25 Days of Giveaways

Today is my giveaway for the  25 Days of Giveaways.  Thank you to Tina for this wonderful idea of helping babyloss moms through the holidays.   I remembered doing this last year and it was certainly a needed "distraction" during such a difficult time.  Our thoughts are never very far away from our babies but at least there was a focus....something to think about and look forward to each day and share with others that are on this journey.  I met several BLM friends through this and, as I have already this month, have found new stories and old stories and some of them very similar to what I went through.  These friends helped me through tough days and I would do the same with comforting comments or emails, letting them know someone else was walking very close to them on a very similar path.  This community is therapy for many of us....therapy we could have paid a professional for, but never received the empathy of "I've been there...so I know how you feel."  Thank you to everyone out there who has helped a fellow baby loss mom out with kind and comforting comments, an email, a letter, or whatever form of support you offer.  

And on to my giveaway!  When Chase died, my sister found this wonderful website and worked with the creator on a custom canvas that perfectly represented our little boy.   They spent a lot of time on getting the art just right, the words just right and everything she wanted it to say.....while keeping it a secret from me the entire time!  The creator of this website is an artist that loves every piece she creates and does so with a compassion and care that gives the customer the most adorable, special piece of art to display.  The balloons on this canvas are the exact colors that we sent off to Chase the day we got home from the hospital, the number of balloons for each person in our family, his stats, the words that we said to him.  Everything was perfect--couldn't have been more fitting.   She also had a Picture Pal made that matched the canvas!  It was very touching and I was very emotional when she gave it to me.  Thank you to Therese for all her time in creating the special piece for me and my family!

So this is what I am giving away today......TWO (2) $25 gift certificates to Farmhouse Five for you to choose your special piece(s) for your little one.  I promise you will absolutely love her store and find several things to choose from.  The quality of work is amazing....just like her talent.   Leave me a comment and if you like, tell me what is your most special "thing" that you have made or had made that represents your angel baby.  Tonight I will use random.or.g. to choose the winners so check back tomorrow to see if it is you!

Thanks for reading & Happy Holidays to you all!

Always like this

It's never a long period of time that passes when I don't read a post on one of my babyloss mom's blogs about a milestone that was reached. A year since the birth, the death, the due date....and I look at my calendar and see 1 year, 4 months 3 weeks and 2 days since Chase went to heaven. I can't believe it has been that long. A year ago I never thought of this day. I was trudging through each day as the sun rose, but I certainly did not have on my mind what my life would be like when Chase had been gone for a year and more. I didn't want to think of that time. I remember feeling like I was drowning because I wanted time to stop and because with each passing day, I felt like he was slipping further and further away from me.

This is the worst feeling, speaking from my experience, as someone who has lost a baby. When there are only so many memories to hold on to, and even fewer sweet, precious moments type of memories, to hold on to the legacy of your little one. There is an immense longing to see my little boy as a toddler. I wonder who he would look like, probably just like his big brother, but I will never know for sure. When I see babies that I suppose are near Chase's age, I always try to guess. First how old they are, then what my baby must look and act like.

I have not had the dreams I thought I would have had by now. I may have dreamt about Chase, though, and not remembered it. I had a dream a few nights ago....one that is fading because it was so.....real.....so...weird.....and so scary once I woke up. I can't remember much of it now but I remember having a baby, that I think was Chase, because it was Chase's age, but I don't remember the face. This baby was in a crib or bassinett or casket, or something, laying there, lifeless. There was another baby tinier, laying in another bed, too, lifeless. I'm sure the older one was Chase, because I had "kept" him. Somehow. Since he died. And eventually, he gasped and started breathing. And I just picked him up and held him and cried. And cried and cried. That's all I remember about my dream. I think the little baby took a breath, too, in my dream. They both "came to life". Right before my eyes. It was a very disturbing dream. I long so dearly to hold my sweet Chase, to feel him moving and hear him and touch him. And I got him back in this dream. I didn't get to "see" him really, I don't remember a face or any details...other than him coming to life finally.....after laying there this whole time....this past year plus. And I don't remember much about the other baby, either. Just that he, too, had started breathing.

And as I checkup on my BLM friends and read their stories, I realize that we are moving on, our lives continue. But then again, we are stuck. In a time when we try to remember our babies. A place where we forever will be.....until we are with them again some day.

I miss Chase as much today as I did the day he left us. I feel differently, my struggles are different, but I still ache for him. I look at his picture every day and though some times I just see the picture, there are other times when I take myself back to that very point in time....trying so hard to remember more than what is in the photograph. Wishing, still, I had more. Because as these days pass, I do feel further away from him. The pain not so sharp, but dull and everlasting. And maybe, maybe some day soon, I'll get a visit from him in a dream I can hold onto.

Still here

I miss him so badly. I look at his pictures and I feel him like I am still losing him--in a different way. I look at the pictures and I have them memorized. But as time passes, I have to try harder to see those moments in action....moving, not just still shots in my mind, but his life with us. Those moments. The tragedy. In moving, real life action. Because if I don't try to recall those things, it feels like these are just pictures. Pictures of something that happened...but no memory. I have several different snapshots of him that don't even look like the same baby. I have my favorite photo...the perfect gerber baby face, plus a few tubes and medical leads. But I also have photos of him that aren't so hot. And as my jaded memory slips further away, and I realize what really happened....I see it in these pictures. The magnitude of what happened, how he was born and how lifeless he must have looked in the isolette while the doctor and nurses were working and him. And all that can change my view of what all happened. Maybe we were unrealistically hopeful, despite those words from the doctor that echoed in my brain, "babies are remarkably resilient and often times surprise us...." And he most certainly was as healthy as an ox. That's the one thing I do know.

Almost as accurate as my internal clock is this one particular wave of grief that happens about every 30 days. Hormones, maybe, psychological, maybe. But it's that huge cloud of darkness that just looms over me and I can almost feel the weight of it, physically. So that's where I'm at. Hurting. Like it was yesterday. And no, I don't think it gets easier. I think you learn how to deal with it, yes. But the pain doesn't lessen. That's why there are graves at the cemetery with fresh flowers every week for a baby that died 50 years ago. The focus of the pain shifts from different aspects of the situations that occurred. I may be consumed with a particular moment of his life, before he was born or after, what is still to come, but it all hurts the same. None of it is ever going to change. The pain is never going to go away. I am never going to be ignorant of this feeling or free from it. And that is why learning to live this way, learning to fight the battles I must fight this way, learning to go after my goals and dreams with this in my heart is making me a much stronger person. It's like fighting a battle with one arm and winning and that's what I'm going to continue to do. That's the mom Chase would be proud of.

For what he is

I had a mother of all roller coaster days today. I had lunch with some great ladies and just by chance the conversation turned to my pictures of Chase. I happened to mention as we headed out the door to our cars that the nurse who was in the operating room for my surgery had taken some pictures of Chase soon after he was born (because our camera was no where to be found) and had supposedly emailed them Patric but we had never seen them. And her phone had gotten stolen by the time I asked for them so apparently there were some phantom pictures of Chase out in cyber space that no one has ever seen that I will never get. My friend immediately speaks up and says, "I think we have them." I have been thinking/searching for these pictures since April to no avail. It's an ever longer story how she ended up with them so just know that I was hit with one of those tidal waves of grief. I was so hopeful that she might have them, but prepared that she wouldn't. I wanted to see them so badly. The earliest images of my newborn son, captured in time. Before I had even got home, she had already texted me that she sent them to my email address. I don't know why, but as I drove home, I felt like I was going to get to see my baby for the first time again. That's what it felt like. But I knew that I didn't really have him. But it was still a sense of anticipation like I was about to get something that I wanted for a real long time, but I would never get what I really wanted.

So all those emotions come back to me. How perfect he looked. How chubby his legs were. My, his nose looks big! How could he have died? He looks too healthy. How could this have happened? Anger rages within the depths of every cell in my body. Pain fills my heart, my head, my gut. He just needed his mama to hold him, it feels like. It hurts so incredibly bad. This wave is way over my head. I'd been keeping my head above the water up until this point.

I struggle with many things. As time keeps on, there's a part of him that feels like is slipping away. Because I know he is no longer a newborn; now he is 8 months old. And I don't know what that looks like on Chase. In these pictures I know he was going to have his own look. I can't imagine what he would look like at 8 months. I can only see him as he looked days old. And I feel like this is jading me. I don't know what I am supposed to think of him like? I read many different ways people imagine a lost child. And I feel that everyone has their own opinion and own belief. But the problem is, I don't know what I believe. And I feel like it is getting in the way. I can't think of my baby the way I want to because I don't have an image. Or the only image I have is frozen in time the day after he was born and is that what he is looks like in heaven? I had read in a book that he will look age appropriate and I will recognize him when I see him in heaven so that was what I was trying to do....imagine him growing up. But I can't. I don't have a picture in my head of that because I never saw it with my eyes to transfer it to my brain. I need something tangible. Or I need to freeze him in time.

Moreso, I need to think of him for what he is. Not what he is not. He is my baby boy, perfect in every way, with a head full of hair, perfect nose, chubby legs and 10 perfect fingers and toes. And he lived with us for three days. He loved us and we loved him, more than anything in this world. He knows that and so do we. He taught us things that we never knew. And we taught him what a family can be and is. That is what Chase is to me. And always will be. No more struggling to conjure up an image of what he must look like to all those who are up there in heaven with him. No more struggling to grasp how he would look as an 8-month-old baby if he were here with me. I have my photos to remember him by and that is how it will remain for me. Frozen in time.