Hailey's Hope Updates

I have some exciting news to share about Hailey's Hope.

First, if you remember from awhile back, I've been hoping to serve not only in AL but also in TN since we've moved. I'm happy to report that things are moving forward with Hailey's Hope being able to donate to Monroe Carell Jr. Children's Hospital at Vanderbilt. I'm currently working to fill at least 20 basic NICU bags to donate to their NICU some time during the month of March.

Second, as many of you already know, we are a project of Project Sweet Peas, and last fall we received our official non-profit status. For several months now we've been waiting to receive our official tax-exempt status, and I'm thrilled to share with you that our paperwork finally went through, and we have it! It will be back dated to September 14, 2010. This means that all donations are now tax deductible. Everyone who donates to Hailey's Hope in 2011 will receive a receipt; however, if you donated between September 14, 2010 and December 31, 2010 and would like a receipt, please contact me to request one (Kristin@projectsweetpeas.com). So Hailey's Hope with Project Sweet Peas is now officially a non-profit organization with our 501c3 tax exempt status!! I'm hoping this will mean even greater things for our project, allowing us to serve the NICUs in greater ways.

Third, our Flowers of Hope fundraiser is almost halfway through, and we're about halfway to our goal of raising $500!  I'd like to remind everyone that this fundraiser involves Hailey's Hope partnering with Flower Power Fundraising to sell flower bulbs for you to plant this spring; Hailey's Hope receives 50% of all sales. Purchasing and supporting Hailey's Hope is easy through this fundraiser! All you need to do is go to our webpage here: http://www.flowerpowerfundraising.com/campaign?campaign_id=4349 and shop now! All orders must be placed by April 15th at the latest to ensure you have your flowers in time for spring planting.  Please please please consider helping Hailey's Hope and purchasing some flower bulbs! Do you need another reason to participate in our fundraiser? These flower bulbs would make wonderful Mother's Day gifts! :)

I'm so looking forward to what's in store for Hailey's Hope this year and how much more we'll be able to give to the NICUs at The Children's Hopsital of Alabama and Monroe Carell Jr. Children's Hospital at Vanderbilt in Tennessee. But of course, nothing will be possible without our generous supporters and spreading awareness of our project so we can grow to have more and more support!

Believing Lies

One of the reasons my blog posts are coming maybe once a week, when I wish they were coming more frequently is because we've been busy with our move and getting settled in. But to be honest, as I always try to be on my blog, I haven't been in the right place to write.

My faith is in a different place these days. A place it's never been before. My faith is being challenged and is struggling yet I'm clinging on to it desperately - and I'm learning to cling to truths and not lies. To be honest, I've been in a pretty low place lately. To keep it simple I'll just say that on top of the 'stressors' I've been dealing with in this past year (the most well-known being the death of my daughter), this recent PCS (move) of ours and my husband's pending deployment have been pretty difficult for me so far.

This weekend, it became pretty clear to me that much of my struggle with my faith lately has been due to a conflict between what I know and have learned to be true about God and what others preach and believe to be true.

So first, I'd like to talk about blessings. What does it mean to be blessed by God? What is a blessing? Who is blessed? Have you ever really asked yourself those questions? They're actually difficult to answer, especially if you're looking for what the words mean in the Bible.

Our society likes to believe if you're wealthy, healthy, prosperous, have a good family, a good job, and so on and so forth, you're blessed. But that line of thought regarding blessings is incorrect and in fact is actually harmful if those of us who don't experience those things; it causes us to feel like for some reason God isn't blessing us but is punishing us. For instance, when a couple has a healthy baby everyone tells them how blessed they are. So what about me? I had a baby who was sick and died... does that mean I was punished? That God didn't want to bless me? I don't necessarily think so, but that's the pitfall that those popular misconceptions can lead to.

A blessing can mean receiving favor from God. But then how do we know what God's favor is? Maybe the person who is given a healthy baby does receive a blessing from God. But maybe the person who is given a sick baby who dies can also still receive a blessing from God... maybe the baby was a blessing, maybe the blessings came in the form of strength and comfort from God to make it through the grief.

Being blessed by God or being a follower of God doesn't mean that God will remove all problems and hardships from your life. If everything seems to be going right for you while problems seem to be piling up on the doorstep for me, does that mean you're blessed and I'm not? Does that mean I must have done something wrong, God's punishing me, God doesn't love me? Absolutely not.

So maybe a blessing is God's favor resting on us, but you have to really think about what that might actually look like. But maybe a blessing is something that draws us closer into his love. Have you ever thought about a blessing in that way?

All I know is that I'm tired of the way people use the word blessed, Christians and non-Christians alike. My main point being that blessings do not necessarily equal health, wealth, prosperity, lack of problems, etc. And if you have those things, that doesn't mean that God loves you more than the person who doesn't have those things. I think people need to redefine how they think of being blessed.

Second, I'd like to talk about God's promises. God's promises are indeed promises and true. However, not all promises may apply to you or I in any given circumstance, and many promises are promises regarding eternal life for believers - promises that will be fulfilled in Heaven, not while we're alive here on earth.

There are many examples from scripture where God healed the sick, saved people from their enemies, rescued people from other dire situations, and so on. Many Christians turn these snippets of scripture into promises that they expect God to perform in their own lives. However, that creates problems and draws questions like: Why didn't God heal my child? Why didn't God heal my dad's cancer? Why didn't God rescue my soldier for his enemy? Why am I the wife whose husband doesn't return from a deployment? There must be something wrong with me. God must not be living up to his promises. God must not love me. God must be punishing me. Again, that line of thinking is dangerous and based on lies we believe.

God does heal and rescue and save and perform miracles. However, nowhere in his word does he say he will heal every believer's illness or answer every prayer for healing or provide protection so no one ever dies. Our world is filled with sickness, death, and evil; that's our fallen world. So God doesn't promise to remove those things from the equation, at least not here on earth in this life. Some day God will remove those things once and for all, but many of the promises given in scripture that people misunderstand are meant to be fulfilled in our (believers) lives in heaven. God will save all who believe in him. But make sure you understand that he won't necessarily save us from all life's problems or death, but he will save us from eternal separation from him, and we will experience the ultimate healing in heaven.

Many Christians tell stories of how their lives were full of problems and terrible before Christ, and when they came to Christ their lives were suddenly turned around and became so full of blessings. Maybe that's true of them, but it paints a false picture of what it means to come to Christ and have your life changed by Christ. Turning to Christ isn't an 'easy' button for life. Trust me, I can attest to that.

If I were to look at my life through the lens of these misconceptions and false beliefs, it'd seem like my life was 'good' before my relationship with God and has become 'bad' ever since. I've been in a place lately where I'm facing more illness and deaths than I ever imagined I'd face in such a short amount of time, so soon in life, where problems seem to be piling up on my doorstep. If I look at my life by using scripture incorrectly, it really brings me down to a low place and is dangerous. But if I look at my life through the correct perspective , through God's eyes, I know that my life is not worse now.  (Because now, I am a sinner saved from my sins, free of my punishment because of Jesus' work on the cross, going through life with God by my side, with a purpose of serving him and loving others, destined for an eternity in heaven with him.) God doesn't give me reason to hope that my problems will go away this side of heaven, but he does tell me to put my hope in him and him saving me from eternally being separated from him, and he does promises a lot of amazing things for me in heaven. Those are truths. Those are the truths I need to focus on. Those are truths that have to be enough.

The lies we believe, the misconceptions we have, can be damaging to our faith when we need it most. I know.

In case this post has been a rambling or has left you confused but interested in what I'm trying to talk about, you can listen to or watch the message I heard this past weekend that helped remind me of truths I needed to hear, hopefully this pastor can do a better job of explaining some of what I was trying to in my own way.

So today, wherever you are, whatever you're facing, illness, death, financial hardships, family problems, marriage problems, whatever... Please know, especially if you're my brother or sister in Christ, it doesn't mean God doesn't love you. It doesn't mean God is withholding his blessing from your life or punishing you. It doesn't mean God has broken his promises. Don't let your circumstances shake your faith. Cling to the promises that are always true for every believer - that God loves you, will never leave you, and has an incredible reward for you in heaven.

"Can anything ever separate us from Christ's love? Does it mean He no longer loves us if we have calamity, or are persecuted, or hungry, or destitute, or in danger or threatened with death? No! Despite all these things, overwhelming victory is ours through Christ who loved us." Romans 8:35-37

Ashamed and Hiding My Grief

Before I start to write what I actually want this blog post to be about, I need to preface it by sharing some information about what's been going on in our lives this past week (in a sense, this might become 2 posts in 1). Last weekend we learned that Josh's grandpa, Opa, had a bad fall and as a result was in the hospital. After a couple of days in the hospital, Opa passed away. This past week I was supposed to be down in Alabama celebrating my husband's graduation from flight school where I was going to go to "Family Day," take some pictures inside of a Black Hawk (the helicopter he flies), pin his wings on him, and have lots of photo ops with him in his dress blues. However, at the news of Opa's passing, plans changed obviously, as family comes first. So instead, this week we drove up to IL to be with family and attend his grandpa's funeral service.

Ironically, we found ourselves doing the same thing we were going a little over a year ago at this time. This year we were going home because Opa passed away. Last year we were going home because Hailey passed away. This year we drove through a snowstorm making our way home. Last year we drove through a snowstorm making our way home. And, both services just happened to be at the same funeral home. A little over a year later, and I felt like I was almost reliving what we had done a year ago with Hailey. I knew that this week was going to be a hard one.

And now for what this post is really about...

I am continuing to see that while I want to say I'm handling my grief over losing Hailey well, I'm really not. Every now and then a little light is brought to the situation and my eyes are opened to what I'm really doing. I see that I'm closing myself off, I'm not giving myself permission to grieve and feel the way I feel, I'm not communicating my grief or the related sadness that I feel with anyone, when I feel like crying, I don't allow it. I'm not sure why I've become this way. I know I've written about this a little not too long ago, but I guess I feel like I don't want to burden others with my grief, and I don't want to share it with anyone because no one understands. Not to mention, it's been a little over a year since Hailey died, and for some reason I feel like I shouldn't grieve and feel like I do anymore because of that.

This week I continued that path of trying to bury my grief deep inside and try to 'handle' it on my own, and it was probably the worst thing I could have done for myself.

If you've been following my blog for awhile, you know that one of the greatest struggles I've had since losing Hailey is handling being around other mothers with their children. I desperately want to overcome this struggle. It's something that I really hate about myself and that I beat myself up over, especially now, a year later. I want so badly to be around other mothers and their babies and feel nothing but happy for them and to share in their joy, but I can't. Even now, over a year later, I can't. And I hate that I can't. Instead, I look at mothers with their babies and look at them with sorrow feeling my broken heart intensified. I see the mothers and the babies and feel a deep ache of missing Hailey. I see a mother holding her baby in her arms, and all I can think about is how I want to be her. I want to hold my baby in my arms again. It's not even so much that I want to trade places with them or that I'm jealous of what they have because it reminds me of what I lost, but it's that I want to be sharing that moment with them. I want to be there as a mother with her child too. I want to have everyone ooh and ahh over my baby too. I want everyone to know that I was once a mother too. I'm tired of everyone I meet assuming this pregnancy is my first, that I never had a daughter.

People think being a mother is one of the hardest jobs there is. And it's true, I know. But I almost think being a mother of child who is dead is the hardest. How can anyone do it?

So anyway, the past year I've avoided and been in a lot of situations where I've been around mothers and their babies. I'd made a lot of progress and had been doing better at being around them and not feeling so much of my grief. But it's still hard.

I was recently in a situation where I was with all mothers and their young children. I was the only one without a child there. It wasn't that bad, but every moment I thought about Hailey and how I wished she were there with me... how I wished I was part of what they all were. And it made me wonder, will I always feel this way? Whenever I'm in a room with mothers and their children, will I always think of how my child isn't there? Will it always awaken the void that's in my life? I'm starting to think this is something that will be there forever; something that I need to learn how to get used to and stop feeling sorry for myself that things are the way they are. But even though that situation was hard, I felt 'okay.' Again, just feeling like this is something I need to get used to.

However, there was another situation I was recently in where I pushed myself too far. The day before Opa's funeral service this week, we went and visited some dear friends and their new baby girl. Before going, I had some reservations, but didn't communicate them with my husband. I feared the grief and sorrow it might stir up for me, especially considering the timing, with the whole trip being reminiscent of coming home because of our daughter's death and with preparing to face the death of another loved one the next day. But I didn't say anything about it. It was an example of me trying to bury my true feelings because I was ashamed of them. I feared that being in the situation with their new baby would trigger feelings of my loss and create that deeply unbearable ache of missing my own baby. But I wanted to pretend like I was no longer 'that' person in my grief. Like I said before, I so desperately wanted to be 'okay' and joyous at meeting their baby girl. And after all, it's been a year, I shouldn't feel this way anymore... So we went.

At first it was okay, and it was like all the other moments I've spent with new families since my own was broken... I do okay but think of Hailey the entire time. The moment grew harder for me when I learned that she was 5 weeks old. All I could think about was our daughter died when she was 5 weeks old. Their daughter is reaching milestones that Hailey never reached. Their daughter weighed 10 lbs, Hailey weighed 5 lbs. My grief started to hit pretty hard, but I did my best to push it aside and not let it show, because after all, even I didn't want to acknowledge that it was there. And then the moment became the hardest it could have been for me; when our friend asked me if I wanted to hold the baby before we left. I felt frozen. I was hoping to not have to be confronted with that option at all. But there I was, confronted with my grief. My own struggle that no one else knew was even going on. I looked into our friend's eyes, smiling, but hesitating, hoping she or someone would notice my look or hesitation and give me an out, but it didn't happen. I couldn't say no. What kind of person would I have been if I said no? I wanted to be the person who said yes. I didn't want to be the person, a year later, who still can't hold a baby without feeling overwhelmed by grief.

It was the first time around other people where I actually thought I might cry, but I didn't let myself, and I reluctantly said, "Sure." And before I knew it, I was holding a 5 week old little girl in my arms. Even now, I have no idea how I managed not to cry. This was the first time I'd held a baby since I'd held my own. And not only was this the first time I'd held another baby, the baby just happened to be a girl and as old as my little girl had been when she died.

After we left their house, we immediately went to be with my husband's family, so I really had no time to address my emotions, which was good for the side of me that always wanted to bury my true feelings away. But that night, in bed, the tears came. I couldn't force them away. And in the release of one single tear, everything inside of me broke down. All the walls I've built inside of myself that gave me the facade of being 'okay' in my grief broke down. Like I've shared before, for some reason I don't even like to cry in front of my husband anymore, and so I ran to the bathroom and broke down. I hadn't felt that kind of grief in a long time. It was the kind that was so painful it literally felt unbearable, like I wanted to rip my chest open, like I felt a million pounds of weight were crushing down on me. I cried and cried until I had such a bad headache I couldn't cry one more tear. The next morning, the morning of Opa's funeral service, I woke up crying. This time, I opened up to my husband.

I have to say I know our friends meant no harm in asking me to hold their little girl. And I really hope that if they read this post they won't feel guilty or bad or anything about what happened. It's my own fault. I should have been honest with what I was feeling and not ashamed of it. As much as I wanted it, I wasn't ready to hold another baby yet, and I should have just politely passed on the opportunity to hold their little girl. A part of me that hoped that taking the step of holding a baby would somehow magically help me overcome some of my grief and those types of situations, but it didn't. It was too soon and it did more harm than good for me. And one of the reasons it's so hard in these situations, is because I don't want the people who are involved to take anything personal or to take anything as me not loving them or their children or thinking I'm not happy for them. I am happy for them. I love them and their little girl. Unfortunately, I'm still in a place where my grief interferes with how I want things to be. But again, it's a struggle because I'm not sure anyone understands.

And that's actually another struggle. At some point, I need to come to terms with the fact that no one will ever understand what I went through and what I go through on a day to day basis, and I need to not be angry that they don't understand. I also need to realize if I want any kind of understanding  from others, I need to be more open with what it is that I'm feeling and going through.

All in all, I learned a lot about myself this week. I learned I need to communicate better and more often. I learned that just because one year has passed that things don't suddenly become easier or better with my grief. I learned that trying to bury things inside and build walls and try to carry this burden of my grief by myself is an absolutely terrible idea. I need to get over feeling guilty and ashamed with how I feel and allow others to have the chance to understand, love, and even help me with what it is that I'm going through. I fear in doing so that I'll become the burden of others, but I know deep down this isn't true. God designed us to rejoice together and mourn together, and I not only need to release my burdens and struggles to him, but I need to share them with others too.

And that's why I wrote this blog post. It wasn't easy for me to write and share, but as silly as it is, writing about how I feel is therapeutic for me. It's another way of being honest with myself and how I feel. It's an easy way for me to open up and not keep things to myself.

Hailey's Hope: Flowers of Hope

This April will be the 1 year anniversary of the project I started in memory of Hailey, Hailey's Hope with Project Sweet Peas.

You can help us celebrate the 1st anniversary of Hailey's Hope and make our project successful in its 2nd year of donating care packages to families with babies in intensive care units in hospitals in AL and TN by participating in our project's current fundraiser, Flowers of Hope.

Flowers of Hope will run from February 1st to April 15th. During this time you can order flowers from the fundraising campaign through Flower Power Fundraising, and Hailey's Hope will receive 50% of all sales! Shipping is a flat rate of $5 per order. Ordering is easy and can be done online!

Order your flower bulbs now for spring planting and enjoy beautiful flowers this summer!

Please consider purchasing and planting a flower in memory of Hailey or someone else you know.

Visit the Flowers of Hope campaign website by clicking here and place your order now! It's that simple!

If you have questions, please email me: Kristin@projectsweetpeas.com.

We Moved!

I'm so happy to finally have time to write a blog post. I've certainly missed my blog during the past two weeks full of (full DITY) moving 'festivities.'

(The only moving pic I took - doesn't really do it justice - Our garage in AL full of our stuff with the moving truck backed up and ready to be loaded)

Since I last wrote, my husband celebrated his golden birthday by passing his final flight school check ride. We spent the same day picking up our moving truck (which was 2.5 hrs late). Thanks to the help of five of our friends from OCF, our moving truck was 3/4 of the way loaded by the end of the night. On Thursday I spent the entire day, really I mean entire day, cleaning the house while my husband finished packing the garage and loading the truck and car. We were hoping to be on the road to our new house early Friday morning; however, we had to schedule a carpet cleaning through our rental agency. It was originally set for 9am, but when I called to confirm the property manager had forgotten to make the appointment. She later called and said the carpet cleaning company had a 9:30 available so we went with that. Unfortunately, the carpet cleaners ran late and didn't arrive until close to 11am. During our wait we did some last minute things and more cleaning. By the time the cleaners were gone and we were able to get on the road it was about 2pm.

We spent the next 8 hrs driving from lower Alabama to Ft. Campbell, KY - my husband drove the moving truck and I was in our car with Opie. Surprisingly, after a week of cleaning, packing, and loading and not being able to move a muscle, the long drive wasn't all that bad. We arrived safely at a weigh station just outside of post where we met my husband's parents. After weighing our vehicles we made it to our new house around 11pm at which point the unloading immediately began. After a couple of hours of work, we all decided it was time to call it quits for the day. We woke up bright and early Saturday morning to finish unloading the truck (well everyone else did, I woke up nice and early to organize and start unpacking boxes). Thankfully, even though we were a little stressed and very much exhausted, we finished unloading the truck by noon and were able to return it on time. That afternoon we got our Internet and satellite all set up

We spent the weekend moving furniture and boxes into their respective rooms, and I slowly began the unpacking process. My husband's parents left us early Sunday morning, and I dropped my husband off at the airport that afternoon to catch a flight back to Ft. Rucker so he could be there for all the 'pre-graduation' activities. So while he's been busy with all that un-fun business, I've been here in our new house with our dog unpacking, organizing, and putting our house together. Even though I've been keeping quite busy, it's been a little lonely. I can't wait to be reunited with my husband and to feel like we're getting settle in our new home and community and making new friends.

And surprisingly, leaving our home in Alabama was not as hard as I thought it might be. Obviously I have a real attachment to our rental house because it was the home we brought Hailey home to and is the home that holds our memories with her. But leaving didn't make me feel all that sad. However, the move hasn't really sunk in quite yet, I'm still having that almost temporary vacation feeling. Perhaps once the permanence of it settles in I might feel different. I will say though that with the move, our new pregnancy, and time continually moving forward, it does feel like more of Hailey is slipping away from me, like in a weird way she's growing further and further away from me. Even though I feel that now, the emotional side to it isn't really hitting quite yet, probably because I'm caught up in the busyness of the move.

We met our neighbors across the street, a very nice military family. However, when the question came up about if we had kids, we said no, but we had one on the way. I hate saying it that way, but I don't see any other way when we're going to be meeting so many new people. I'm starting to understand why people who have lost a child don't talk about them. I never understood it before. But I don't want to talk about Hailey as much anymore, at least not to people I meet for the first time. I think it's because she is something so important and personal to me that I'm coming to understand not everyone can handle, understand, or appreciate her/our story; therefore, I'm starting to keep her to myself. And in a sense it protects me from hurt that can come from the responses of strangers. Even though I'm starting to understand this 'new way' of handling her and others, I still wonder or worry about all the new people we'll be meeting in the coming months and how to deal with the question of children. But I think perhaps if they ask, "Do you have any children?" I'll respond with a "no" - even though I thought I'd never do that. But if they are people who become part of our lives, then certainly I will tell them. And I'm sure in talking about my pregnancy and what I do with Hailey's Hope, Hailey's story will come out, and I think it's okay to have that be the natural progression of sharing her with others.

Oh! And on a separate note, Opie celebrated his 3rd birthday this week! He enjoyed some scrumptious doggy bakery cookies and a new toy (that seems to not only be a hit with him, but with me as well because so far it's seeming indestructible).

All in all, despite the hard work, stress, and exhaustion, I would declare this a successful DITY and PCS - Hello Ft. Campbell!