the day i met my son

I love this picture.  I love that I am smiling in awe of the beauty of my son.  It helps me remember that through all of the heartache, July 2, 2009 is also the day I met my son.  The day that I held him, kissed him, rocked him, and was simply with him. 

surface

Some days are just hard.  I love reading blogs of other mothers who understand.  Understand that there is no getting over such an experience.  I often wonder if others, who have not experienced this pain, wonder when I will be able to move on.  Stop dwelling on what happened and refocus.  I don't know when that time will come, but it sure hasn't come yet.   The other night as I layed in bed one small tear rolled down my cheek.  I didn't even know it was there, right on the surface.  I feel like that's my life these days.  At any minute I could let the tears flow.  They are so close to the surface.  But I try not to during the day.  I try to stay busy.  Until I go to bed.  That's when I lay and think about Andrew the most.  I think about Andrew and how how different my life should be these days.  I really really miss my little guy.

random thought

I wonder if people would think of my situation differently if Andrew had lived or a minute, an hour, or a day. Where is that line that makes a different…between losing your baby before birth or shortly after birth? To me, it doesn’t exist. To others, I’m sure it does and I’m curious where. I was reading about a mother whose son lived for 3 minutes. That included a heartbeat and breathing. Yet her son is considered a stillborn by her State. In other words, her son was not issued a birth certificate. I suppose if your child lives for a few minutes, then you don’t experience the scary silence in the room and go through the experience…of which there are no words to describe…of delivering your baby who has already passed away. The limp body, the mouth open, the red lips, and more than anything, the silence. But if your baby does live, you may experience such an extreme opposite. Franticness, nurses, Drs, machines, wires. Such different arrivals, yet in the end, we all go home without our babies. When I read blogs written by other mothers, I realize the emotional journey is so similar. Yet I wonder if people on the outside look at the situations very differently.

Just some random thoughts.

my prayer

I thought I'd share my prayer.  As much as I have been questioning all of my beliefs, I never stopped praying.  Katelyn and I say our prayers (almost) every night.  I asked her what she's thankful for that day and it's always something different.  Sometimes mommy and daddy.  Sometimes random cousins, an aunt, an uncle, a pretty day, and recently her Dora phone.  We always ask God to watch over Andrew and make sure he's happy and safe. 

I also have a special prayer that I don't say with Katelyn.  I found something similiar online after loosing Andrew.

"God, I always thought I would hold my son on my lap and tell him about you.  Now I'm asking if you will hold him on your lap and tell him about me"

July

Some days I'm sad because I'm trying to learn how to keep Andrew a part of our lives.  I focus on how to include him and how to be his mother with him in Heaven and me here. 

And other days, like today, I am sad because I think about those first few days in July.  I look at pictures from the hospital and remember so many of the emotions.  I think I was mainly numb.  Shocked.  Still trying to process everything going on.  I look at the pictures from my dads camera.  They aren't the edited ones from NILMDTS that are so beautiful and soft.  They more like the raw, unedited version of a film.  But they're good for me to look at, to remember what it was really like.