Angel Day

Ayden's "angel day" was yesterday, the fourth, but we took him off life support on the third. He was taken off around 5 p.m. and he held on until around 2 a.m. There have been a lot of thoughts swirling around in my head the past few days. It's amazing to me that its been a year that he's been gone, it's amazing that I've made it a year without him. I lit a candle for Ayden and made it through the day relatively fine. I'm doing better, but I still have REALLY bad days. I still avoid babies out in public, trips to Walmart usually wait until late at night and the wee hours of the morning. Seeing bad parenting, like the other night around 11 o'clock a mother carrying her 2 year old son out to the parking lot in a t-shirt and shorts despite the fact it was like 60 degrees and she was wearing jeans and a sweater, pisses me off and upsets me to no end. I wake up from horrible nightmares a few times a week; my most recent one, I woke up (in my dream) to find a year old Ayden in his crib next to my bed, he was talking and walking and I was so happy and amazed to have him back, near the end of my dream he fell into a pool (no idea where the pool came from, I've never lived any where with a pool), hit his head on a stair and died, I couldn't move or do anything but watch. I screamed for my boyfriend Josh to come help me and called 911, Josh and the EMTs arrived by my side at the same time and just looked at me like I was crazy because there was nothing in the pool at all. I kept screaming at them that he was JUST there and begged and screamed for them to save him. Then I woke up crying and couldn't fall back asleep, I just kept replaying it over and over in my mind, watching Ayden die right in front of me and not being able to stop it or help him, remembering how the blood in the water bloomed like a horrible crimson flower and swallowed this older version of my son.

Vindictive

Leaving and divorcing my husband has been a process to say the least, and it's been a difficult one. I only took my clothes and toiletry items when I left, I left a lot of important things behind because I was in a rush and because it was an extremely difficult decision, one that I wasn't completely ready to make in all honesty. I left Ayden's things behind and his ashes. My ex has a necklace that contains a very small amount and we got a teddy bear for the rest, I couldn't separate them out that day as I was already upset about leaving, and I didn't feel it was right for me to just take the teddy bear. My boyfriend has been extremely helpful and wonderful about communicating with my ex to get the belongings I left behind, we were told I wouldn't be getting any of HIS son's things, a couple weeks ago we went to pick them up. True to his word, I got nothing of Ayden's. A few days later we got a call saying that a box of Ayden's things and some of his ashes were at my mother's house... we picked it up yesterday. Last night when I was going through the box of clothes, toys, blankets, etc. I found a sandwich sized Ziploc bag that contained Ayden's ashes. I got a fucking teaspoon of Ayden's ashes, there's barely anything there at all; to say I was pissed would be an understatement. I really can't believe how he's behaving, I mean I get that I hurt him, that he's mad and angry, but I don't understand how he can be this way about our child. If Ayden was still alive we'd share custody 50/50 so what makes his belongings and his ashes any different? What makes Ayden HIS son? The way i remember it, I was the one with hyperemisis gravidarum and spent the majority of my pregnancy vomiting my brains out, I was the one in labor, I had the emergency c-section, wouldn't that make him my son too? I'm so pissed off and hurt that I can't see straight.

Happy Thanksgiving

I'd like to wish you a Happy Thanksgiving! I hope you and your family have a wonderful and safe holiday.
Thanksgiving was the last holiday I had with Ayden, so I'm sure this day will be bittersweet. This is also my first Thanksgiving without my family. This will be the first year in my memory that I won't be side by side with my mom in the kitchen, cooking a feast from scratch. I won't be waking up at an ungodly hour to go Black Friday shopping with her either, a tradition that goes back just as far as helping to cook. It's definitely weird and strange to think about and go through. I'm sure the day won't be all bad though, I'll be with my boyfriend who is absolutely amazing and his mom and little sister, whom have pretty much adopted me with open arms and are pretty wonderful themselves.

Idle Hands

I've been seriously considering going back to school. I got my GED and started college at 17 and never finished for multiple reasons, the biggest one being I have NO IDEA what I want to be when I "grow up". It always felt like such a permanent decision and I still don't know what I want to do at 22, imagine how uncertain I was at 17. I love lots of things but I've never been able to see myself in one specific profession. I really wanted to be an elementary school teacher but after taking my teaching classes and doing my observation hours I discovered that I don't want to be a teacher in Florida, maybe somewhere else, but I don't agree with or like the education system here. I thought about cosmetology but it's more of a fun hobby for me, not something I'd want to do day in and day out. Then I thought about writing, which I've always loved, I've always excelled at. I could be a writer, I love the stress and pressure of deadlines, I love being creative and I genuinely love writing, anything. So I've been looking into different schools around here and I'm hoping that soon I will be a student again and on the right track. I think going to school will help with my grief and depression, I don't work and I don't really feel ready or able to. I worked at a small community bank before Ayden was born and I don't have any experience outside of that so my options are limited. There are plenty of grocery stores I could go work and do something menial and mindless but that would put me in the middle of a veritable parade of babies, small children, and horrible parents... and I REALLY could not handle that; I have a hard time with all those things just going to the store to pick up a few things, so right now I think school is the best option and will be the right thing to help me get my life back together.

Stupid Sh** People Say

A couple days ago I got extremely mad and upset at my best friend, my only friend really. He lives far away so we converse through Facebook on a daily basis. I was pretty down, drowning in thoughts of Ayden, and I told him this. His response was fairly long but I couldn't get through the first sentence; he said something about Ayden being in a better place. That Ayden was with God and looking over me all the time. If I could have slapped him through the computer...I would have. I love my friend to death, we've been there for each other through a lot of bullshit but for the first time ever I was seriously mad at him. I hated when people said that after Ayden passed, and I still hate it almost a year later. How is being dead better? How is Ayden being anywhere but with me better? I don't really believe in God, I never have, because if there is a god up in the heavens I'd really love to know what I've done to deserve all the tragedy in my life, not just losing my child but other things as well like my father abandoning me, ALL the drama and issues with my mother over the years, my friends and family abandoning me, etc. I wish I had faith, I'd love to believe in God, I'd love to believe in anything really. This reminds me of the scene in The Bucket List when Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson are having a discussion about God in the plane, Jack Nicholson 's character doesn't believe either and Morgan Freeman does, Morgan Freeman asks "What if you're wrong?" Jack Nicholson says something like "I hope I am. If I'm wrong then...I win". That's how I feel about it, if there is a God and Heaven or an afterlife or whatever you want to call it I'll be pleasantly surprised, if not and dead is just dead then I was right and I win either way.

December 4th

There's a little less than a month until Ayden's "angel day" and 22 days til the anniversary of finding him not breathing and the days spent in the hospital hoping and praying. Ayden's birthday wasn't as hard as I thought it would be but I think these days will be; don't get me wrong getting through the butterfly release and blowing out Ayden's "1st" birthday candle was pretty heartbreaking and difficult to get through but I feel like getting through these days along with everything else going on will be horrible. I relive memories all the time, more frequently lately and I wonder if it's because I'm getting closer to December 4th; The day my baby became an angel and left me behind, irreparably broken. It's almost been a year and this pain has not eased, I still have nightmares almost every night, I still can't stop my thought process, I still wonder what if? I know this will NEVER be easy but it's SO unbelievably hard, I hurt all the time, I think all the time, I replay moments all the time and I want it to stop. People say you'll never forget and you still have memories but sometimes I wish I could forget. It makes me physically ill to think that or say it out loud but it would be so much easier if I could forget. It would be so much easier if I could forget the sight of Ayden motionless with blood trickling out of his nose on the kitchen table, if I could forget the ambulance ride, if I could forget the sight of my child lying in a hospital bed. But those memories and images are burned into my brain, I can't forget them, I can't not think about them. And it's the bad memories that fall on these days, so how could they not be difficult to get through? All I can hope for is to get through these few days as best as I can.

Avoidance

I''ve been avoiding this post because it's hard and painful to go through personally let alone put it all out there for the world to see, but I suppose this is part of my journey. A couple weeks ago I left my husband. I wasn't happy, he wasn't happy, I felt like I was dragging him down. My depression was swallowing me whole, I'd spend hours locked in another room trying to stay sane, I was a different person. I am a different person. I'm broken and permanently scarred. I'm depressed most of the time and can't stop thinking. In all honesty I find myself not wanting to go on living. I'm simply existing, going through the motions of life, not enjoying anything, barely laughing or smiling or feeling anything but deep, suffocating pain and sorrow. There is another guy in my life but my reasons were for leaving really were the ones I stated previously. We both deserve to be happy and we weren't. I take all the blame because I know it was mostly me, how can anyone be happy dealing with me being constantly depressed, constantly wanting to fade from existence? I'm not happy with myself, I hate getting suicidal and depressed, I hate wanting to be alone, I hate missing people who obviously don't miss me, I hate everything I've become. I worked so hard to get away from this side of myself, the dark side of me that I've struggled with and fought against for years, and now it feels like that's all that's left. All my happiness went with Ayden because he was my happiness, he was the reason I woke up in the morning, and now I'm just left hurting, and my dark side is my only side.

Haunted by Halloween

So yesterday was a really bad day, I spent a majority of it crying and sleeping just to get away from my thoughts. Halloween was Ayden's first holiday, and I spent last Halloween imagining him being a year old, dressing him up and taking him trick-or-treating. I imagined years of that. But this year I was faced with the harsh reality; I don't get Halloween with my angel. I will NEVER take Ayden trick or treating, I will never get to help him pick out a costume, we'll never carve pumpkins or get to take a real trip to the "pumpkin patch". It was a hard milestone to get through, it was a hard thing to realize and accept, and it definitely wasn't easy. It made me think a lot about all the other milestones I never got and never will get with Ayden, I think that's the hardest part for me. When you have a baby you expect things, you form hopes and dreams, and you look forward to all the big moments down the road: talking, walking, trying new foods, holidays, first days of school, etc. but all those hopes and dreams got smashed to bits. I never got to experience those things with Ayden and I have to go through life not getting those things. Even if I have other children down the road seeing those firsts will hurt because I should have gotten them with Ayden, I'll always feel his absence and that he should be here, going trick or treating or going to school or unwrapping Christmas presents along with his brother/sister(s).

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...

Ayden's Birthday

All in all yesterday wasn't bad, in fact I'd go as far to say it was a good day. It was warm and sunny, the sky was the perfect shade of blue, and I smiled, A LOT. We found the perfect spot for the butterfly release, a happy accident, and the butterflies were beautiful. I had moments that were sad but they were few and far between. The hardest part of the entire day was blowing out his birthday candle, my smile slipped and my eyes filled with tears. Overall though it was a happy day, as it should be, and I'm so relieved that it was.

Happy Birthday Baby

Today is Ayden's birthday, what should have been his first. We drove down to the beach to release the butterflies and stumbled into a butterfly garden completely by accident. It was beautiful and perfect. The butterflies and box we got from Flutterby Gardens (www.flutterbygardens.com)
were beautiful and we received all Monarch butterflies, even though our order was placed last minute which meant a lot to us. We got lots of really great pictures...here are a few:

 

 

Out of My Mind

Today has been, in a word, awful. It's been bad since I woke up from a horrible, dark dream about being pregnant again and it's gotten progressively worse. I'm sick of being in the house, but there's really nothing to do. I'm lonely, with really no one but my husband for company. It doesn't FEEL like it's been a year since Ayden was born and two months later died, it feels like it was all just a couple months ago. The feeling/ thought I do have is "holy crap, it's been a year and I've been standing still, doing nothing the whole time". I've been hiding in the house for a year, I've lost my family and friends, and I don't feel like I can do anything other than I'm doing. I don't feel ready for a job, I fall apart all the time, I haven't worked since before Ayden was born, and getting a part-time or seasonal job at a store, something easy and mindless, would probably be a disaster since I have regressed back to my baby/child aversion. Just everyday shopping is a problem for me half the time, but being a customer I can turn around and leave... Not an option if you're an employee. I feel like I should be doing better than I am, that I should be a normal, productive member of society again, but I'm a HUGE mess and I feel million years away from normal. It's maddening. I just want an easy button. I want to have a job. I want to be able to go grocery shopping at 11 a.m. on the weekend, not at 3 a.m. in the middle of the week. I want to be able to concentrate again. I want to be able to listen to Tchaikovsky, Beethoven, and my other favorite composers without getting plied with memories of my pregnancy and Ayden. I want to be able to see parents with their children and not instantly hate them. I want to not hate every pregnant woman I see. I want to be normal again, my old normal, not this new, horribly skewed version of normal.