Don't Mourn For Me

Don't Mourn For Me

Mother, please don't mourn for me; I'm still here, though you don't see.

I'm right by your side, each night and day

and within your heart I long to stay.
My body is gone but I'm always near. I'm everything you feel, see or hear.

My spirit is free, but I'll never depart

as long as you keep me alive in your heart.
I'll never wander out of your sight--I'm the brightest star

on a summer night. I'll never be beyond your reach--

I'm the warm moist sand when you're at the beach.
I'm the colorful leaves when fall comes around,

And the pure white snow that blankets the ground.

I'm the beautiful flowers of which you're so fond--

The clear cool water in a quiet pond.
I'm the first bright blossom you'll see in the spring;

the first warm raindrop that April will bring.

I'm the first ray of light when the sun starts to shine,

and you'll see that the face in the moon is mine.
When you start thinking there's no one to love you,

you can talk to me through the Lord above you.

I'll whisper my answer through the leaves on the trees,

and you'll feel my presence in the soft summer breeze.
I'm the hot salty tears that flow when you weep

and the beautiful dreams that come while you sleep.

I'm the smile you see on a baby's face. Just look for me, Mommy,

I'm everyplace!

(Author unknown)

A sad reminder

I was going through my myspace blog that I use to use all the time. As I was flipping through just now I ran across a ticker that I posted when I was pregnant. I locked this specific entry after we lost Bryanna so no one else could see it but I couldn't bring myself to delete it. It really had slipped my mind until just now...

The ticker says I'm 39 weeks and 6 days..only 1 day until my due date. One day...in one day I could have been holding my precious baby. However, that's not the way things were meant to be. I found myself looking at myself in the mirror this afternoon and wondering did I really go through these past 4 months? Did I really have a baby growing in me just 20 short weeks ago, and now there is nothing left? Did I really just go through all of this and survive? It's so surreal thinking we just went through all of this. It's so surreal thinking just 20 weeks ago I was in the hospital getting ready to have my baby, and had I gone into the hospital yesterday she would have been born and everything would have been ok. I find it so odd that she was born 20 weeks too early...2o weeks to the exact date that she was due.

Tomorrow will be a busy day with family, but we are taking a little time to head out to the lake in the morning to release some balloons for her. My reasoning being..if she is going to celebrate with God we at least want to send her some balloons from us to let her know we are thinking about her.

I must confess..this date is making the pain more real..almost like for the past 4 months I have not really believed it until this moment. Yes, I have grieved with every part of my being but this hurts on a whole new level. Luckily my family will be here to keep me busy and we can mourn together and celebrate the day together as well.

a walk through target

A walk through Target should be an easy task. I love target and when we lived in Hawaii I couldn't wait to spend my days walking through target. When I was pregnant my favorite thing to do was walk through the baby aisle, but now I try to map my way throughout the store without having to pass by the baby aisle. This is not an easy task in our Target.

Somedays I can walk through the store and glance at the baby section and somedays I have to walk through the store with my head turned so I wont even look at it. The anxiety that hits when we round the corner of the shoe section makes me crazy. Will today be the day I can look? or will I have to turn away and pretend it's not there? Everytime I go it's different. The crib that we bought Bryanna just a week prior to going into the hospital is on display..if that isn't bad enough the display is set up for a little girl. Everytime we go in the store I try to avoid the crib all together. Just recently I've began to look at the crib and pray that one day it will hold a baby for us. For now the crib sits in the garage.

Today as I was walking through target I went down the opposite way because I was looking at sleepwear for myself. I happened to be in the mood today to look at the little girls clothing. I tried to keep walking but the little girl's dresses called me in. They were so cute..cute little summer dresses that had things been different Bryanna could have been wearing. I know I can't think like this, but so close to the due date it's hard not to.

I miss my little angel so much right now. I miss her everyday but somedays its just hits me more then others. I'm not going to lie..the next two days will most likely be rough for me, but I'm extremly thankful that my husband has taken the next two weeks off to be with me.

Anxious

For the past three days anxiety has slowly creeped back into my life. My heart has started racing again and little pains in my stomach are slowly starting back up. I did so well for two weeks, and now we are back to this. I attempted to tell myself Tuesday wouldn't be a big deal, but the closer it gets the more anxious I become.

I know people think Tuesday June 30th should just be another day to me. But the truth is this day approaching hurts me so badly. I know I know Bryanna was born on Tuesday February 10th and that's just the way life turned out. I know February 10th was her birthday and will forever be. However, for 5 months I looked forward to this day, and for the past 4 months I have dreaded this day. Now this day is only 4 days away and the anxiety is creeping in. What will my mood be like that day? If things had turned out different I could be in the hospital having a baby that day. I should have been in the hospital having a baby that day, but for us that isn't happening. We will not get to be having a baby on June 30th meeting her for the first time and being over joyed that she is finally here. Instead it will be just like any other day...with what might have been not too far from our mind.

How do we even begin to approach this day? Do we just let it go and pretend nothing ever happened or do we do something special and then go about our day? How does this work? When her birthday rolls around I know I will be sad and anxious but I know we can do something special for that day...but does the same hold true for Tuesday?

What about tomorrow for that matter? Tomorrow will be 20 weeks since I discovered something was wrong and had to be taken to the hospital. The thought of tomorrow coming makes me super anxious.

Its crazy how fast your life can change. One moment everything is fine and the next everything has fallen apart. How do you rebuild your life after this? In the book I'm reading he says that you just learn to build around it. You don't ever get over the pain you just learn to go on with your life but still feel it there. He says its like an amputation and I honestly feel like part of me is forever gone. It's almost like in a way it took the old me away. It took away my secure feeling, my hopefulness, and excitement for certain things. Slowly I'm trying to get these emotions back but will I ever fully become what I was before? I know I've talked about becoming a different me, but there are parts of the old me I miss. I just don't want to be anxious or scared anymore. I was to look forward to getting pregnant instead of this huge fear that I have in it's place. Bryan and I were talking today and I told him I don't fear I can get pregnant I just fear if I can stay pregnant. I know I should stay far far away from google..but shortly after we got the results of what caused Bryanna's death I googled the world. One of the very first articles I can across said that I am now 2 x's more likely to have this happen again because I've had it happen before. I know I need to look on the bright side and see that many women who have had this happen in the past have gone on to have healthy pregnancies but how?? How in the world do I clear those thoughts from my head? I know God has these amazing plans for our life I just wish I could somehow see what's going on. See the bright side in it all. Everyone keeps telling me they just know we will have a healthy baby...healthy babies..but how can they be so sure when I'm just not?

Painting

Holidays the past four months have been hard to deal with. Valentines day we ignored, Easter I cried because everything I tried to do came out wrong, Mother's day was the worse...even yesterday, Father's Day, I woke up a little teary eyed. It hurts thinking what we are missing out on. Overall it was a pretty decent day. The sun was out and we decided to take the kids down to the pool.

As I lay out at the pool yesterday I brought out my book with me. I don't spend much time reading it but when I do I give it my full attention because every word of the book speaks to me and makes me really think. It makes me see things in a different light. Yesterday down by the pool I was reading Chapter 6 The Amputation of Self. In previous chapter Jerry Sittser has talked about how death is a catastrophic loss and how its almost like the amputation of a body part. It's not ever something you can get back. However, something in this chapter that touched me was how after a loss you have to pick up and paint a new portrait of your life. He goes on to say that when he first began repainting his picture he wanted to start off on a small canvas because he didn't know how he could have the same expectations for his life after what he had gone through. On page 87 he goes on to say "Many people who suffer loss are tempted to do the same, lowering their expectations of what they will get out of life. Can any person look forward to a life that falls short of what he or she had planned, wanted, and expected?"

Wow, those words hit me like a ton of bricks! These past 4 months I have done that very thing. Thinking I'm sick, imagining us never having a baby, even the anxiety when things get out of control. I have been lowering my expectations of what life is going to be like now. For as long as I can remember I've wanted to be a mother, and Bryanna made all those dreams come true, and yet I have to remember at the same time I am also a mommy to Kobe and Anthony. I'm a wife to Bryan, a Daughter to Mark and Laura, a sister to Mark and Matthew, and a Grand Daughter to Daniel and Rita. Yet for the past four months I've been living my world in this dark and lonely place. I miss my baby girl this much we know is true, but at the same time is it fair to let those who are still on this earth get less of me? Is it fair for me not to live life to the fullest because I can't see painting my life portrait on a bigger canvas?

Yes, this four months has turned my world upside down...we have lived through something that no one should ever have to go through, but we are still alive. We become stronger everyday through each other and through the strength that God gives us. We will go on to have more children and paint our picture on the biggest canvas we can find, because after all that's what Bryanna would want for us.

"Even the saddest things can become, once we have made peace with them, a source of wisdom and strength for the journey that still lies ahead."

--Fredrick Buechner

God, Take This Child

God, Take This Child....

by Nancy Scott

Sweet child whom we never really got to know,

It’s hard for us to let you go.

We waited and we wanted you.

We had so many dreams for you.

We think of smiles we'll never see.

We think of events that will never be.

There will be no first steps and no first teeth.

There is only a void and our own grief.

We planned to take you to places far and near.

We yearned to keep you safe and free from fear.

We hoped to show you much of your new world.

We wanted to teach you as your life unfurled.

It’s hard to understand why you, our baby, died.

We feel so numb right now, many tears we’ve cried.

We have so many questions and no answers seem to come.

We tried so hard to save you; nothing could be done.

God, we stand before you broken-heartedand

ask you to heal these lives that must be parted

from this little one we can no longer hold,

who will always be a part of us, even when we're old.)

God, take this child in your loving arms.

No more can she suffer any harm.

Bless her always and bless us too.

Be with us and help us to make it through.

The Mind...

The mind is a wonderful thing, although it can bring about much torture. Your mind will remember things that you would rather forget. Yet it remembers things your would probably rather not forgot. Just now I was taking a shower and tears came to my eyes not once, not twice, but three times. I had been fine all day long, and then my mind chose to remember at this coming Tuesday I would have been 39 weeks. This is the time that I can start remember almost moment by moment was I was doing 19 weeks ago. 19 weeks ago tomorrow we bought her crib, 19 weeks ago Tuesday I went to the Dr to be diagnosed with BV, 19 weeks ago Thursday I missed work to pick up my antibiotic, 19 weeks ago Friday we discovered we were having a baby girl, 19 weeks ago Sunday my world was falling apart. Had things turned out different I could be holding a baby girl in my arms this very moment, or could possibly still be waiting for her to arrive.

Don't get me wrong I am doing better...just remembering little details like this hurt me so badly. I know people think it's time to move on, but how do you move on after the loss of a child? I know I might not be normal anymore to most, and I'll probably never be the Gina that everyone remembers from before, but I'm a new Gina. A Gina who has seen pain no one should ever have to go through, and a Gina who is becoming stronger by the day. A Gina who knows this strength that carries me through the day is not by my own means but given to me by God. I thank God everyday for the strength he has given me and continue to ask him for more daily.

On another note, I went to the therapist on Thursday and told her about holding the baby and feeling like in a few months I think I will be ready to start TTC again. I then told her I had anxiety the next day and felt guilty and like we would hurt Bryanna's feelings when we had a new baby. She then told me I needed to go back and look through my pregnancy books because developmentally when Bryanna was born she didn't have the emotions to feel jealousy. Great thanks lady..I'm not taking about Bryanna when she was born I'm talking about Bryanna's spirit. My baby was born with a spirit and a soul. I don't care where she was developmentally when she was born...I don't care what you think she can feel or not. I don't even want to hear that her kicking my hand when I poked at her was a reflex...these were my feelings of my baby and your medical jargon doesn't help or make how I feel go away. I'm not going back to read pregnancy books and tourture myself. I know it's silly to feel that her feelings will be hurt by ud trying again but that's how I feel. For the most part I like my therapist so I know that this clash won't get in the way of our progress. She is really helpful even if she doesn't see that I'm looking at things spiritually and not medically...