Monday, June 27, 2011

Boston, then and now...

Boston, May 2008



Boston, June 2011




The first time I went to Boston was Memorial day weekend 2008 and I was 14-15 weeks pregnant with Lily. I was so happy to be pregnant and even bought her a gender neutral onesie because we didn't know the gender yet. She never got to wear that onesie and instead it was handed down to her little brother.


I went to Boston last weekend with my bestfriend of 25 years. My very first girl's trip and my bf had never been to Boston so we decided to go there for the weekend. Actually, I had worried about the Lily triggers as I made hotel reservations. I thought about the memories of my last trip as I boarded the plane to return to this awesome city. I only cried once but she was a constant thought as I walked the cobble stone streets toward Paul Revere's house and the Old North Church. I wonder if I cried for her or for the Jen that will never be again...


The top pic is from that first trip with Lily tucked safely inside of me. Who would've known while I sat on that fountain that I would have such a short time left with her?



The second pic is from last weekend. I knew it was going to be in the 60's and rainy so I packed my Boston sweatshirt that I purchased on my last trip. I feel like I've aged so much from one pic to the next. I've definitely gained a lot of weight which I have been working on.



We ended the night with having a drink in a pub and I had a lump in my throat as I drank some fruity cocktail that I didn't even really enjoy. My only goal was to try not to cry from missing her so much as I gulped down my drink.

Tuesday, June 21, 2011

3 years ago today...

We were told that Lily was a boy. Before Lily died, the sex of the baby was important to me. I was innocent and secretly was hoping for a girl. Ugh, I wish I could slap that old Jennifer. Really, I was such an idiot!

We found out she was a girl about 3 weeks later and lost her about a month later...I miss that happy go lucky heart, I really do...



Monday, June 6, 2011

It's a different type of grieving...

First, I mean no disrespect to those of you that have yet to have a rainbow baby. Second, I'm writing here instead of Cooper's blog because I don't ever want him to feel like he's not enough.

Really, I'm just now starting to grieve the loss of my childbearing ability. My mindset when I first found out about the hysterectomy when I was pregnant with Cooper was to not worry about it until later. My main concern was getting Cooper here safely. I guess the "later" is now.

I guess this is all coming about now because my rainbow baby is 19 months which is normally around the time when people start planning on adding another baby to the family. It seems that there are pregnancy announcements popping up everywhere these days and I don't want people to not include me in their happy news but inside, it hurts.

I know that there are some people that purposely only have one child and I wish that I could get my heart to that point. I'm warning those friends in real-life that read this blog that if you give me that "just be happy you're blessed with the one child" line, that I will go ape-sh*t on you. Anyone that truly knows me knows that I worship the ground that Cooper crawls on. He's the most precious person in the entire world to me. I can't imagine my life without him and I love him with every single breath that I take in and out. But, that doesn't take away the desire to have another baby.

I love the people that can pop out babies like there's no tomorrow giving the response "just adopt!" as if that's so easy. First, adoption takes a lot of money (try $25,000-$40,000) and that's just to get the baby in our house. Then, we get to start spending the money that "normal" people get to spend like health care costs, college fund, etc. I just want to be "normal", damn it.

Obviously, my body isn't made for having babies because I almost died having the first one and death was always a possibly in my second pregnancy after the placenta increta was discovered. My uterus was useless. I am not made for carrying babies. I wish God would just take that desire out of my heart.

So, I grieve for my first baby that I'll never know on earth and I grieve for all the babies that I'll never have the chance to know at all.