Dear Hailey

Dear Hailey,

Soon our family is going to be changing - or rather it's already begun to change. Did you know on your 1st birthday I found out I was pregnant with your little brother? Can you believe that? Well pretty soon he's going to be here, and you are going to become a big sister.

I have so many emotions connecting you and your brother together in my heart, my two babies.

Part of me is excited. I can't wait to tell him all about his big sister, to show him your picture, to teach him to say your name, to some day tell him how you changed my life and so many others.

Part of me is sad. I'm sad you won't be able to meet him right away. I'm sad he won't be able to meet you and know you for himself. I'm sad he will only know you through pictures and stories. I'm sad he'll have a big sister, but at the same time that he won't.

Did you know this pregnancy has reminded me so much of you? It's made me think of you a lot. In fact, it's hard to think about your brother and not think about you.

To be honest with you, sometimes this has made me sad, and it's been difficult for me. Your birth and life made me aware of a love and joy I didn't know existed. But since you had many health problems, and we knew your time with us was going to be brief, the circumstances surrounding you involved a lot of tears and pain. As you know, it was very hard for me and your daddy to see you sick and be unable to do anything to make you better. In fact, it broke our hearts, and it still does, even though we know you are with Jesus and no longer sick or in pain and are experiencing more joy and love than we could ever have shown you on this earth. But having experienced that journey with you makes me wonder what the journey will be like with your little brother and makes me wonder if it will be the same, which is what's difficult.

But there are times when this pregnancy reminds me of when I was pregnant with you and those memories make me happy. In a way, when I remember them, they bring me back to you. They make you feel real again and not like a fleeting dream I once I had.

Most of all, my pregnancy with your little brother and preparing myself to meet him makes me miss you. Your daddy and I can't wait to hold your little brother in our arms and start our lives with him. I can't wait to feel like a family again... but right when I think that I know our family will always feel incomplete without you here too. I know God had a plan for calling you home to Him when He did, but sometimes the selfish part of me that doesn't understand wishes you could be healthy and happy here with us too... but you're not, and I miss you.

We don't know how God is going to change our family with your brother, but no matter what happens, even though you are not physically here with us, you will always be a part of our family, you will always be my firstborn, you will always be my little girl, you will always be my daughter, and you will always be loved.

I love you and miss you baby girl. Sending kisses up to Heaven for you today.  I can't wait to tell you about your little brother, and I can't wait to tell him about his big sister.

Love you always and forever,

Your momma

I can't help it...

Tonight I sit and dream of you, my baby boy... I can't help it...

I pray that not too long from now you will be cuddled in my arms, healthy and beautiful, and that I will stare endlessly at you in amazement of my healthy and beautiful baby boy.

I dream of meeting you.

I dream of you healthy.

I dream of holding you.

I dream of a life with you.

At one point I told myself I couldn't dream these dreams... They were too big... too much to ask... feeling unrealistic... feeling undeserving... feeling such joy and perfection might not come my way...

But I can't help it...

I dream of my dreams coming true.

I dream of you.

And somewhere along the way I realized I was afraid to love you with all my heart ,and I did everything I could to try to push that love aside... Out of a fear of loving you and losing you or loving you and hurting because you hurt... As if I could ignore a love that was already created and growing, thinking it would make the pain any less if something were to happen to you...

But I can't help it. I love you. I've always loved you...

Dreaming and loving are  risks for me, and maybe for others too, but even though I'm still afraid, I can't help it anymore......

And so tonight I sit and dream of you...

I can only pray and hope that God allows me the dreams and love I have for you to be fulfilled...

Surrender But Hope

Hi readers,

I come to you tonight with a short but important post. I'm currently 37.5 weeks (full term) and my due date is quickly approaching. The emotional roller coaster I've been riding this entire pregnancy is continuing, and possibly getting scarier if I were to be honest. We continue to have a lot of reason to hope for the best but there have been enough "things" scattered along the way that have allowed for seeds of doubt and some reason to wonder if we will again face a loss or an unhealthy baby.

I've come to a place where I have somewhat given God a rebellious attitude telling him I will not be okay, and I do not want him to choose another path for me that involves a child of mine being unhealthy and possibly dying. However, from the beginning I surrendered to God and accepted this as a possible reality, even as slight as it might be. Somewhere along the way, perhaps as I fell more deeply in love with my son, that the possibility of him having a disorder, whether fatal or not, and even though slight, became unbearably painful and gave birth to an excess of anxieties and fears.

I've battled with myself and with God more times than I can count, wanting God's will to be done and trusting his plan is greater and better than my own, but fearing his will is calling me to another traumatic event, another hardship, another sick child...

So here's where I am at tonight. Every time I battle with the above thoughts, I feel so distressed I can't begin to describe it. The only way for me to have peace is to once again come to the place of surrendering my hopes and dreams and my son to God and come to the place where I will accept his will, even if it includes those things I don't want, those things that make me cry to imagine, those things I fear...

I need prayer that I can come to a place where I can surrender and be at peace if God's plan is for another baby of ours to have a chromosomal disorder yet at the same time be hopeful that God can work miracles and that God's plan might match my dreams of our son being born completely healthy and perfect. And it's so hard because those are two very different things to prepare for and do at the same time...

As time draws nearer and nearer for me to meet my son and know once and for all if he is going to be healthy or not, I am becoming more and more vulnerable, more and more emotional, and becoming more and more susceptible to fears and worries and sorrow... I really need God to prepare my heart for whatever is in store because right now I am a broken mess.

Sometimes I feel bad asking so many people in so many ways for prayers, but sometimes I just don't know what else to do than pray and have others pray for me when I'm so exhausted myself.

~

On a side note, I was catching up on some blogs today that I follow and read this post by Angie Smith... Sometimes only the words of a mother who has experienced burying her baby can bring me comfort because there are some things that only "babylost" mothers understand about life... And so I read this post that she wrote and was very moved by it. I thought it was beautiful and I needed to share it. Please read.

Updates & Thoughts on Hailey

First, some updates...

My husband and I enjoyed a long 5 day holiday weekend (yes, 5 days!). We spent some of our free time together buying those necessities we still needed for baby boy, and we also ventured to Babies R Us and created a registry. Thankfully, after a roller coaster of a week emotionally for me, our baby shopping adventures went quite well. I think it was helpful for us to do the shopping and registering together. I didn't really get too sad or emotional. Instead, shopping made us both really excited... which is good but again is a scary thing for me. At this point, it's pretty hard not to be excited to meet our little guy and start dreaming of a future with him... but I still have that nagging in the back of my mind that I could be "let down" again...

Yesterday marked my 36th week of pregnancy. 1 more week until I'm considered full term. 4 more weeks to baby boy's due date. Again, as the time is drawing nearer and nearer to August 3rd, I can't help but be excited. One part of me wants him to come right now so I can be done waiting for him and just meet him and hold him already. But another part of me wants him to stay in my belly as long as possible because I know he's safe and sound in there and I don't have to worry about NICUs or things like that. So that part of me continues to cherish every day of this pregnancy. Also yesterday I had another appointment with my midwife and thankfully everything continues to look good although no signs that baby boy is going to make his debut any time soon.

Last but not least for the updates, my husband and I celebrated our 4th wedding anniversary yesterday. We didn't have anything spectacular planned (we did just go on an awesome vacation last month, had fun with fireworks and things this past weekend, have a concert planned for this coming weekend, and not to mention it's hard to plan something on a work day), but we had a great anniversary nonetheless. My husband surprised me with a beautiful card and beautiful flowers when he came home, and thankfully there was a change in our schedules that allowed us to enjoy a nice romantic dinner out. We had lots of fun reminiscing about various moments in our lives and relationship. I hope we can always hold such great conversations even as we become an old married couple. Our marriage has seen more hardships and struggles than most can imagine in the first four years I'm sure, but I am so thankful that God has sustained us and so thankful to be married to a wonderful man who continues to be my best friend. I can only hope and pray that God will redeem our seasons of pain with more seasons of joy in the coming years.

~

So I thought I'd take some time to write a little about where my heart and mind are right now in terms of living without Hailey. As I've written before, I've felt a lot of deja vu with this pregnancy reminding me so much of Hailey and that has been a difficult thing and at times contributed to a lot of my fears this time around. However something that I haven't really written about yet is that as my belly has grown rounder and as my due date quickly approaches, talking about Hailey has become quite difficult for me.

Since Hailey passed away, I really haven't minded talking about her. I've always wanted and even "enjoyed"  opportunities to talk about her. At times I've struggled with how to answer the question "Do you have any children?" because I don't ever want to act like I never had a daughter, but answering that question honestly can be hard and awkward as I've written about before. But despite the difficulties and awkwardness, whenever I've been asked that question or a related one, I've taken a deep breath and dared to be open and mention Hailey and our loss. And I've always been able to do so with a strength and courage and perspective that allowed me to share about her with a love and joy instead of with pain and sorrow.

Lately however, it's really hard for me to share about Hailey in that way. Being in the Army, we continue to be presented with situations where we are meeting new people. Now people see that I'm pregnant and as a result we often get asked if this is our first pregnancy at which point we respond with no this is our second. I don't usually venture much further with an explanation unless there's further inquiry at which point it becomes quite hard to share our story (part of me now is hoping they don't inquire further when before I would hope they would). Most of the time when this happens lately I'm with my husband and I can look to him to answer and explain because I know I can't without crying - even as I listen to him explain I often have to hold back the tears now. As odd as it might be for someone to hear this, I still want people to know we had a daughter even though doing so has become quite hard.

I think, if I can adequately put it into words, one of the reasons I can't contain the pain and sorrow now when these questions come up is because this new pregnancy has made me miss Hailey in a new way and to a new depth. Now there is so much focus on the loss or void I have without her, whereas before I could focus on the brief time she was with us and filled our lives. Also,  I think it's because I have so much fear that after losing our first child we will also lose the one growing inside of me, the thought of which is obviously unbearable painful....

So this has been and remains a current challenge I'm experiencing as a babylost and expectant mom.