October 13th - Signs

For some reason I've always associated the moon with my boys. I think they send me spiders too ( because they know mommy isn't too find of them). But the moon has been consistent for me. It seems anytime that I get a bit sad or more emotional than usual, all I have to do is look up and there is this bright shining moon. It's as if the boys are lighting the way and telling mommy they are shining. It always makes me smile.

October 8th - Jewelry

My bracelet with two hearts for the boys - each engraved with their name.

October 7th - What To Say

This one is easy. Ask me anything about my boys...my angels. I want to talk about them. I want you to be interested in them. Talking about them makes them real. It means you know they are real and that you care.

Ask me all about them. I remember every detail- even five years later. Ask me about what happened - I have no issue talking about this. Ask me how I grieved. Ask me how to help other moms going through the same thing. I just want others to be educated so that loss is no longer something kept hidden.
And show me your emotions. The one thing that touched me most in the dirt months after losing the boys were my friends who would cry with me. They showed me it had affected them as well.

October 6th - What Not To Say

I wrote an entire post on this after our second loss. There was one primary question that just tweaked me the wrong way. Poor innocent people just didn't know any better.

For me it was the question, "How are you?" It's a horribly loaded question for anyone who has recently undergone tragedy. If we respond with the "normal" answer of fine, then it's like we are somehow ignoring the memory of our baby(ies). If we respond truthfully, it will probably be way more information than the asker wants. Plus who really wants to hear about how sad you are, and how much you miss your baby, and how unfair it is, and how mad you are.... The thing is though, that I eventually did find people that wanted to know all that stuff and would really listen. And that was the greatest help that I found.

Now after having three living babies, there is still one question that I have issue with: How many kids do you have?
I struggle with how to answer this all the time. The response I've found that works for me is, "I have three living." But I say "living" softly because there are some situations where I don't like explaining myself.

October 5th - Memorial

We celebrate our angels birthdays each year. The first year after each of their deaths we had a birthday party and even invited friends and family. For both boys we made cupcakes and released balloons to Heaven. It's my way o saying that we certainly remember but also saying that I'm grateful for their births. Because even though their deaths were the lowest of lows, their births were still amazing and miracles in themselves.

It's been over five years now since our first loss, and we still do birthday celebrations. We just don't have everyone over anymore and we don't always do balloons. But every year in March and July you can find blue Ives cupcakes on our house and new toys at the boys graves. We remember.

October 4th - Most treasured item(s)

We have pictures of both boys and those are definitely my most treasured items.  With our first loss we only have a few pictures.  We didn't know that we would want those pictures.  With the second loss, we knew.  We have so very many pictures of our second son...it's sad that we were prepared and knew to have the camera, but I'm glad we did.

So many people are uncomfortable with all the pictures of the boys, so I keep their feet shown.  Their feet are everywhere in our house.

October 3rd - After loss portrait

I feel a bit like I've been ignoring my grief.  Yes, it has been over 5 years now...and three rainbows later I'm still grieving.  So I found this: http://carlymarieprojectheal.com/
and I'm going to participate.  I'll have to go back and add days 1 and 2, but here is day 3.

This is a picture one year after our first loss.  It was his birthday party.  It was actually quite hard to find pictures "after loss".  I don't think I posed for many that year.

 

This is after our second loss.  It was a "fake it til you make it" kind of pose.  Really, that's what it took to just keep going forward.  We were on vacation, just trying to have fun and I was still...so...very...sad.

Just thinking

I haven't been able to write as much on here as I'd like. With our first rainbow I had time to chronicle her growing up. I can go back now and read about the fun we had and her "firsts". These days with two more rainbows its hard to find the time...but I'm going to find it. I want our newest additions to be able to come to this blog years and years down the road and read all about their early years. So stay posted...this blog is about to be revived!

October 2nd - Before loss portrait

It's amazing how you feel when you go back and look at pictures before your losses.  All I can think is how I was so naive.  I didn't know babies died in this picture.

 

I still didn't know in this picture either, but now I knew that getting pregnant really wasn't all that easy.  I was 18 weeks pregnant with our first.  I had no clue that getting pregnant wasn't the hardest part.

 

In this picture I now knew that staying pregnant and delivering a living full term baby was not a sure thing.  I knew babies died, but I NEVER thought it would happen twice.  I was so very naive.  I was 18 weeks pregnant with our second.