Why Does Christmas Always Hurt So Bad?

Christmas has hurt worse than ever these last few years, ever since we lost Eli.  I've put extra thought into why this year and come up with a few possibilities.  One is the difference between the boys' pregnancy timelines.  When I was pregnant with Wyatt we spent a blissful, ignorant and happy Christmas season.  We received his Potter's diagnosis less than a month after Christmas.  Eli was diagnosed just before Thanksgiving and so I spent one of my saddest Christmases ever.  Surrounded by my entire family, pregnant and suffering in silence.  Very very few times was my pregnancy even acknowledged.  It was so sad.  I wonder if I'm haunted by that pregnancy.  If it has somehow carried a shadow through each year.  Same house, same decorations, same family members, etc.  When I was pregnant with Wyatt we lived in an apartment and I never spent another Christmas in that place.

The second possibility has religious roots.  I'm Catholic and so Advent is our time of preparation for the tiny Savior's arrival.  I find it hard to prepare myself in any way for the birth of a boy.  It has too many parallels for me.  I wonder if anyone who has lost girls struggles with those same thoughts at Christmas or if gender really does have a part in this.  I also remember my preparations for Eli's birth which was less than three months after Christmas.  It's just too painful.

I wrote a few years back that our family was able to escape and that was a wonderful Christmas filled with less sadness.  I don't know if it was because of the exciting things we were able to experience with our girls for the first time or the change of scenery or a combination of both, all I know is it was different.  This year is not.  I drug my feet in every way possible when it came to holiday preparations.  The only thing that really keeps me going is my children counting on me to hold fast to our own traditions.  Others that are not as important I am letting go.  Something has to give.

Imaginary Friend or Something Else?

Our youngest daughter, born a year and a little over a month after Eli has begun to talk about Eli.  In fact, she's quite fixated on him in a way.  So much so that I made her a little photo album of him which she cherishes.  But it's more than that.  She talks about Eli a lot.  When he was a baby and how she held him.  She talks about little fights they've had while playing or what kind of things they've been playing together.  He talks to her and she will tell me what he says.  It's always her voice that comes through but nonetheless it makes me wonder.  Does she have a connection to Eli?  Is this an imaginary friend?

It is bittersweet to hear his name so often.  I love to hear it and it is nice to think that he may be nearby, visiting every now and then, taking care of the little sister he never knew.  I don't know.

This year Dia de los Muertos really spoke to me.  I dug into it a little deeper and found out that November 1st is often considered the Day of the Innocents and it is on that day that spirits of children and babies visit their loved ones.  I baked my little ones the Pan de Muertos and miraculously we still have marigolds in our yard so I hope that yesterday at some point the breath of the wind may have been sweet little kisses blowing in the breeze.  Maybe just maybe they were drawn to us for that one day because lately I have been missing them both so much.

Holidaze & The Christmas Box

It's that time of year again.  Really, it's always "that time of year".  Either I'm anticipating one of the boys' birthdays, just celebrated one of their birthdays or I'm facing another holiday season without watching them search for their Easter baskets, carrying their Halloween bags stuffed with candy bars, setting them a place at our Thanksgiving table or ignoring the two empty stockings on Christmas morning.  That's life after loss, right?

This particular time of year is especially hard for me, even though it's been 11 years since Wyatt was born and 3 since Eli was born.  It's still hard and I know it will always be.  There's just something about Christmas for me.

A few years back I wrote this post about what our family does to celebrate and remember our boys each year.  Not much has changed.  We still try to find a local group where we can choose a child that would be each boys' age to buy a gift for and we still try to donate toys when possible as well.  Even in the deepest snows we trek out to their grave site to clear the snow and stand by their Christmas tree for a moment.

Each year on December 6th at 7pm, our family attends a Candle Lit Remembrance Service where we hang ornaments with our sons' names on them on a special Christmas tree alongside many other little ones' ornaments who are no longer with their families.  It is a special time for us to focus just on our boys in the busyness of the holiday season.  We also have an Angel of Hope statue which is derived from the Richard Paul Evan's story "The Christmas Box".  You can read more about the angel and the story here.

Whatever you do this season and wherever you are in your grief, I encourage you to listen to your heart.  If you need a break, take one.  If you need to say no, do it.  The holidays are stressful and busy enough without the added burden of grief and longing.  We find that at Christmastime more than ever we just need time by ourselves.  Create traditions that honor your family and your memories.  It's okay to break old ones and start new ones.  In my opinion, a tradition is only as good as it makes you feel.  If it doesn't make you feel good and able to share warmth and happiness with your family, then what is your family going to remember by honoring that tradition?

My husband and I have made some significant changes to how we celebrate Christmas with our children.  Over the years, how we view Christmas has changed.  What we see and feel has changed and how we celebrate has needed to change as well.  Our families may not understand, but it has been important for us to hold true to ourselves and it is an ongoing process each year.  The year I was pregnant with Eli we found out about his Potter's not too long before Christmas and I spent many an evening sitting in the dark of our living room with only the light of our twinkling Christmas tree rubbing my belly and sorting through the depths of my emotions.  Years later staring at that same tree in the dark as it twinkles the same way it did then is oddly comforting.

May you find something comforting this holiday season and hold fast to it.  Blessings.

I Couldn't Outrun the Holiday Blues

We just returned from our first big family vacation - EVER.  The most we've ever done is visit family.  This year we took our own family to visit magical places.  The whole process was time consuming.  Packing for four kids, one still in diapers, and myself for two different locales with specific clothing and footwear needs was tricky.  Plus, we spent two whole days getting to and from our destination which is also tricky with four young children, one still in diapers.

So where did we go?  Disney World Magic Kingdom, the beach and Sea World.  It was an amazing vacation filled with unforgettable memories and, at times, overwhelming sadness.  My boys were never far from memory.  Our vacation timing, right over Christmas, was not a coincidence.  Christmas has always been special to my husband and I since we married just before Christmas twelve years ago.  We spent part of our honeymoon at Disney World and the beach.  I have long wanted to share that trip with my children.  

But there was a hidden agenda to the trip and the timing.  Part of it was the above and part was just escaping what has some years become sheer madness at the holidays with family, presents, lists, cooking, etc.  I needed a year off, some breathing space.  Some space to grieve too.  One of our favorite things to do at Christmastime is to visit our sons' graves on Christmas Eve to deliver their presents and see their sweet little Christmas tree lit up in the snow.  With all of the other goings on the time left for that special trip has become less and less and things just weren't on the right track.  

So we packed up and went to Florida, just us and our four little ones.  I bought Wyatt and Eli Mickey Mouse ears with their names embroidered on the back and barely managed to avoid the awkward conversation about who Wyatt & Eli were with the store clerk.  I have a pair of ears myself from my first trip to Disneyland and a Minnie pair from my first trip to Disney World and we purchased each of the girls their own so it was very important for me to get the boys their ears since this would have been their first trip too.  I wrote their names in the sand at the beach and at Sea World we got them a Shamu and dolphin for their graves this Christmas.  

Those aren't the moments that got me though.  Grief was complicated.  I almost lost it on the airplane with my extremely fussy 20 month old exhausted and sleeping on my lap.  When Cinderella's castle was lit with hundreds and maybe thousands of Christmas lights so it sparkled from bottom to top my eyes sparkled too.  

I learned yet another lesson.  It doesn't matter where I am, how happy or distracted, how sad or uncomfortable, how busy or how stressed, the holidays will always have the same effect on me and my boys will always be extra close to my heart in those days.  

Santa, you can commit this wish to memory because it will NEVER change:  all I want for Christmas is my whole family to be together.  My second oldest told me out of the blue that she wished Santa would bring something for Wyatt and Eli.  She remembered this wish when we arrived home late Christmas evening and she looked at the two empty stockings.  If only.

Lenten Observance

Tomorrow is Ash Wednesday or the beginning of the Lenten period in the Catholic Church.  Yesterday marks the one month countdown to Eli's second birthday.  Sunday was weekly mass.  Sunday I found myself thinking about one month from yesterday (Eli's birthday) and how appropriate it is to me that his birthday falls during Lent.  Lent to me is a heavy time.  For me, it is a time to prepare for Jesus' death and as a mother who has experienced two of her own sons' deaths I can really relate to the time and to Mary's loss as Jesus' mother.  Now, more than ever, I feel that heaviness in my heart and my bones.  And apparently I will for at least the next five years.  You see, I looked at the calendars through 2018 and Eli's birthday during each of those years, and likely for all of the following years, will always fall during Lent.

Giving up chocolate or other sweets, even television, seems so silly in light of what I gave up just two years ago.  Lent has now become an acute observance of mourning for me and there is no earthly deprivation that could hold a candle to the deprivation of my sons that I live with every day.  I would live that one day of Eli's life just one day every year if I could.

Christmas Future

Here we are into the new year, another Christmas gone.  My ninth Christmas spent missing my firstborn and only my second missing my fifthborn (if that's a word).  My emotions got the best of me this Christmas, and not in a good way.  Six stockings and four children really hit me hard.  My daughters perfectly innocent but searing questions as to why Santa didn't leave their brothers anything and how I knew their stockings were empty just killed my inside.  I left the room with a trail of tears.  We did everything like normal.  The usual hustle and bustle, the usual family busyness and the usual stress that goes along with a lot of family visiting for a short time.  We still got the boys gifts for their graves which we lovingly placed at the sites on Christmas Eve.  But it wasn't enough.  It wasn't right.  For me.

Next year will be different.  If I get my one wish we will find ourselves at the happiest place on earth and I will leave with some of the best memories ever.

But there will always be the year after and it is for those that I am seeking change.  The traditions that have been in place and that I find myself and my families clinging to desperately have to give some or give way to new traditions.  Traditions are traditions for a reason, I know.  They stand the test of time.  But I need to be able to stand through them and this year they frankly brought me to my knees.

For those of you newer to the grief that accompanies the loss of a child and specifically the shooting range full of triggers that accompanies holidays such as Christmas, I am officially nine years from my first loss and I can honestly say that ever single year since his loss I have experienced an unnamed sadness this time of year.  I have found it hard to smile, found it hard to find the joy in the season at times (not always) and found it so much different than the Christmas I remembered.  I thought hard about it this year since somehow as I find the years passing I find myself less internally flexible.  I am less willing to give myself license and space to grieve.  Another words, I am my own worst enemy.  I am telling myself its not okay to grieve, or at least grieve so much, at Christmas anymore.  That's not okay.  I have given myself permission and now taken it one step farther.

I am changing Christmas.  I am willing to create new traditions that will work for me.  Ones that respect my sadness and will hopefully help me through it much better.  I've come to the conclusion that it's just not worth it for me to continue putting on a smile just to make others happy when I am anything but happy inside.  It's not all about me and I am going to find a way to gently incorporate as much tradition into my new traditions along with a healthy infusion of honesty and let the chips fall where they may.  A few words to the big guy and the two little boys he's keeping for me can't hurt either.

My Christmas Family

So I've been feeling this sadness settling in like it does each year right around this time since our first Christmas without Wyatt in 2003.  My mood and temperament noticeably dip so I found myself trying to explain it to my husband last night.  It took alot of nonsensical descriptions before these words came out.

Christmas makes me sad because it's about family and that only reminds me of how incomplete my family is and will always be.  It is the one time of year when my family never seems so incomplete.    I can't say it any better than that.  The boys' birthdays come and go and those days are about them individually and how much I miss each of them.  But Christmas.  Christmas is the time when their presence in our family is so obviously missing to me.  Everyone else in our family (parents and siblings) have all of their children.  I am missing two and I just don't know how not to miss them.  The heart of Christmas, truly the meaning of Christmas is family.  Christmas is the celebration of Christ's birth and the creation of the Holy Family.  It is also the creation of God's own family as he welcomed his only son into this world.  So, you see, any which way you look at it, it's family.  The one thing I value above all else.  My blessed and blessedly incomplete family.

He tried but had no answers.  There are none that I have found over the last ten years since Wyatt's birth.  I don't know that Christmas will ever be the same for me.  It is a very conscious effort to recognize and appreciate the joy that is going on all around me each and every holiday season.  Today I find myself in need of a silent night to spend in quiet reflection and sorrow to make more room for joy from the world tomorrow.

Up on the Rooftop

Since my post on remembrance I am just bursting at the seams wanting to shout from the rooftop "Remember, remember! My sons are gone".  While all of you (family) are making your holiday preparations all I can think about is the empty chair and high chair at my table.  The unwrapped presents under my tree.  The candles in my window.  Blinking away tears.  Gifts are unimportant, dinner is unnecessary.  What is important:  buying something small for their graves, making sure their Christmas tree lights are lit up at night, getting to and from the wintry cemetery, honoring their memory through a gift of charity, hearing their names.
So I'm up on the rooftop waiting for Santa to deliver me the one miracle that even Santa doesn't have in his bag.

Reminder vs. Remembrance

Holidays are a time of celebration.  For those who have lost loved ones they can also serve as times of remembrance and sorrow.    When that loved one has sat at the dinner table holidays past, even just one time, there may smiles and stories to tell.  In my case, neither one of my sons has experienced a holiday.  I have never purchased a little suit or even a vest, never used a dab of gel to smooth an errant cowlick and never gazed across the table into the eyes of my sons.  My grandmother died just a little over a month after Wyatt died and every holiday celebrated at my grandfather's since her chair sits painfully empty, a reminder of her absence - and of her presence for so many years.

I don't have that reminder.  There is no physical evidence aside from the photographs hanging on my living room wall that my sons entered into this family.  We don't keep their things out in the open, they are too precious, too cherished and sometimes just too sad to see all that often.  

So I sit in silence during these holidays, smiling and enjoying the celebrations while silently aching for two little boys who will never come home.  I remember my sons instead of trying to find a way to remind others that they are gone.  I don't think any forced reminders of their absence would make me feel better anyway.  I am too scared to know why others don't acknowledge it and any words uttered in response just wouldn't seem genuine. I liken it to the kind of apology a child gives when her parent insists.  There is nothing that compares to someone's own remembrance of my children.  

I choose remembrance rather than reminders.  In my own way and on my own terms and I've learned not to seek validation in the words and actions of others.  I own this.

Overdoing Valentine's Day

I love love.  Cupid's holiday is close to my heart but Valentine's Day 2011 cupid's arrow could not have been farther from his mark.  My heart was cracked and on the verge of  breaking as my remaining time with Eli inside ticked down to a precious four weeks.  November 2010 to March 2011 was subdued.  It was days and hours that stretched for miles and miles of the flattest most subdued highways possible.  They passed  with little fanfare despite holidays, birthdays and milestones.  We made our way down that road intact and for that we celebrated in the end.

Valentine's Day 2012 was quite the opposite.  There were valentines, crocheted hearts embroidered with our daughters' initials, chocolate hearts, raspberry chocolate filled pastry hearts, homemade heart shaped whole wheat english muffins which made for delicious ham, cheese and egg sandwiches, homemade chocolate covered cherries, heart shaped greek chicken and cheese pizzas all capped off with heart shaped molten lava cakes.  I really outdid myself this year, at 7 1/2 months pregnant nonetheless.  I poured my heart almost literally into everything I baked, kneaded and dipped.  Sometimes happiness is homemade.  I commented last year that it didn't matter what I cooked or baked, I just couldn't find any happiness in the food.  Some time in the last eleven months happiness has returned and it has never tasted so good.

Since When?

While watching television the other night I noticed a commercial that was advertising a special MLK sale.

Since when did a day of celebration in honor of a great man with great ideas that changed the face of our nation become a sale-able event? A day off school, sure, because every year our daughters bring home projects and little books that they have done to learn about the accomplishments and dreams of Martin Luther King, Jr. A day off work, okay, assuming that all of us understand it is not just a day off work, it is an opportunity to reflect on the words which still ring true today and an opportunity to perform a day of service for others. But a sale, really? You can't sell Martin Luther King, Jr. His words are priceless, his dreams should be ours and his legacy is timeless.

I am deeply offended by this practice. Call your sale ANYTHING ELSE. Please.

To use Dr. King's inspiring words,

"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter."

Out With the Old, In With the ?

Happy (almost) New Year's to all. I care not to reflect too much on the past 364 days so instead I am keeping my eyes towards the new year, one day at a time. Each day is a new opportunity. An opportunity to mend bridges, an opportunity to say "I'm sorry", an opportunity to do better than the day before, an opportunity to smile.

I don't know what the new year has in store for our family and that is what will make it worthwhile. Living each day without knowing, being able to make it into something memorable and if it's not, letting it exist in the past and moving on to tomorrow. I no longer make resolutions that involve my exterior. There is nothing I can promise to do or change that will be more effective than examination of my own heart. When my heart is okay everything else falls into place. That's the funny thing I think, we all know the right things to do but too often we do the wrong things for the worst of reasons. There is no diet alone that can truly fix a weight problem, no desk ornament that can fix dissatisfaction with an occupation, no expensive token that can fix a crumbling relationship. So my everyday resolution is to open my heart to my mistakes and allow myself to learn from them and to open my heart to the possibilities that occur in life and not just the ones I try to create.

Of course the new year will bring new things for our family, this time in the form of a baby girl. My fourth daughter and anticipated last child after burying two sons. This carries with it a lot of heavy emotions, which as we enter the new year I will share.

Until then I wish everyone can step into the new year and feel the empowerment of newness and the promise of change.

Someone Has a Sense of Humor

That someone is not me. I mentioned in my last post about being sick for the holidays, for the third year in a row. The sense of humor comes in the sense that our two oldest daughters seem to have stomach upset episodes that last up to 6 hours but only happen every 2 or 3 days!?! I took it particularly hard beginning Christmas Day evening and was up almost all night long at least once and hour that night and the next, which takes a huge toll on one's body and an even huger toll on a pregnant body. Amazingly I managed to stay well hydrated and on the plus side I avoided any holiday weight gain!

So we have spent our Christmas vacation so far with one kid after another just exploding in one way or another completely out of the blue. She will be fine for days and then have a few horrible hours and then be fine again for days...ridiculously frustrating and flat out no fun. Three years in a row. Thankfully the only one of us sick on Christmas was myself so I did get to see three smiling faces this year but that was a very very brief respite.

Ever optimistic, I am now holding out hope that we will be all be well entering into the new year. When we can finally enter the year 2011 into our family annals. It will be a year that in the future will be marred by one very sad statistic, Eli's birth and death. But a year for me that carries so many more memories that this latest round of sickness and stress has brought to mind - our oldest's fever spasming body sprawled on our couch less than two weeks after losing Eli only to find out that she had another fairly uncommon urinary tract infection which raised memories years passed of unpleasant testing which we had to repeat to make sure that her VUR (urinary reflux condition) had not resurfaced. Of course, when we finally cleared that hurdle months later I began the very emotionally painful and exhaustive process of entering our family and Eli into the Potter's Syndrome genetic study. Months later I was able to finally pack away that paperwork and we embarked on the absolutely terrifying journey of pregnancy after two Potter's babies.

I don't know what 2012 has in store for our family but I do know that whatever it is we most likely can weather it, I am just hoping for calm seas and happy sailing this year to help put the memories of storm tossed waters behind us.

Ho Ho Ho-

ho-rrible! That pretty much explains the last few days in the fewest letters possible. It seems to have become a family tradition that our children get sick the week before and leading up to Christmas. I have been coming down with a chest cold but Wednesday it hit me full on like a flu-filled mack truck. Eating was an exercise in patience, restraint and extreme fortitude and was only done for the benefit of the little one baking within. That night our oldest threw up a good portion of the night and she spent her day home with myself and the little one yesterday watching tv all day while I literally slept beside them on the couch because I was too ill/exhausted to do anything else. I feel somewhat better today and the oldest appears completely recovered but now the middle one has picked up where she left off. Seriously.

Last year it was the adenovirus which took out our oldest for an entire week of school (highly contagious virus) and then our middle daughter had pneumonia at the same time and our youngest one had a milder version of some sickness as well (oh, and I was sick too and then my husband got sick on Christmas Eve). The year before our oldest was out from school with pink eye which she so graciously shared with almost the whole family (thank goodness we broke her of the eye rubbing habit!).

Ho Ho Ho-pefully we can kick this apparently fairly short-lived bug out to the curb before tomorrow so we can enjoy an illness free holidays. The emotional strain of sick kids only magnifies the emotional strain of missing kids at this time of year. At least we are ho ho ho-me for the holidays!

I Finished the Stocking!

With time to spare so without further adieu, here is Eli's finished stocking, hung proudly by his four older siblings' stockings.

These stockings take a lot of work, time, focus and love but the feeling of accomplishment after getting to hang one up is like no other. I am so happy that Eli's is done in time for Christmas Eve. Having it hanging with the rest brings something extra special to these holidays for our family.

12 Days of Christmas With You in Heaven

Over the last eight years, our family has begun many Christmas traditions to honor our son Wyatt, which we will continue this year with the addition of our son, Eli. The first Christmas after Wyatt's passing we ordered special Winnie the Pooh ornaments through Lenox which bear Wyatt's name and his birth year.

We purchased one for ourselves and one for each family within our immediate family to hang on their Christmas trees in his remembrance each holiday season. (Eli's ornaments have been ordered for this Christmas.) Some families even display theirs year round. The ornaments serve a dual purpose, to remind our families of our missing sons and to remind them of our ongoing grief which is especially poignant during the holiday season. For the years of 2003 and 2011 they also served and will serve as holiday gifts to the families because of the cost involved.

Our second or third Christmas after Wyatt's birth brought healing and crafts. This time we poured our hearts into a very special memorial, a homemade stocking. We purchased a Bucilla felt stocking kit. My husband and I cut, embroidered, stuffed and sequined each tiny detail into this beautiful stocking (every single piece of felt is hand cut and embroidered onto the stocking from the tallest tree to the tiniest paw). No sewing skills are necessary prior to beginning this project but it is quite time intensive and there is a slight learning curve if you are not familiar with embroidery. I figure if my husband can do it, anyone can.

We purchased and began Eli's stocking last year while I was pregnant with him but before his Potter's Syndrome diagnosis. After the diagnosis, it was packed away. Here is a picture of the progress we made.

I hope to finish Eli's stocking before this Christmas Eve and have it look like this with Eli's name embroidered on the banner instead of "Santa's Sweets". All our children's stockings are hung proudly in our living room each holiday season though sadly two will always remain empty.

Every year since Wyatt's birth we have participated in a giving program such as the Salvation Army's Angel Tree and chosen an anonymous boy about Wyatt's age to purchase and donate a gift for. This year we will do the same for Eli too. We would have spent much more money and time on Christmas for Wyatt and Eli if they were here so it feels good to honor that and them by donating something for another child their age. It also serves as an annual reminder of how much they would have grown and what we have missed. It is a gift of heart and a time of reflection.

We also purchase the boys small gifts to leave at the grave for Christmas and place a small decorated Christmas tree at the gravesite. When we began doing this we would carefully wrap a string of battery powered Christmas lights in plastic and take them out to the cemetery Christmas Eve. Last year however, dawned a new age of Christmas lights for us with an LED battery powered set. We found the set still fully lit days after Christmas so this year our boys will have a lighted tree for much longer!

These holiday ideas are inspired by our sons, Wyatt and Eli, imperfectly formed and lost due to Potter's Syndrome but perfectly loved and remembered by our family which includes three beautiful rainbow girls born in between. My blog is the story I began writing while carrying Eli to term which details my Potter's Syndrome journey beginning with Wyatt and our life beyond.

Twinkling

Christmas has long been a special time for me. My husband and I married just days before Christmas almost ten years ago. We spent our first Christmas together and my first Christmas apart from my own family as newlyweds collecting seashells on a southern Florida beach which was followed by a trip to one of the most magical places on earth, Disneyworld.

We celebrated our first pregnancy the next Christmas and transported our first, and only Christmas tree, a seven foot tall artificial across town in my Geo Prism with its doors bungee corded shut. That year I was humorously deluded into believing I could not only have a Martha Stewartish tree, but that I even wanted one.

Our second Christmas was celebrated in our new house but was overwhelmingly tinged with sadness. I was about three months pregnant with our first rainbow but only six months out from Wyatt's birth and death. As if that wasn't enough, in the midst of our grief, we sought comfort in the form of a puppy. The most adorable black and brown miniature daschund who apparently was very familiar with the novel Strange Case of Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde. We intended to purchase Dr. Jeckyll but unknowingly took home Mr. Hyde. It was not a good fit and after about five months we came to the difficult conclusion that our puppy would be much happier with a different family. That decision was reached just before Christmas and by Christmas she was gone. As if that wasn't enough, my sister was coming for Christmas with her one month old baby boy. That was almost too much for me. Her pregnancy was unplanned and she was extremely immature and unprepared to have a baby. I was jealous and heartbroken at the same time. Many weeks of sad anticipation of that visit passed. I didn't know at that time what I was capable of. When at last Christmas came, I not only went to see him, but I held him and snuggled him and like the Grinch, my heart grew two sizes that day.

Fast forward to last Christmas. I spent many hours sitting alone in our living room gazing upon the most beautiful Christmas tree I know, my own. Over the years, just like me, that tree has changed. It began with ribbons and glass bulbs which when children finally entered our home changed into plastic and cloth. It is a red, green and white confection of gingerbread men and women, Santas, snowmen and angels topped with a golden star. The frosting are my twinkling white lights (which thanks to an hour long shopping mission across town are now LED). The twinkling white lights are my constant and truly one of my favorite things. So last year I sat, unable to sleep, consumed with grief for the child I carried within who would not be here to see those twinkling lights for the first time this year. Even those beautiful twinkling lights did not brighten my dark days and nights.

Which brings me to this Christmas. Those twinkling lights are here again, steadier than the stars, which often disappear behind wispy clouds. They are more beautiful to me this year but I still long to see them reflected in the eyes of one who hasn't seen them before.

Giving Thanks

The first thing that came to mind on the topic of giving thanks is being thankful that I lived through the last year. Last year Thanksgiving was very different from this year. Just weeks before Thanksgiving last year we received Eli's Potter's Syndrome diagnosis. Though my mind rattled off one thing after another that I had to be thankful for my heart always quickly chimed in the one I would not be giving thanks for, the baby in my womb. Instead of giving thanks for a healthy baby and adding another member to our family I would be again preparing to give birth to, say goodbye to and bury another child. I cooked and baked but all of my dishes were missing the most important ingredient, love. My heart just wasn't in it. But I was determined to have "the show go on" for the sake of our three beautiful girls. I figured the disappointment of hearing that the baby brother or sister they had been so excitedly expecting would die was enough and that we needed to maintain some normalcy in the midst of our grief.

This year first and foremost, I am thankful that last year is behind me and that we all came through mostly intact. I am thankful for sunrises like this morning's.

I am thankful for my husband and our daughters who have distracted, frustrated, supported, loved and encouraged me over the last year as I fought many demons to bring our sweet Eli into this world and then as gracefully as possible send him to the one beyond and find a way to live afterwards. I am thankful to have again be blessed enough to have found a wonderfully supportive community of people who understand such profound loss and who are willing to share their words and love even in the midst of indescribable pain. I am thankful for the very brief but timeless moments in which our entire family gathered to celebrate our precious Eli and I am appreciative of the sacrifices that were made to make that happen.

This year I am also thankful for this

little turkey in my stomach. I am currently about 17 1/2 weeks and just a few weeks ago we saw a wonderfully normal amount of amniotic fluid, a baby that measured a week ahead and what appeared to be tiny kidneys, bladder and stomach. It has taken this long for me to accept that she is whole and that I am not reliving my worst nightmare for a third time. I am so thankful that I have been able to tell my daughters that we expect to bring a baby sister home to them at the end of April and to see all of the wonderful drawings and writings they have done because they are so excited. I am thankful that my husband just this week got to feel her move already since he was so excited and rarely ever got to feel little Eli move. I am thankful that this year I feel like cooking and I know that a little love will go into every bite of our food tomorrow, I missed it so last year.

I am thankful and hopeful and cautious but mostly thankful.

Would It Have Fit?

Today, Halloween, I find myself thinking about a perfectly puffy pumpkin costume packed away downstairs. It has not been worn for many years. Size 3-6 months. Eli would be almost eight months today. His younger sister was also born in March yet was small enough to wear it for her first Halloween. Eli was small too, so I wonder if it would have fit him as well? Last year Halloween was still happy. It was before Eli's diagnosis, before months and months of heavy gray clouds settled in above our house and stole our smiles, laughter and dreams. Last year we believed that this Halloween we would be dressing four kids for trick-or-treating. That costume never even got to leave the basement. It knew better and shortly thereafter I did too. Now, it all sits downstairs mocking me, waiting to see if it will ever be unpacked in this house again. Waiting.

It Came, I Saw, I Cried

Mother's Day. I am thankful it is over. It was such a difficult day, the most difficult by far. When I carried Wyatt through that very first Mother's Day it was just my husband and I. We were able to have a quite, gentle day. The year after when pregnant with our daughter it was a sad day but it was lined with hope and again it was just us. This year was so . . . different.

I could not have prepared for the range of emotions I experienced yesterday. I woke up to the beautiful voice of our almost seven year old who promptly dropped her Mother's Day packet (which she made at school) onto my chest and hopped out of the room. Our other daughters soon followed. It was the most delightful way to wake up. After my husband made breakfast I began to get ready for church. I began to cry, not just tears rolling down my face but full out sobbing. Of course this was after I applied my mascara and just before we needed to leave for church. It was then that I knew I was not going to make it to church, the tears would not stop.

I cried the entire way to the cemetery. We spent about an hour there. My daughters picked dandelion bouquets and I dug and pulled grass from the rock area around Wyatt's grave marker. My work kept the tears at bay. I felt almost as though a thick fog had entered my body. I easily became disoriented and forgot entirely what I was doing. Thankfully our daughters busied themselves by playing in the backyard most of yesterday. It was so unusual. Usually we go to the zoo because mothers get in free and get to ride the train for free. We usually go out to eat with my husband's parents and top it off with a good helping of a very unhealthy dessert.

Not yesterday. I couldn't go out in public. I was paralyzed by what I would see. Which in my mind would be primarily babies and pregnant women. How could it not be? I biked our two youngest to the park last Friday and it ended up being us and a woman with four boys under the age of 5, the youngest of which were twins probably less than 18 months old though I can't say for sure because I couldn't bring myself to look.

It was such a fine line letting my daughters celebrate me while I celebrated the sons I can mother no more. I am glad to get past another first in a year of so many, one that I will never occur again.