Gone Too Soon

A friend of mine posted this song (video below) on her Facebook wall today in memory of her son who was born too soon.  I took the time to listen to it and the lyrics really hit home.  It's true....not a day goes by when I don't think of Braelyn.  Especially as I watch Cole grow and learn, I wonder what she would have been like.  

I find myself often torn between wishing she was here and being okay with the way our lives played out.  It's hard to explain...but if she were born full term and healthy then I would not have Cole, nor Baby Brother.  But I want her to be here with us.  I want to be excited to be a family who has 3 crazy kids at home.  Not two with one watching over us.   Obviously I can't change things...so I'm learning to be happy with the way our life is.  We will always feel a void, but I don't want life to stop because she isn't here either.  One day we will see her again and make up for lost time.  

I don't think that Braelyn only being here for 12 hours was any accident.  I feel like she had a purpose and each and every day I'm learning more and more about what that purpose was.  She taught us lots of lessons that we would have never learned otherwise.  Here are just a few ways that I feel like I'm a different person because of Braelyn:

1)  I feel like I'm more tolerant and slower to judge people because you never know what their life story is.  I would venture to guess that the people who don't know a lot about me wouldn't have any idea that I had a daughter who passed away, but I am the way I am based on those experiences.  Maybe someone who I encounter has had some life changing experience that most people can't relate to and maybe that's why they are the way they are.  Before we lost Braelyn, I had a really hard time picturing devastating events happening to people and changing who they are at their core.  I probably was not very sympathetic to those people.  But now I understand.  I am trying on a daily basis to remember to find the good in people.  I'm not the best at this and I strive to be a better person every day, but I'm appreciative of the lesson I've learned.  

2)  Braelyn taught me to be more generous and to help others.  I would like to think that I would have done random acts of kindness often even if she had never been born.  I did nice things for others here and there, but after she was born I know that it's so much more important to me to find others that I can help.  We had so much love and support shown to us from family, friends, and even strangers that it will take a lifetime to pay it all forward.  But I want to strive to continue to do nice things for others because our life has been blessed and we are very fortunate.  I can't wait for the day that Cole and Baby Brother can learn about their special sister and think of ideas to help others in her memory.   

3)  She also made me a more patient and involved parent.  I know a lot of people who are really good parents.  But I feel different from a lot of them.  I don't want to offend anyone, because I know that most people love their kids and feel like they are a true gift (and I would NEVER wish my experiences on anyone that I know).  But I have a different perspective on the whole parenting gig.  I know that by seeing the worst that can happen to your child I have a unique perspective on raising a child.  Braelyn has made me cherish every single moment with Cole.  Sure there are still moments when I get frustrated with him, but I can chill out and remember that he's just a baby and I'm so incredibly blessed to have him here with me.  She has taught me to slow down and enjoy the little things.  I would rather sit down on the floor and build towers with blocks a million and one times than worry about doing the dishes that are piling up in the sink.  I know that had it not been for Braelyn, I would have been worrying about when I was going to find the time to clean my house and possibly ignoring Cole's requests to play with him.  I'm so thankful for this lesson.  The time is already going too fast with Cole and I don't want him to ever think that I didn't have time to have fun with him because I was worried about doing something else.  I know that when he's grown up I'll have plenty of time to clean and organize.  But for right now, I want to enjoy the moments.  So if you come over, excuse this mess we call Toddler Land in our living room :)

I don't post much on here about Braelyn anymore.  I am at a place in my life where I do feel true happiness and joy about the life that I'm living.  I have my moments of feeling sad and sorry for myself, but those moments are rare.  Mostly I am just thankful to have gotten a new perspective on life before my boys were born.  The experiences I had are making me a much better mom (and wife).  I love my boys so much, but I will always keep a special place in my heart for my sweet baby girl.  

Tomorrow is Memorial Day.  I know that it's a day to remember the men who have served our Country to bring us freedom and choices and I for one am very thankful for these men and women.  But let's also take a few minutes to remember others that we have loved and lost.   Hug your loved ones a little bit tighter and enjoy the little moments that life throws your way.  

Brothers!

Cole @ 22 Weeks

Baby Brother @ 21 Weeks

I can't wait to see if these boys look alike!  I see some similarities already...but also some differences.  Can't wait to meet baby brother.  Only 14 more weeks until I meet my goal of 36 weeks.  That's when I give him permission to come at any time!

Sit Tight

I'm still here.  I know, I should have updated you all by now on what is going on.  :)

The good news, is that I'm still cooking this little guy.  I'm 21 weeks today!  We are on the downhill side of time until delivery.  I already can't wait to see this little man.  I am so curious to know if he looks like his big brother or if he is completely different.  I want to watch him grow, play and think...will he be like Cole or have his own little personality?  I think we have a name picked out.  It's a name that I love and Matt finally came around to it.  Although the other day he said he wasn't 100% sure about it...but he doesn't have any other suggestions.  I guess we will see how it turns out.  We have a few more months to decide.

At about 19 weeks I decided that I would be better off working from home the rest of my pregnancy.  I had been walking as much as 2-3 miles a day at work and having to pull behind a heavy rolling bag with my computer in it.  I decided it was just too much stress on my body and I asked my doctor for a note to work from home.  They didn't hesitate in giving me the note (which is one out of the million reasons I love my doctors office).  My boss has been really supportive of it too.  I count my blessings every day that I have a job where I can work from home easily and continue to get paid and not use any sick time until the baby gets here.  That is so important to me!

I must know my pregnant self pretty well these days because I knew that something was off.  I went to the doctor and we found out that my cervix was starting to funnel open at the top where the baby's head is.  I went from sitting most of the time to sitting on the couch for over a week w/out really getting up...except to go to the bathroom.  It's so hard having a 16 month old at home and not being allowed to do anything.  Matt has been an awesome dad and husband.  He doesn't complain at all about having to be super dad around the house.  He does such a great job with Cole and he is always attentive to my needs too.  I am such a lucky girl to have Matt.  It's funny how housework seems less important than ever to me right now.  I just know there is not enough time in the day to care for Cole, work, and run errands to keep our lives going.  Something has to suffer-- and it's housework over here.  But, we are lucky enough to have my mom come to help us in that department.  Last week she came and worked her cleaning magic on my living room and kitchen.  It made me feel so much better knowing that I had a clean house.  I am so appreciative of my mom and everything she's done for us.  She made sure to bring us food too!!  And if you know my mom, you know she is a great cook.  This pregnant lady is fattening up with all of the great food.

My mom also came a few weekends ago to stay with Cole and I because Matt was scheduled to run his first half marathon in Indianapolis!  I really didn't want Matt to have to cancel his run just because I can't be home with Cole by myself.  My mom was awesome about coming over for a few days to stay and help.  We had so much fun with her here!  It was nice to just have some time to catch up with her by myself (well, Cole was running around like a crazy man in the background...).  I am so proud of Matt for finishing his first (and as he says, last) half marathon.  He trained hard for it and did great!  He ran with his dad and sister-- a little family event.  Matt said he thought it was funny he was going to run a half marathon to relax from running a full marathon around the house the last few weeks.  I know we are keeping him so busy, but again, we are so grateful for his good attitude about it all.  I feel like I'm being lazy...but I know it's necessary in order to keep this baby in until he is ready to thrive.  Matt says I'm not being lazy, I'm growing a human.  I guess when you look at it like that it's not so bad. :)

With all of the sitting I've been doing, the funneling went away.  That's great news to my ears.  My cervix is still really long for this point in pregnancy too.  Having a cerclage was definitely the way to go with both of my pregnancies, but it's still stressful.  It's hard to sit all day and wonder what's going on or if it's shortening.  My doctor suggested we measure my cervix once a week until at least 28 weeks.  At 28 weeks a baby's viability percentage goes up to nearly 80%.  When we had Braelyn a little before 24 weeks, her chance of survival was very small.  That's why I will be able to breathe a big sigh of relief when I hit 28 weeks.  Now of course, I hope to get another 10 weeks after that!  But we are taking baby steps (literally) here.

As when I was pregnant with Cole, it seems like the days go fairly slow, but the weeks go fast.  If that even makes sense at all.  I have had a lot of good friends checking in on me and that helps to pass the time.  My wonderful friend Penny sent us Monical's Pizza for dinner last night.  Cole was really happy about that :)  I'm thankful for all of the support that we have as we go through the pregnancy journey again to make our family complete-- that's right....this baby will be the last for our family.  I'm thrilled we were able to bring Cole a sibling, but I just can't put any of us through the stress that being pregnant brings with it.  It's hard enough to do this with one child at home...I can't imagine doing it again with 2 little ones running around.  Now I'm just counting down the days to September when our family of 4 is complete!

Cole enjoying his Monical's Pizza!

Just being silly wearing mom's glasses :)

A Much Needed Message...

This is a good verse that I saw today written on my church's Facebook wall.  I needed to hear these words and keep them close in my mind.

When you don’t see His plan; when you don’t understand; when you can’t see His hand, trust His heart! Romans 15:13

I'll write more soon.  There has been an interesting (and somewhat expected) turn of events in my pregnancy this week.  Let's just say I'm down for the count...

He is so cute!

Little Brother!

Project Kardia

My good friend, Maegan, started a project recently called Project Kardia.  The goal is to make and donate blankets to children undergoing heart surgeries.  Maegan has been a heart warrior herself--three times now.  She is paying her good fortune forward to others going through similar struggles.  I admire her ambition with this project as well as her fight for her health!  She's one awesome lady.

I made a few blankets today to donate.  I am not a great seamstress by any means, but they were made with love and I hope they will fulfill their purpose of making some special kids know that they are cared about.

If you are interested in helping let me know!  Also, you can check out her Facebook page here:  https://www.facebook.com/ProjectKardia

I donated this one in memory of Camron Houchens.  He is the son of one of my good high
school friends who fought against CHD and sadly passed away.  But his memory lives on!

We Are Pregnant!?!?!?!

So I have been promising to write about how we found out we were expecting again.  I am finally getting around to it :)

It's funny how with Braelyn & Cole we had everything timed down to the minute.  I had a calendar with each IVF cycle that was so crammed full of information and dates and times and doses of medication that you quite literally could not fit another thing on the page.  I am such a planner, so aside from all of the emotional ups and downs that come along with IVF, having such a calendar was great for me.  I knew exactly when to expect a phone call from my RE's office telling me if I was pregnant or not.  I never took any home pregnancy tests when I was doing IVF because with the medications you take, you can get a false positive and I just couldn't set myself up to be disappointed any more than I knew I already could potentially be.  I remember the phone call that told me I was pregnant with Braelyn and the one I got for Cole.  I can tell you where I was standing when I heard the news, who told me the news, and the feeling of pure shock-- holy cow,  we are really going to be parents!

Fast forward now to this baby...

Back in January I wrote a post about how we wanted to have more kids but we just were not sure if we would be able to.  Our health insurance changed at the beginning of the year, which meant no more infertility coverage.  We didn't want to spend all of our savings on doing IVF again because we wanted to be able to provide for Cole.  We didn't really want to adopt at this point in time.  We felt kind of stuck.  Don't get me wrong, being a family of 3 has been completely awesome.  Especially when you consider the fact that we are SO blessed to even have Cole.  Well anyway, after I wrote that post, Matt and I had a brutally honest conversation.  We decided that we were not going to go through infertility treatments again.  We decided that we were a happy and healthy family of 3 and that's how it was going to stay.  And to be honest with you all, I felt a lot of pressure come off of my shoulders that has been there for the last 4 years.  I no longer would have to worry about needle pricks, medications, financial stress, and crazy emotions.  After we talked I immediately felt happy and at peace with the decision we made.  I knew the decision was made together, and that Matt didn't feel one way and me another.  We were united in our decision and that is what sealed the deal for me.  No more worrying about having a baby!!

Little did we know that when I posted that entry on my blog, and then a few days later when we had our chat, I was actually already pregnant.  Isn't God funny?  Took me 4 years to come to terms with being done with all of the stress and then BAM, not what God had in mind for our family.

Starting the week of January 7, I was feeling a bit off.  I can't even explain what made me feel like something was different because I didn't have any major symptoms.  I just felt different.  I didn't really pay too much attention to this feeling.  And because I was so busy it was easy to push it aside.  I do recall jokingly saying to Matt that maybe I was pregnant and I should take a home pregnancy test.  We both got a good laugh at that and moved on with our day.

Then the week of January 14, I came home from busy days at work and played with/cared for Cole for a few hours each evening and once he went to bed I was immediately falling asleep on the couch.  For those who know me well, you know that I am an early to bed kind of person so it wasn't entirely out of character for me...but 8:00 was pretty early!  I would sit down on the couch for a few minutes, and wake up 3 hours later from Matt telling me to go upstairs to bed.  After about 3 nights in a row of this I realized that I really could be pregnant.  My main symptom with Braelyn and Cole was just being so tired I could barely function.  Then again, work and my home life were busy too...so I thought maybe it was just my body's way of telling me to slow down.  I kind of shrugged off the pregnancy thought again.

On January 17, I decided in my mind that I was probably crazy for thinking that I could be pregnant without medical intervention, but that if I was for some reason then I needed to know.  I needed to know for many reasons.  One reason is because I would need to be on medication to prevent an early miscarriage.  Two is because I would need to get a cerclage again at 9 weeks.  And third, I just needed to ensure I was getting prompt prenatal care.  So once Matt went to work that morning I pulled out a home pregnancy test that I had purchased a while back, but never used.  I peed on the stick and about 30 seconds after it was showing two bright lines.  I had to read the box about 30 times to make myself realize that two lines means pregnant!!!  I kept talking myself out of it and saying it was a fluke and a mistake.  I had one more test in the box.  I waited about an hour and then tried the second one.  Same thing!  What the heck!?!?!  There was no way I could believe it.

I called my doctor's office immediately after taking the second test.  I remember my hands were shaking as I dialed the phone.  When the nurse answered and I told her my thoughts she was ecstatic!  Since I've had a high risk pregnancy, the entire office knows us by name.  They told me to book it down to their office as soon as possible b/c they wanted to see me to also confirm the news.  I was there in about 15 minutes.  All this time, Matt was at work and had no idea what was going on.  I couldn't break the news to him without being 100% sure.  Once I was at the doctors office they did another test, which also came back positive...even after seeing the 3rd one I still was skeptical.  Then they took a blood test.   And next we did a sonogram to see how far along I was.  I was nervous about the sonogram because I so badly wanted to see something growing in there, but I just couldn't get it out of my mind that this was all some sick joke.  They did the scan and there it was.  A perfect little blob on the screen...measuring at 4 weeks.  I just could not believe it.  But from that moment on I could not wipe the smile off of my face!

I went home after my appointment and Matt was coming home for lunch.  I forgot to mention to you all that we had plans to go on vacation to North Carolina in early September to visit Matt's dad and step-mom.  We already booked our place to stay and had begun saving up our money for the trip.  This year's trip would be really fun because Cole would love the water and sand even more than he did last year.  We were really looking forward to it and talked about it at least once a week.  Once Matt came in the door he said hi and started to make his lunch.  I asked him if he would be upset if we had to cancel our vacation in September.  He gave me a weird look and said why would we cancel our plans? So I told him that instead of vacation in September we were going to have a baby!  He had the same look of shock on his face that I had on mine earlier in the day.  But it quickly turned into a huge smile.  He said that was so awesome and that would be a great reason to not go on vacation!  The entire rest of the day we kept sending each other IM's at work saying "can you believe this is real?".

I still can't believe this is real some days.  I'm 16 weeks along tomorrow and I still smile every time I think about what a surprise this was.  I'll be forever grateful to know what it's like to pee on a stick and find out by SURPRISE I am pregnant.  I never thought in a million years I would get to have this experience.  I absolutely cannot wait to become a family of 4!  I love this little tiny bean as much as I love my Cole Man and Braelyn.  I'm very excited to see what the future holds for all of us.

We will find out in 2 weeks if we are having a boy or a girl.  I don't care one way or the other.  A boy would be awesome since Cole would have a built in best buddy!  Two boys so close in age makes me smile every time I think about it.  And I just love Cole and his boyish attitude so much that I can absolutely picture having another one of him!  Then again, a girl would be great too.  I know that I have a daughter, but it would be fun to have one here on Earth with me.  I have such an awesome relationship with my mom and I want that with a daughter of my own.  God already knows whether a boy or a girl is in store for our family and what the perfect fit is.  This entire pregnancy I felt like it was going to be a girl, but then the very early sono prediction was looking like maybe it would be a boy.  Who knows.  But, I can't wait to find out who will be joining our family.  I'll definitely keep you updated once we find out.   Then the fun part of trying to agree on a name will start...ugh!

Thanks for all of the love and support you give to us.  This journey is not quite over yet, but so far we are praising God for getting me to 16 weeks without any complications.  The next 12 weeks will be a true test, but I know that I'm up for the challenge and that God will see us through.  September is just around the corner!