Easton turns 3

Our fearless kind-hearted Easton Michael turned three years old. Three whole years since I birthed this baby of mine. We had a lovely low key celebration to mark the occasion.

We spent a few hours at the zoo where we all delighted in seeing the baby baboons. Easton just laughed and laughed watching them play.

We were also excited to get an up close view of the lion, who is sometimes hiding completely out of sight. The weather was beautiful, the zoo was practically empty, and we just took it easy, going at the kids' pace. 

After some outdoor play and a quick grocery trip, Easton had his requested birthday dinner of pizza and carrots. We baked a cake, had ice cream, and he enjoyed opening a couple gifts.

He has been asking for an orange garbage truck and was thrilled to receive it. So thrilled, he wanted to bring it to bed with us. After compromising, the garbage truck spent the night on the nightstand. Gabriela happily gave her brother a manicure and pedicure when he asked her too.

I cuddled up with Easton and told him about his birth, how delighted we all were, how he didn't even cry, he just stared at us so inquisitively for what felt like forever. It was a perfect celebration   

Easton loves to help me cook in the kitchen.

As long as he can sit on the counter or stand on a step stool, he is set.  He is starting to write some letters and draw people.

Just the other week, he did this fabulous completely unprompted drawing of a garbage truck with wheels, a garbage man with glasses, a key and the steering wheel, and the garbage can being lifted by "the grabber".  

Easton builds elaborate guns out of Legos every chance he gets and uses them to fight the bad guys like "Dark Vader". He is always "Wuke" and sings the " bad guy ship song" (imperial march ) constantly. Easton has a very detailed imaginary world and does lots of pretend play. He climbs onto wooden posts and rides his horses to the barn. He loves to read and usually (but not always), when it's really quiet I find him in a pile of books. Every day in bed he pretends to be some kind of creature and snuggles up to me making animal sounds and calling me one of the following: mommy caterpillar, mommy ladybug, mommy humpback whale, mommy tiger, and my personal favorite, mommy rancor monster. He loves digging in the dirt, spotting construction vehicles, and daddy's big white truck. 

Easton is really getting the hang of pumping his legs while swinging. He surprised me this week by running after and kicking a soccer ball repeatedly. He definitely has a knack for new physical activities. He is constantly jumping off things a and finding new hills to ride his bike down. 

He is starting to insist on doing things independently. like buckle his car seat, wash his hair, or put on his socks and shoes. This usually happens at inopportune times, but I try my best to give him the time to figure it out. 

I just love when Easton says, "hummy in my tummy" and "ants in my pants, maybe I do the buggy dance" and the other day, while I was rinsing a cup under the sink he informed me that we are having a drought!

He keeps the mood light hearted around here by always asking questions like,  " what would happen if Simone tried to eat my food?" He is always talking about his sister. The other day he informed us that it was actually Simone who unrolled all the toilet paper in the bathroom.  

Easton still doesn't like having his teeth brushed, or getting his hair washed by mama or daddy. He doesn't care for salad, or really just eating at meal times. 

Easton is such a love bug and expert cuddler. He knows how to cheer us all up when we need it. He is such a joy to have in our lives and we love him so dearly. Happy birthday, you sweet three year old.

Pregnancy and infant loss awareness month

I guess it is fitting to share this month that, immediately after my miscarriage in August, I got pregnant again. Instead of all the conflicting and terrifying emotions I had with my last positive test, I just felt a lot of reservation and like I will believe it when it's real. Every day I woke up thinking, "okay, I'm still pregnant" and took a deep breath. No need to get excited, I wasn't  investing emotion into this pregnancy until it felt right. It was the longest eight weeks. 

We went to a midwife to talk about her managing our care, I planned to ask her a bunch of delivery questions, but instead cried a lot and couldn't even bring myself to think or talk about delivering a new baby. 

On Friday, I noticed some tenderness on my left side that made me worry I might have an ectopic pregnancy. My dr office couldn't squeeze me in for an ultrasound, so I had to go to the ER. Only eight hours later, they confirmed that I didn't have an ectopic pregnancy, which would seem relieving. But the baby didn't measure as far along as I thought I was pregnant. They couldn't find a heartbeat either. I wasn't totally alarmed, because it was only six weeks. It could have been too early to detect.  They took my blood to measure my hormone levels and told me to come back in a few days. 

Today, I found out that the baby is still the same size, there was still no heartbeat, and instead of doubling, my hormone levels only minimally increased. 

I had my breakdown when they brought me into the lab for bloodwork and there was an infant bassinet with baby blankets like Simone was wrapped in. It wasn't even the family/neonatal area. I have no idea what that was doing there. In a blubbering mess, I told the technician she needed to remove it from the room, now. I couldn't be in there with the same infant carrier they placed Simone in when they wheeled her away, knowing we wouldn't see or hold her again. 

So now I feel like maybe this was why I wasn't putting my heart into this pregnancy. I have some decisions to make about how to proceed. I guess I never really gave much thought to how the baby gets out of your body when you miscarry. 

p.s. Universe, what did I ever do to you??

Capture your grief day 4: now

Now.

Now, the question, "how are you?" Is so complicated. How can I ever be okay, fine, or even good?

Now, I have so much anxiety being around people who don't know about Simone. I nervously await the "how many kids do you have?" question with no idea how I will answer. 

Now, I have a really hard time being around my nephew, born 3 days after Simone. I have a niece who was born a couple months after Simone. I am still not ready to be around a baby girl. 

Now, I worry so much. If Lane comes home late from work, I wonder if something terrible has happened to him. 

Now, I don't have the energy to engage in small talk. I feel like I am expected to be "better" or that some people have forgotten. 

Now, I try to appreciate my family that much more. I try to be extra patient and kind with my living children, but I sometimes fail miserably. 

Now, I understand how complicated grief really is. 

Capture your grief day 3: before

 

Before Simone was born, we were all so happy and eagerly awaiting her arrival. I thought we were anxious then, but really it was just excitement. 

I was never worried for a moment. Not about my labor, not about our planned Homebirth, or how we would adjust to life as a family of five. I just figured everything would organically come together. 

I never thought for a moment that we might not bring our baby home, that she would die. Because who does that happen to, anyway??? Nobody, well certainly not me or my precious family. 

So here we are before. Happy, carefree, excited at our midwife's office. When my kids checked for their baby sister's heartbeat, never considering that it might not be there. Before I had to explain to my five year old why we didn't get to bring her baby sister home. Before we all lost our innocence and learned that truly terrible things happen, that what was supposed to be one of the happiest days of our lives turned out, in fact, to be the very worst. 

Capture your grief: day 2 Heart

October is Pregnancy and Infant Loss month. I decided to do my best to participate in a grieving project this month. 

Today's subject is the heart, my stillborn baby Simone in my heart. She had a face just like Easton's, and hair just like Gabriela's. She was, by far, my largest baby born at 9lbs, 14oz. And she lost a lot of blood and didn't nurse at all. Had she been born alive, she easily would have weighed in at over 10 lbs. 

I always imagined her having dimples like her brother and sister and perfect  ringlets like Gabriela. She was going to be the easiest, happiest baby as the third child is usually destined to become. I pictured her constantly in a baby carrier of one kind or another at park day, while I prepared meals, during homeschool lessons. Her brother and sister were going to dote over her constantly, treating her like their own living baby doll. 

I remember feeling her move like crazy that Friday afternoon before she was born. I knew she was coming, but never in my worst nightmares could I have ever imagined that her heart would stop beating as my labor started. My beautiful, healthy, perfect baby died inside of my body, before I could birth her, before  I had a chance to look into her eyes, before she ever met her proud and excited big brother and sister or felt the safety of her daddy's arms.

My heart has most certainly been shattered. I scramble to find all the pieces and figure out how they all fit back together. But the truth is, they will never fit back like before, I am a different person than I was before Simone died. I will never be the same, and always a little broken. 

Capture Your Grief Days 6 & 8: Books and Resources

I will come back to this and add links soon. 



Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep Photography: I wish I had known about this right away, but basically a participating photographer comes to the hospital and takes photos of your family with the baby. We have just a handful of cell phone photos of Simone. In our rush to the hospital, we didn't bring a camera and our cell phones both were running out of battery. Having professional photos to capture our few hours together would have been priceless. 

Handprint Set: I will be forever grateful that Lane asked his parents to pick up a molding set so we could have Simone's hand and footprints. It is the most tangible proof of her existence we have. It's not the same as photos or ashes. And there are so few things that you get to keep of your baby's when they die at birth. We will treasure them always  

A Heart to Hold: this organization makes fabric hearts and fills them to your baby's weight so that the mama (and other family members) don't feel that emptiness as acutely. And each one is given in remembrance of another baby who died. I didn't know about this helpful resource back in April, and it would have been so healing in the immediate aftermath of Simone's death. My sister emailed the founder, who as it turns out , had a very similar experience too mine. Even though she typically does orders within the first 30 days, and she wasn't even accepting any orders at the time due to extreme demand, she quickly had a heart sent to our family. Nearly six months later, it is still healing. Easton immediately held it in his lap, Gabriela talks to it, and we all find comfort in cuddling with it. I can imagine how much more healing this might be, if sent right away. 

Something Happened: a beautifully illustrated, simply written story of a family whose baby died. The story was so similar to ours, down to the planting of a tree and garden. The story addresses emotions of everyone in the family in a truly beautiful way. Gabriela really enjoyed reading this book. I think it gave her a lot of comfort. 

Why Did You Die: this is a book full of activities to help a child process the death of a loved one. Some activities are designed to help kids learn certain concepts about death -every living thing dies, nothing you say or think can cause someone to die. The activities include things like writing a letter to the person who died, sharing a memory, drawing pictures of yourself and all the different feelings you have had surrounding the death. There are questions after each activity as well. I gave found these helpful, not only for Gabriela but for myself as well. 

SAND (Support After Neonatal Death): our SAND group has been such a helpful resource. We are still regularly attending meetings. Parents and even grandparents have come to different meetings for many different stages of loss: early miscarriage, pregnancy termination, pre-term labor babies, full term stillborn babies, babies who died shortly after birth, and even toddlers. It is no small task to hear everyone's story and to feel their grief. But these people truly understand what we are experiencing - the pain, the struggles, the awkwardness, all of it. 

Still Standing Magazine: this is an online magazine that has regular stories of loss and how people have managed through their grief. There are so many topics: pregnancy after loss, parenting through grief, siblings grief, self-care, grandparents, new normal, and more. These stories are written by people who know. Many of them are further along in the healing process. It's such a comfort and makes this journey less isolating. 

Carly Marie Project Heal: I have kind of fallen off my project heal wagon because I've been trying to manage my (still) impending miscarriage. But this is such a beautiful way to allow yourself to feel your grief, to record your journey, and connect with others on a similar path. I am going to try to do some catch up.  

October Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month: who even knew there was such a month. This is the Project Heal month. Some places have Walks to Remember, and October 15th is Wave of Light, where people in all different time zones light a candle at 7pm for and hour to honor babies and children who have died, creating a wave of light across the world. 

Sunflowers

Shortly after Simone was born, some dear friends of ours brought us five sunflower seedlings, one for each member of our family. We cared for them all, exactly the same. And the fifth sunflower, Simone's, died immediately. I don't think it lasted two days after transplanting it into the ground. 

While they were still just leafy stalks, Gabriela claimed a particular sunflower as her own and said it would be hers and Simone's. 

A month or so later, the sunflowers were five feet tall, and had beautiful giant flowers on them. Gabriela's though had something special. Her sunflower actually had two blossoms. One normal sized one and a tiny delicate second flower bloomed on that same plant. I didn't know it was possible. It only happened on this one sunflower in particular, the one G had claimed as hers and her sister's. 

We harvested the seeds and are saving some for next year so we can grow some again and be reminded of this extra beauty in nature.