Guilty Conscience

My nightmares are back, in full force. I have a bad dream at least once a night. Sometimes I'm in the hospital, Ayden is covered in IV tubing and tape, so tiny in his hospital bed, one of the monitors is beeping, and I run around screaming at people who don't hear me, who look right through me. Other times I'm out shopping or walking around and a little boy, like 4 or 5 years old, will come up to me and say "Mommy you should've waited, I was getting better, I was going to be fine, and you gave up on me". The second one's the worst; I wake up crying and the dream haunts me throughout the day. Thoughts of Ayden haunt me regularly throughout the day anyway, my brain never stops thinking, never stops wondering "What if..." but this makes it worse. Terminating life support was the hardest decision I ever had to make and I second guess that decision frequently and these nightmares just add to my guilt.

A Helping Hand

I can’t imagine it’s easy to be close to someone who has lost their child, it’s certainly not easy being around me, just look at who’s stuck by me… next to no one. You’re not sure what to say or do, and to be perfectly honest, we don’t either. Nothing REALLY helps, the only thing that would help, the only thing the parent of an angel wants is their baby back in their arms.
I found this on a SIDS support page on Facebook:
1. Listen to my story, I need to tell it over and over again in order to heal.
2. Tolerate my pain, don't try to fix it, you can't. Just be with me while I am in pain.
3. Tolerate my poor memory. At times my brain feels like a mass of disconnected facts that are all being short-circuited.
4. Don't forget my child. I want to hear my child's name spoken. Share your memories of my child with me. It may make me cry, but will bring me joy forever. We will NEVER forget, we don’t want others too either.
5. Understand that I will never be the same person I was before my child died. My world has changed and I have changed. Accept my new identity.

That last one’s my favorite and probably the most important in my opinion. I am a completely different person. My highs are middling at best and my lows take me into the very depths of hell. My brain doesn’t stop thinking and analyzing and wondering, and sometimes with all of that going on, I cannot do anything else. I can’t smile, or watch a movie, or pay attention to anything longer than 20 minutes. I feel permanently damaged, like a broken mirror, you could glue it back together but there will always be cracks, it will never really be whole and perfect again…I will never be whole again.

Halloween Nails!

Decided to have a little fun and get into the Halloween spirit...

SIDS Awareness Wednesday #2: October 15th

 "When a child loses his parent, they are called an orphan. When a spouse loses his or her partner, they are called a widow or widower. When parents lose their child, their isn't a word to describe them..."

This post was also found by accident, but I'm glad I found it and wanted to share. I stumbled onto october15th.com through Facebook and immediately decided it would be my awareness post this week.

October was proclaimed National Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness month by Ronald Reagan in 1988.


Robyn Bear, the founder of October 15th, declared October 15th of every year  "Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day", a day in the middle of National Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month. They ask everyone, in every time zone, to light a candle at 7 pm and let it burn for one hour, creating a continuous wave of light in remembrance of all the babies taken too soon.

October15th.com also has a store, resources, a list of activities and walks going on in different states, and ideas to help raise awareness.

Blue

Yesterday I was sad and down all day, and it looks as if its bled over into today. There's no one reason for my sadness, it's a lot of little things, building up this huge wall of misery. I miss Ayden, we're having money trouble, I'm not sleeping normally, and none of things are getting any better, nothing gets easier. I physically ache without Ayden here, I miss him more than I could ever explain. Being a mom was one thing I really felt good at, Ayden gave me a purpose, and now that's gone, Ayden's gone and I got left behind. I'm heartbroken and depressed, I'm miserable without my angel and most days it feels like this will never get better. And then there's days like today when I don't want to be here, I don't want to try, I want to give up. I want to be reunited with my amazingly sweet baby boy, I want the time I didn't get. I want this nightmare to be over.

My Mother's Birthday

Tomorrow is my mother's birthday and since we haven't spoken in eight months it's kind of hard to think about. It's very strange not to be baking a cake, not to be planning what to make for dinner, not to be stressing over what in the world to get her. It's also strange that Ayden isn't here for it, because he was last year. Last year during one of Ayden's ultra early morning feedings I took the picture below and emailed it to her at work so that it would be waiting for her first thing in the morning. I remember thinking it was such a cute idea, that it would be a tradition. But we don't get to have to have traditions with Ayden, we get traditions without Ayden, we got two months of one time things. I got her a birthday card, because I got one, and because it would've felt weird and wrong not to do that at least. 

Nude With a Twist

I love nude nail polish, but it's kind of boring, so I decided to liven them up a bit. I used Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure in Cafe Au Lait, Sally Hansen Hard As Nails in Black Heart, and NYC Long Wearing Nail Enamel in French White Tip.

Step One: Apply one coat of base coat.
Step Two: I applied two coats of Cafe Au Lait three quarters of the way down my thumb, middle, and pinky fingers.

  

 

Step Three: Then, two coats of Black Heart on my ring and index finger.

Step Four: I used a ball-point pen and the NYC French White Tip to make polkadots on the black nails.
*The best pattern to for polkadots is three dots across, then two dots, and then three again until you reach the nail bed*

Step Five: The bow. It's way easier than it looks. I drew a black line where the nude polish ended and made a large black dot using the same pen. I did three dots close together to make the circle big enough. Then I used the pen to make two small dots on either side of the large dot to make the folds of the bow.

Step Six: Apply top coat! And you're done!!

SIDS Awareness Wednesday #1 : BeeBee Bows

I was thinking about this post this morning, what I should write about, how to set the mood of these posts, etc. I considered sharing statistics and sleep safety tips, but that's depressing, I don't want these posts to be depressing. I'd rather showcase people and charities that are doing great things in honor of Infant Loss Awareness Month. If you want statistics and ways to reduce the risk there are plenty of websites (www.sids.org, www.firstcandle.org) to name a few, but it makes me sad and I'm sick of being sad. I logged on to Facebook this morning and looked at a SIDS support page run by First Candle and saw a post by BeeBee Bows. It touched me, so I looked around on her Facebook page, messaged the owner Jillian, and hoped she wouldn't think I was insane. Jillian is a stay at home mom who just opened up her own shop making freaking adorable bows and accessories. She's doing a really wonderful thing in honor of Infant Loss Awareness Month, she made beautiful pink and blue bows, half the proceeds from the sale of these bows will be donated to the CJ Foundation for SIDS (http://www.cjsids.org/).

 I asked Jillian to tell me a little bit about why she is doing this and I thought she was even more wonderful, " A few of my friends have experienced the loss of an infant and one a toddler do to SIDS and SUDC. It hit close to home when I attended one of the baby's funeral last November. I don't think I've ever felt so empty inside and at a loss of what to say to the family. I grew up with them my whole life so to think it can't happen to you or someone you know definitely showed me I was naive." So many people don't seem to understand the loss, like my family and friends, but she realizes it and is doing something to help make sure no one else has to go through the pain of losing a child. BeeBee Bows has a Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/pages/Beebeebows/414772235226800) and an Etsy shop (http://www.etsy.com/shop/BeeBeeBows), see even when I'm not trying to be Etsy obsessed...
Check out BeeBee Bows, she has cute non-SIDS things too and she's awesome and deserves the support!

Think Pink...and Blue!

Holy crap it's October already! In addition to the orange and black for Halloween, pink is the other color associated with October. Everything is pink for Breast Cancer Awareness Month, but October is also Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month and I think people are less aware of this, I certainly was until I lost Ayden. So this month I'm going to do something a little different, Wednesdays I will be sharing things pertaining to pregnancy and infant loss awareness. But today I'm sharing a Etsy shop that I want things from, I love etsy.com and if you haven't checked it out... you should! But be careful it's addictive! I love SO many things in this shop, http://www.etsy.com/shop/bugaboojewelry?ref=seller_info, I want a necklace but I can't decide which one...