her fabulous skills.  Looking back now, these are the most cherished pictures we may own.  I really had debated if we should do them or not.  There are always other things to spend money on, but as is true with some of my most loved earthly possessions these pictures rank among the top and were well worth the money spent.  I can not remember if I ever posted many of them. We received a majority of them well after Jacob had passed away.  I know I put a few on Facebook but have been waiting to share some of our favorites.  I hope Stacey won't mind that I cropped a few to make them more viewer appropriate...not sure if everyone wants to see my naked belly and didn't want to shock anyone although I cherish those just as much as the others.  

In an effort to focus the rest of the month and gather my thoughts I think this is the last post I'll blog for a while.  I am working on what the entirety of this last year has been like. I promise that all the saddest stuff is already out there, at least I hope so!  I never meant for this to depress everyone and I know that for some it maybe has. I apologize.  I just wanted to be as honest as I could be so that if/when my children read this, or anyone for that matter, they are reading the real stuff, not the stuff I still feel a nagging urge to write....the bright side of things....I promise I leave some of these posts and think, "Why did I not sugar coat it a little, maybe I should have? People will think I'm crazy and will now seriously run away from me if they see me coming!" There always is a bright side, but it is okay to share the dark too. I hope more people will, I know it makes me feel much better to read that others have struggled and makes me feel so much less alone and less crazy myself.  I am not the only mother to have lost a child and I have read stories of mothers that have lost all of their children.  This is the sad stuff of life, however, I find that remembering the joy we had is not a bad thing, it does not hurt all the time.  Below IS the time we had with Jacob; it's more than some families and mothers ever get so for those 9 months we are so grateful.  In the grief, sometimes it is hard for me even to remember the joy that did exist...it was real and was not erased, just cut shorter, much shorter than we were expecting.  I don't have to regret not having pictures done and I would have.

So here is all the joy before the storm.  With this new baby girl on the way, we are looking forward and praying for the storm to pass and the joy to filter it's way back into our lives in a way that sometimes only a baby can.  I hope she will know how much she is loved and how special she is, that she is not a replacement but a true blessing reminding us that the bad days do pass and love can be found again and felt again.  See you all at the end of the month:) 

Adam 2 years and 9 months old

Alexandra Ann "Allie" 1 year and 3 months old

 

                   

                     

                    

And here is the real picture....Dan wiping Adam's nose and me trying to hold Allie till we can try to "pose" for the next "real" picture:) 

    

                

How much happier could I have been?  I don't know that I could have been and I am blessed to have had this day.  Thank you, Thank you, Thank you Stacey!
March 10th, 2012
Our BEST day with Jacob and one of our best as a family....thus far!
More joy to come in 2013

www.staceylynnstudio.com 

March, thus far....

So much has happened, I keep trying to write about it all and it's too much to write about. I'm just going to list everything and maybe write about it later, sometime, when I can process it all. 

 

1. Our friends at church lost their 4th baby 1/2 way into the pregnancy, a boy. 
2. On Tuesday of this past week we held a service for baby Micah at our church, the first service for a baby since Jacob's service and only the second at our church for a child ever.
3. On Wednesday we all caravaned to the Monastery where Jacob is buried to also bury baby Micah.  He is buried right in front of Jacob.  Jacob is slowly adding friends in a way I never prepared myself for. 
4. On Wednesday Dan and I finally got about 5 uninterrupted minutes to spend at Jacob's grave again.  The first time since last August when we were there briefly together on our way to a much needed mini vacation in Charleston.  I finally was able to collect some sand from his grave and have it here next to me on my nightstand, although I'm not sure what I intend to do with it, I have wanted it for some time. 
5. On Thursday I crashed, exhausted from the days of trying to make this time for the other family as meaningful and special as others had made it for us and just running around unlike I have been doing over the last year.  The trips in the car at this stage of my pregnancy are not fun and so uncomfortable and always seem to bring on contractions which I know are normal but given the last year, they honestly freak me out now. Oh yeah, and I turned 34...completely forgot.  Dan and I were able to get to dinner that night! 
6. Yesterday, March 10th, was exactly one year after we did our maternity pictures as a family and our photographer Stacey took the picture of me in the white dress where I was so happy, so close to the end, I had no idea I was really close to the beginning of a whole different life. 
7. Yesterday also marked my fathers last Liturgy as acting Rector of the parish in Asheville that he has lead for the past 10 years.  We all piled into the car at 7 am (really 6 because of daylight savings) and drove to Asheville for the service.  Again, another long car trip and about 1 hour into the service I started having braxton hicks contractions.  Then they started coming every few minutes. I did not have my phone to time but guess it was about every three minutes.  Why was this happening? I have gotten braxton hicks contractions with each pregnancy, they have started a month earlier each time, but when they come every few minutes, as much as I don't want to and don't want to admit it, I freak out, more so than I did before loosing Jacob.  Thoughts of will this baby come early and be in the NICU? Will I go into labor and be without my midwife? Will something happen to this baby too? Calm down, calm down, calm down...just relax Nora I try to remind myself.  I hate the fear.  I decided to go to a back room at the church and rest, try to let this pass. 
8. Met baby born on the same day as Jacob...yes that is what I said...I went to the back room to try to rest in a comfortable chair, maybe the contractions would pass, they HAD to.  They have a  makeshift hospitality room with a day bed, chair and bathroom, toys strewn about the floor for kids that needed a break from church.  In there I met a mom that had a little boy. He had a cute fat belly that I would have loved, you know the baby fat you just want to kiss it's so cute.  She was a kind mom, young, and introduced herself to me.  I asked her how old he was and she said he was born on St. Patricks Day.  The words lingered in the air as I wondered if I had heard her right.  I said, "on March 17th? Really?"  She said "Yes, I'm so sorry for your loss."  I knew she was sincere and knew that I had lost Jacob that same day even though we had never met.  Since that time yesterday I've been in a bit of a haze.  I didn't feel the need to burst out into tears, nor did I get angry or upset, it's just been a slow realization, thought that has lingered, "Jacob would have been almost a year old...he probably would not have had a belly that big to kiss on, what would he look like now, how did I just meet a mom that had a baby that same day and her baby boy is here and Jacob should be too."  If I had had a mirror I suppose I had a deer in headlights look for the rest of the day.  Those things are hard, and that is something I was never prepared for, meeting another boy born the same day as Jacob just two hours earlier, I mean what are the chances? The contractions finally stopped after many many cups of water, just in time to pile back into the car for the two and a half hour ride home which was agony, contractions came back from time to time, now where to lay down or stretch out.  No where to go and cry.  We made it home just a little after 5.  I went straight to our bed to lay down, ate chinese food, in bed and with Dan's help got to bed early after he bathed the kids. Too much, just too much had happened in just this first week of March and I was beat, just wanted to crawl back into a hole where I could be alone, try to process all that had happened. 

Anyway, that has been the fist 10 days of this month.  Makes me wonder what the rest of the month will be like. 

 

March 6th, 1 day before my 34th birthday, finally getting some dirt/sand from Jacob's grave to have at home with us.  I like the ray of light in this picture, there are a few more of me collecting the dirt but only this one had that ray of light. 

Apparently Adam and I are always smiling, well, not sure what Adam is doing but, poor Allie and Dan...this is why we pay photographers to try to take pictures of us, no one is ever all looking at the camera at the same time.  Still a family picture we didn't have before this past week. 



My Birthday Dinner....34 years, baby number 4 on the way...a nice midweek break for what was a week of unexpected milestones. 

 

Birthday Reflections...

So,  I turn 34 today...I'm sure a baby to many but having just experienced the most traumatic year of my life thus far I feel older in many ways.  Until I turned 33 the most traumatic year of my life was probably our first year of marriage! Dan knows this as we were in it together but in comparison nothing really trumps the year you lose one of your children. I remember all the excitement, peace and joy I had on this day a year ago.  I was 33, about to have my third child, a boy, got to name him Jacob (a name I was dying to use), we were having pictures taken the coming weekend, everything was pretty clean in the house, I was almost done with the fatigue and uncomfortableness (probably not a word, but I'm too lazy to find our dictionary and those of  you that have been pregnant know exactly what I mean)  that comes with the last month of pregnancy, everything seemed to be so close to complete and what I had always dreamed of.  This day a year ago I was still innocent in a way I would never be again just 10 days later.  

So today, a year later, instead of feeling sad for all that we lost this last year, I feel a sense of accomplishment and peace.  I have survived.  I would not call it a graceful survival, more like a beat down and scrappy survival, but survival none the less.  I started this blog for myself and our family and have had such kind feedback.  I, in a year of nearly no accomplishment other than living through each day, which is actually a big accomplishment I suppose, but I have written the story of what loosing Jacob was like for us, for me, and found the confidence to share it with anyone that is willing to read.  For me that was my only real goal this year other than living and trying to be there for Adam, Allie and Dan as much as I humanly could.  There is still more to write about the last year, but I know it will come in time.  I learned to allow the sad moments to come when they did, out of the blue as they seemed to always occur, and somehow they always passed. I attribute their passing to the infinite prayers many have said for us, maybe even those prayers that many of you who are reading right now have prayed.  They did work, are continuing to work, and I am living proof of that.  It took longer for the sad moments to pass at times but I also found a peace over time in the last year in letting them run their course.  

In a way this last year has been a lot like natural labor without medication.  You know it's going to be painful but there is absolutely no way around it.  But just as I know labor does not last forever I have had faith all year that the grief, the heavy grief, would not last forever either and eventually I would find the light at the end of this journey.  Not even drugs can take away the pain of loosing your child and I didn't choose to take any to try; only those to help sleep as a sleep deprived grieving mom is/was, for me, not something that was absolutely necessary. Plus, I could not sleep all the time, having Adam and Allie prevented that, and the day time always allowed for the grief to surface.  But, it's been like labor in that I would have these waves of truly painful grief, they would grow, crest and then pass, just like contractions.  I could not control when or where they would happen or surface, the overwhelming grief, the tears, the deep deep gaping hole in my soul knowing Jacob was so far away and I could not have him, not here on this earth, not in this life.  All those emotions I felt and felt them fully, learned to feel them fully, let them be as they were, real and okay, and let them come out. I did not want to bottle everything up, I knew for me that would only delay the pain and grief and as much as it hurt I didn't want to be sad forever, I knew that.  I guess somehow I felt as though this past year would be the hardest and I pray that I will find that to be true in time as I can look back and am farther along.  The end of this labor for me will be the 17th when we lost our sweet Jacob; well then and I  anticipate when I again welcome a new baby into our family in May.  

As for today, I feel blessed to have survived my 33rd year of life by prayers and the true grace of God. I'm grateful to have two beautiful and healthy children, one more on the way and Jacob in Heaven.  I feel like now that I have survived this year, I can really survive anything although I hope that losing Jacob is the worst thing I must endure in this life.  God has blessed me with the most amazing man to be my partner and father to all four of our children.  I can't imagine my life with any other person.  I hope that the years to come will allow us to help other moms and families that have to endure a similar loss.  I anticipate and pray for joy and peace.  I know that I will have sad moments, I know the pain will surface at random times when I'm least expecting it and I thank God for all of those moments, they make me human and remind me to be  compassionate to others.  They also remind me to cherish my many blessings here and remember those that I already have in Heaven.  

Proof that all days are not so bad!

I thought after so many of you have read all of the hard stuff, the real stuff that is part of our life now, I would post some other things that are part of our life. Dan had to drive to Georgia to deliver a coffin today so has been gone since 7 AM leaving me at home to come up with an array of activities for myself and the kids to do to make this long day pass by without hearing "what can I do now mommy?" every 15 minutes.  As real as I have been I will not be so real as to post a picture of what I really look like today.  I have learned if I do not wake up before the kids to take a shower, meaning by 6 :30 AM, it rarely happens, so I am still wearing my lovely bathrobe, yesterday's mascara and a sloppy pony tail...a look I have managed to perfect over the last 4 years of pregnancy and motherhood.  I value sleep too much to get up that early, at least I did today:) 

The two people that, without any formal training in grief counseling, have managed to help me survive this last year.  Yes they have challenged me and my patience just as much as they did before Jacob died but their unconditional love and silliness constantly brings me back to this lovely world where they are.  Adam 3 3/4 and Allie 2 1/4.

So crafts today included Adam painting a small birdhouse we found for a $1 at Michael's, he did very well. And to the right an angel I'm making for the staff at the hospital where Jacob was born; one year in the making...figure I'm running out of time before the 17th.  I'll post a finished picture when it's complete!

Well to the right, Sour Cream Chocolate Tea Bread.
To the left the cutting board I somehow broke while trying to make my own chocolate chips since I had none. Decided to use 4 squares I have of bakers semi sweet chocolate, threw them in a Ziplock bag, gently laid the bag down on the cutting board and proceeded to smash the hell out of them with my heavy duty Kitchen Aid can opener...then switched to my heavy duty garlic press and somewhere in the process the cutting board gave way:) I felt better though!