yucky week

well let me review my week with you.... i worked 5 days in a row then went to a conference for work for another 4 days after that. on my way home from the conference i learned that our deep freeze had stopped working and aj had to throw away a lot of the food in there (i absolutely hate hate hate wasting food). then on my 1 day off before going back to work, we tried to adopt a dog- i got hives (ill talk more about this in a second), i did our taxes and we have to pay money for the first time ever, and now one of my best friend's calls me and tells me she has been told the plane they think her fiance was on got shot down when flying home from his deployment. this week = crap

i made the mistake this week thinking i was doing better emotionally than i am. at my conference for work- i tried going to a session titled "Supporting families with withdrawing care", thinking i could use our experience to help other families, as unfortunately we have to advise families we care for to do that when the child is not going to get better. thinking- well i have been there and had to make that decision for our child. well 10 min in to that presentation i had to leave, as tears were pouring out of me. as they presented a slide on how families feel- and every word has described how it felt, i figured- well im not done going through this and i don't think i will be ready for awhile to help others. it was a nice thought... but i can't do that in my nursing yet. work and home need to be separate for my emotional sake.

so our attempts the past few weeks to get a dog have been unsuccessful for a number of reasons. first- we couldn't get anyone we called to give us a call back. so we decided to just start animal shelter hopping to look at dogs. then we would find one we liked and people wouldn't let us adopt it "if they didnt think we were a good fit". then we finally found 3 dogs that we liked, but i am allergic. i keep breaking out in good sized hives when we spend time with a dog. we even tried changing shelters to see if was just something on the dog. all of the dogs were Boxers or boxer mixes. So we could try and change breeds. as much as i want a dog, i hate to keep "trying dogs out" and getting hives over and over. the weirdest part is that i have never been allergic to dogs in my life. i even just dog sat for a friend when i was pregnant for 1 week in our own house and didn't have any problems. i called my ob's office and asked if they have heard of people getting new allergies post pregnancy and they said no. but when i google it, i find alot of other people having this problem.

for some people, learning you are allergic to a pet might be no big deal. but for me- this brought alot of tears and frustration. i want to love on something. i can't have my baby so i thought i could at least get a dog and love on it. not only am i sad but i feel very betrayed by my body. i know it is unreasonable, but i feel angry my body isn't doing what i expect it to lately. it doesn't make a healthy baby, it gets hives. even more than just me being sad, i am upset i am taking this from aj. he wants a dog pretty badly too. we were not only hoping for something to love on, but something to throw ourselves in to training and keep us busy for awhile. our next option is to think about getting some kind of doodle (labradoodle or goldendoodle or such... i vote for a sheepadoodle). but these dogs are pricy and cost between $800 and 1500. which i don't know if we are ready/able to make that kind of investment. we will see.

my heart and brain hurt. i am done with this week.

i dont know if this is normal for other mom's who have lost babies or not, but i keep having baby dreams. dreams i have a baby, i have adopted a baby, my baby has died or i am pregnant with a baby. last night was a pregnancy one- where i was pregnant again, but i was showing way too early and worried that i had extra amniotic fluid again. weird i know. these dreams basically are horrible in all different ways. the ones i have a baby- i wake up and realize i still don't have my darling baby. the ones i don't have a baby- i wake up and realize i still don't have my baby and can't even get away from that fact while i sleep. the ones i am pregnant- i wake up and realize i am not pregnant and won't be for awhile. no wonder i am still having sleep problems. yikes.

Sophia would be 8 weeks old now. i would know her likes and dislikes. i would have spent countless sleepless hours with her. what i have been missing this week is the touch. i wish i could just touch her hair again- it was seriously so thick and soft. i have yet to see a baby since who has a better head of hair. i hope one of our other children have hair like her. or her soft soft skin. i had a patient this week that had beautiful red hair, i complemented on how beautiful it was and the parent said- "you can take it and the attitude that comes with it". i had to walk away before i said - " i would take it a million times over to have my red head back and any amount of attitude that comes with it". speaking of red....

i don't know if i mentioned it, but my co-workers/dept collected money after Sophia died and got a wagon in her name. patients use these to get around in our hospital. above is a picture of the plaque on the wagon. i love seeing Sophia's name- it validates her existence to me and makes me feel like she was here. the last time i saw her name on a plaque was at the funeral home... i prefer to see it here instead. i am so lucky they thought of honoring her this way. love it.

i went to add this picture from vacation as a little pick me up. thinking aww i love my husband, but unfortunately i am having a tough week, so my first thought is that we are missing someone in this picture. along with every picture we take for the rest of our lives. yet if you look hard enough you can see her etched in our hearts forever more.

t, a & s

5.5 weeks

i hadn't realized i haven't posted in awhile. it is amazing that time can still fly during this kind of time of your life.

well-we went to spread Sophia's ashes. i must note- nobody tells you that ashes are not really ashes. i don't know why people call them that. they are cremated remains... and that is exactly what they look like. kind of. they are more pebble like versus ashes. interesting. anyway. the place we sprinkled her is a cemetery on the side of a mountain out here. at night they have a lit up cross there, which you can see from anywhere on the west side of denver. they have a "scattering garden" which i expected to be an actual garden in the summer, but is only a rock garden (not even with pretty rocks, but gravel looking rocks). needless to say- we were rebels and scattered her on the side of the mountain instead. there were a few tears but some laughs- as scattering remains is kind of weird. especially when it is windy. i felt bad not feeling more emotional about it, but when you know your loved one is with God and the body is not who she is, then you just don't feel as attached. i prefer to think of her as i last saw her and not what i was scattering.

our trip to Cancun was relaxing. it was good. not great. though any other time in my life i am sure i would have said it was wonderful trip. the trip did start off with us magically getting upgraded to First Class for our first flight! thank you God for that little treat! we laid on the beach, we drank and ate, then we laid out by the pool, drank and ate some more. the only thing we did was ventured out to a cigar bar and Margaritaville, and i swam with the dolphins at our resort. in between there were some laughs and some tears. it felt weird having fun, i definitely struggled with feeling guilty with having fun, feeling like i shouldn't be when we have been through what we have. the other hard part was seeing families there together. i kept thinking- gosh i won't ever get to take her on a family vacation. i won't ever get to see her cute little naked butt in the sand or put her in a cute little girlie swimsuit. if i could do the trip over again, i would definitely do a trip to a place with no kids. babies don't bother me as much, since i have seen Sophia as a baby. it is the little toddlers that get me, as i didn't get to see her at that age. it would have been nice to just not see them all around.

the trip was great to make us slow down and just kind of face our emotions and feelings. we had gotten so busy before we left, and this was a nice slow down. especially since we were there for the 1 month mark since we met Sophia. i watched the video of Sophia's birth and the time around that for the first time since it all happened. there was some crying- that mostly being due to the fact i was able to step away from the birthing experience and see how hard it all was on our loved ones. hearing and seeing them cry was incredibly hard. my heart breaks at how sad they were. i spent so much of that time as a patient and strapped to the bed that i wasn't able to pay attention to anything else. my head was wrapped up in what was going on down bellow on me and my baby girl. the video allowed me to see things i couldn't be there for- like the doctors working on her as soon as she came out and her getting her first bath. so many of my memories of those hours is through pictures due to being out of my mind with just giving birth. so the video gives life to the memories/pictures. it gives me more time with Sophia. it shows me being a mommy and reminds me that i was. and a great one at that. it shows us holding her and moving her around. it just gave me so many more memories- what a blessing.

I have been doing a devotional for parents grieving the loss of their baby called- Grieving the Child I Never Knew by Kathe Wunnenberg. it has been very therapeutic and helpful. it gives me something specific to journal on each day, along with scripture to read. i have been journaling alot, along with reading Job, which has been nice and probably why i haven't blogged. i used to journal a lot before i got pregnant, but had stopped. but i didn't want to be pouring out every feeling on here, i want to share what it is like going through this, but it would be hard for me to write what i think almost every day, which is- I want my baby back. i don't say that with tears anymore, but i still feel it down to my core. and i know that would be hard to read over and over from an outside view.

getting back from our trip, my best friend Evangeline came to visit, which was also therapeutic. a girl needs her best friend in times like this. it has been healing to just talk and talk and talk. laugh, cry, go shopping and drink a glass of wine or two. show pictures of Sophia and talk about her birth. talk about the pregnancy, talk about marriage. god bless best friends. they help heal your heart. there is beauty in friendships like that. they don't come easy and they don't come often.

i start work on tuesday. i am ready as i will ever be to go back. the hardest thing is knowing that i am going back to be full time again for another year or more. that was one thing i hadn't mentally prepared myself that part of this situation. i was really looking forward to being a mommy and staying home to love on a baby, while only working part time. even though i knew it was a big chance i might not be bringing a baby home, i didn't think about the work side of this all. work has been so very supportive through all of this and i couldn't have asked for anything better. i am so blessed to work in the department i work in, with the wonderful people i work with. they are seriously great. i just need to realign my expectations for awhile. if you have to go back to any job, i am lucky it is this one. i have a much more compassionate view for families that i work with ( i work as an RN in Pediatric Neurology, at an outpatient clinic at The Children's Hospital) with them being scared of something bad happening to their children. As i know the fear well, the pain that comes with the worst thing happening. I hope that my compassion comes through my nursing. i also have much more compassion for having a child with special needs. although i didn't get to experience that on a full scale, i did gain a bigger understanding and patience for those families. that is one thing i know i will be walking out of this experience with- a bigger heart for disabled children than i all ready had. especially those with skeletal dysplasia.

-our prayer requests-

- pray for tristen and her re-entry into work, that it goes well and she doesn't feel overwhelmed

- pray for our healing hearts and pain

- pray that we get Sophia's final diagnosis back quickly so we can start the genetic testing before try getting pregnant again.

- pray for aaron that he gets hired with a fire department.

thank you for still praying for us and caring for us. we are forever in debt to you. please make sure to let me know when or how i can be praying for you. i find it easier to pray for you than me.

lovingly- tristen