3 years ago today

As I lay here awake all I can think about is three years ago I did this very thing, but it was to anxiously await my beautiful baby boy that would be delivered via c-section in the morning. Today, oh how I wish today were different. I wish I was anxiously awake planning every last detail of my beautiful boys birthday party that he would celebrate with everyone. Opening presents, giggling, eating way too many sweets, and having the time of his life. I wish. Instead, today, I lay awake wondering if I'm going to hold it together tomorrow. If I will be able to finish making his cake to take with us to celebrate at his grave with him, or if I will break down like I did last year. I lay awake wondering if he would have even liked Spider-man. Maybe he would have liked Batman more, or Superman. I'll never know. I lay awake and wish I didn't close my eyes and have the events from his only birthday party all the way up to the day he passed play in my mind over and over again. I wish I didn't have so many 'what if's' constantly in my head. I lay awake wondering if the party I did plan for him tomorrow is anything he would have wanted. I wonder if he'll be close?? If he celebrates with us? If any of this matters in the hereafter? 

I hope tomorrow is a good day. I hope I can be happy for my little boy that would be turning 3. Hug your babies tight tonight, and wish me luck. 

Roller coaster

I've said it many times. Grief is a roller coaster. You have your ups and you have your downs. Sometimes it throws you for a complete loop. I've been thrown for a complete loop. I know it's because Corbyn's birthday is next Wednesday, but I didn't quite expect to be like this. I talk all the time that you don't ever "get over it". Somehow in my own mind I was thinking that I was, though. I thought that I wouldn't have too hard of a time this year as his birthday and angelversary arrive. Boy was I wrong! It all started Monday. All at once. I started reminiscing on Corby's first birthday party and how perfect it was. It was monster themed because we called him our little monster. He acquired that name while I was pregnant with him. He was such a mover! He would push and kick and poke me all day long. Brock would often look at my belly in awe because it looked like I had a monster inside of me. Well, I did! So his name stuck. He was our little monster. He was not a monster baby in a bad way at all. He was my cute little sweet monster. He held up to the moving part, though. He rolled over from his back to his front just a little over 3 months. He was crawling before he was 6 months and he was running by the time he was 10 months. He had things to do and people to see! I made him a big three tiered monster cake for his birthday and had a fun birthday party with games, activities, treats, etc.

We had a lot of people that came and celebrated his birthday with him and I'm so grateful for that.

I still think about the day that he was born. I remember the exact room that I was in. I remember the nurses that I had. I remember the calm spiritual feeling I had all that morning. He was a planned c-section so I was scheduled to have him at 8 that morning. We were told to show up at 6 to make sure everything was ready. I remember the outfit that I as wearing. I was so calm and ready for my monster to come. I was so at peace that my heart rate was between 40-50 BPM and the machine that they had me hooked up to kept going off because it was saying my heart rate was too low. It got to be such an annoyance that the nurse finally just came in and turned it off. After he was here I immediately felt this overwhelming need to protect him. I never felt that way with Addy when she was born. Nor did I feel it so strongly when Ledgyr was born. There was this connection there that the only way I could describe it was a burning within me. Like my spirit knew from the very beginning.

With me still working at the same hospital that I gave birth to him in, and the job I have. I frequently walk past "his room". The place that is so sacred to me I can barely look at it let alone walk in it. Some days I can glance in that general direction and remember the good of that day, and other days, like today, I look at it and wish I could go back. I wish I could hold him again. I wish I could go back in time and live those 411 days over again. 

Now I look at that room and wonder-did him coming via c-section have anything do to with him not being fully developed? Did I allow him to be cut out too early? Was it my fault? I question myself daily on what I did to have made him the way he was so that he couldn't stay with me on earth. I then I irrationally question whether he was even really my child. Did they somehow switch him in the nursery. Is my blood child still out there alive and about to celebrate his 3rd birthday? After all my other two children have brown hair and he was blonde.  Then I ask myself-would I want to have a different child than Corby if I got to keep him, or still only have the 411 days to love and cherish Corby? Even though it's so painful to not have my baby here with me and I wish I didn't have this pain I would still choose that 411 days even if he wasn't my child. That little boy gave me light. He had this love and presence about him that I can't really describe. I can just feel it. I wish everyday I still could feel that presence and light. I wish every day that it were different. I wish that I would have done things different 'that day'. I wish I would have not gotten him his flu shot. I wish I would have just waited. I want to know so badly if that shot had anything to do with him passing. I guess it wouldn't have really mattered. There is a scripture in D&C that God is talking with Joseph and he says that he will not go before his time. I deep down believe that it was Corby's time to go. So if by some chance that it was the flu shot that took him and I had decided to wait then it would have been something else that would have taken him. Maybe he would have died from the actual flu. Then what? I'd be blaming myself because I didn't get him the shot. He could have gotten brain cancer, he could have gotten hit by a car, or drown. All of those I wouldn't have wanted for my baby. I didn't want him to suffer. I know that the way that he passed that he didn't suffer. He wasn't scared. I haven't really talked about this on here before, but I know that people were there to take his little spirit back with them. To comfort him.  We have a video that shows them around the room and both Addy and Corby are watching them. The night that he passed he played his little heart out with his sissy for one last time. He wasn't sick. He wasn't in pain.

He and his sissy did what they did best. Tornado-ed our little house and left no walk-able path in their destruction. Brock talks about how that night in the bath he was different. He wasn't sick or cranky. He was somber. I believe that's when the spirits that came to get him told him it's time to go, and he didn't want to. Brock got him out of the tub and snuggled him to sleep one last time. Do I wish I had answers? YES. Why? Would it cause more guilt if I did know? I don't know. It would at least put me at ease with the rest of my children. I wouldn't live in fear that they are ticking time bombs as well.  I wouldn't have an anxiety attack every time I went to check on them while they were sleeping in fear that they are gone too. I would know for sure if it were still in my children's best interest to get vaccinated. Would I still have 'what if's'? I'm sure I would. Everyone has what if's? What if I hadn't let him leave that night? What if I had taught him how to swim better? What if I had been watching closer? What if I had checked on him sooner? If I had answers my 'what if's' would just be different.

So today my roller coaster has thrown me for a loop. I'm not over it. I'm sad. I'm angry. I'm broken. So here's to number 2 without you my baby. I'll throw you the best party even though you're not here to celebrate it.   

 

His voice

There are days that when Ledgyr makes his sounds I think that he sounds like Corby. Then I start to think about if I really remember what my boy sounded like. Do I really remember or is it my mind playing tricks on me-making me think that I can remember? I miss his voice. I wonder what it would be like now. I wonder how big he would be now. Would his brother almost be as big as him? (Ledgyr is HUGE) To give you an idea of huge here is a picture of Corby at 9 months and one of Ledgyr at 9 months in front of the same TV stand. (It's been painted)

Today I'm angry. I'm having a really hard day today. I'm angry that my baby doesn't get to grow up. I don't get to watch my baby grow up and listen to his voice grow and change as he gets older. Today I want it all back. I don't want to be living in my life. I want to choose someone else's life for a day. There are so many little things that people take for granted. I miss those little things the most. I miss cuddling him and kissing his soft little cheeks just after he woke up. 

I miss his 'cheeser' smile. 

 I hate more than anything that I didn't get the chance to record his little voice calling me. He had just started saying mama two days before he passed.

 I miss his little drunken walk he had. 

I miss listening to him breath. I miss him pounding on my chest because my milk wouldn't come in fast enough for him when he would nurse. I miss his little shriek he would do when he played with his daddy. I miss his "words" he would say.  

I miss watching him eat. I loved watching him eat. He was the cutest little eater!

I have such anxiety that I'm going to forget him. That all of the memories that I didn't record will be gone. I repeatedly rack my brain on a daily basis trying to remember things about him. It feels like he was a dream. A figment of my imagination and I feel like if I don't wake up from this nightmare to write down my good dream I'm going to forget it all, but I seem to not be able to wake myself up from this nightmare. 

Someone in our SUDC email group asked what everyone's child's favorite book was. I had to think about it for a minute, but it brought back all sorts of memories. One's that are bitter sweet. I still get very emotional thinking back. I have minor panic attacks going through my pictures in cronilogical order and when I start scrolling close to the dates that he passed I panic and want to make that time frame go away. I usually scroll fast through there or stop looking completely. 

Corby didn't have a favorite book, yet, since he was so young. We have this farm book that's a touch/learning type book. That was the first book that I remember reading to Corby. I would go through all the pages and do the sounds of the animals and let him feel the different textures on each page. He wanted to read it over and over again, and after a few times he started copying me when I would make the quacking sound for the ducklings. That's what this video is of. He went around the house for two days after "kaking".

One of the reasons that we chose the mortuary that we did was because it had birds flying painted on the wall in the room that the viewing would take place.  All I could picture was him pointing up at them and saying "kak kak kak" very excitedly. We still talk about him "kaking" all the time. I wish I had more memories of silly things he said or did as he got older. I wish for so many things. I wish it were all different. I wish I had my miracle and I still had my son. I wish I had answers. 

Please don't take your children for granted. You have the chance to soak it all in. You have the chance with your child. Record all that you can. Kiss them. Tell them how much you love them. ALL. THE. TIME. I don't get to tell my baby that I love him as he's physically standing in front of me. I wish I could. 

It's ALL okay. There is no right way to grieve

Grief. What is it? How do you comprehend it and conquer it? Is there such thing as conquering grief? It is such a confusing thing that some people face in their lives. Is it okay to feel angry? Is it normal to constantly obsess over every detail from that night or that day? Am I crazy? When will this end? I could continue on and on for days about the constant questions that a bereaved person has.

I have talked to many people, read many articles written by psychologists, and been to a grief counselor. This in no way makes me an expert in grief and I'm not claiming to be. I'm simply writing from the other side of the war zone- what I've learned and my perspective. I wanted to write this because I seem to have a lot of people around me in my life right now that are now just entering their life long grief journey and they have questions and are confused.
My sweet aunt is one of them. She lost her wonderful husband very suddenly to renal cancer. He was diagnosed in January and passed away July 23rd. It overtook his body and when his body was starting to fight back it was too much. His body was overworked and tired, therefore, his heart gave up. There are so many that have been completely devastated by this. You can read more about their story here.

My mom received the call from my aunt shortly after he passed and she was sobbing so bad my mom could barely understand her. My mom immediately jumped on a plane and headed to the state my aunt lives in to be with her. My mom understands a little bit about the passing of a close loved one. She knew that she needed to be there for my aunt. Just as she was there for me. It makes all the difference when you have someone there to support you and be there for you during the hardest time of your life. When I called to ask how everyone was doing one thing that my mom talked about was how my aunt was angry and asking a lot of "why" questions. It's okay to be angry. One of the stages of grief actually is anger. Yes, there are stages of grief. Does that mean that they have to fall in a certain order? No. I was told that to grieve the healthy way you will hit every stage of grief and some multiple times.

I remember my first anger outburst after Corby passed. I threw an apple so hard across my kitchen at my brand new painted white cupboards that it exploded everywhere. I was still cleaning up apple off of them and throughout my kitchen when we went and cleaned out our place after we moved out and had sold it 18 months later. I didn't care what damage that apple could have possibly done, though, I was so frustrated. I started to sob so bad that I couldn't breath and started to hyperventilate. I was sure that I was going to need to be admitted to the psych ward because I couldn't handle what was happening to me. I remember squeezing my head as hard as I could because I wanted it to all go away. I wanted this life to be over. My time in hell to be complete. My overwhelming physical ache that was now constantly part of me to go away. We had our bishop and his neighbor come over to give me a blessing of comfort because of how bad I was. That's when I learned about grief counselors and it was suggested for us to start going to one. I learned from the grief counselor that my anger outburst was very normal and probably won't be my last. She related it to being hit by a Mac truck and my mind  was in an ICU from being hit. Just like when your body is injured it does everything in it's power to survive and fight. That is what your mind is doing. I thought that was a great analogy. Grief is your mind's way of recovering from being hit by a Mac truck. The stages of grief are: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. That's exactly what your body goes through when majorly injured. It also needs to be said that just like when you are injured your body never goes back to the exact way it was before. There are scars, aches, and problems for the rest of your life. Your body just learns to deal with it and live in it's "new normal" state. Let your mind and heart heal just like you give time for your body to heal. Know that you will never get over your injuries from being hit by a Mac truck. Your grief will always be there. There will always be a hole in your heart that brings an ache with it. You may not wake up every morning like you did during the first days crying and wishing that it were all a bad dream, but you will still ache for your old life and wonder what would it be like if your life now were all different and part of your old life. Kind of like being hit with a Mac truck and losing a limb. Along with losing that limb you get phantom pain and your mind tries to send messages to the limb even though it's gone.

Sorry there are a lot of analogies in this, but I would like people to try and understand from a more familiar or well known perspective.

 I like this quote:

“You will not ‘get over’ the loss of a loved one; you will learn to live with it. You will heal and you will rebuild yourself around the loss you have suffered. You will be whole again but you will never be the same. Nor should you be the same, nor would you want to.”

~Elisabeth Kübler-Ross & David Kessler

That is very well said. You will NEVER be the same. 

The grief journey was also related to me like a roller coaster. You will have your ups and think that things are looking up and then you drop off the roller coaster cliff and are back at ground level again. Again, look at healing. All my surgical nurse friends will know about this. You will feel like you are feeling great at about day 2 and then you take a dip in your healing the next day or day after. Grief will definitely have more dips in the roller coaster than healing from an actual wound, but you get my point, right?

There will never be a defined correct way to grieve. It is all okay- especially in the beginning.  Be gentle on yourself. Talk to people. Let yourself cry or do whatever you feel you need to do at the time. Everyone doesn't grieve the same way so if there are multiple people that are grieving they won't be doing it the same as you. Some may want to process it all internally. Some may want to cry and scream and talk it through over and over again until they can't talk anymore.

In our SUDC grief group someone talked about how her and her husband were having a hard time with their marriage after their baby passed away because they were angry with each other. They felt that the other person didn't understand. They didn't realize the difference in each other's grieving processes. I've also talked about the statistic I heard at the beginning of my grief journey before: 80% of couples that lose a child get divorced or split. I'm not sure if that is entirely accurate, but I know it is at least a lot. Grief is that unknown and unable to be understood fully, and nobody really knows how to handle it. When it comes to relationships they need to have some other part of it strengthened to make it through. Just like when you lose one of your five senses your body compensates by making another sense heightened. We need to heighten another part of our relationships so that people understand each other. This pertains to any relationship. Not just a couple or marriage. One of the big things that my grief counselor talked about was that we needed to up our communication with each other. To me that is the "sense" that needs to be heightened in the relationship since we lost another of our senses.
I've talked numerous times about how I hate that death is part of our trials here on earth. I hate that more and more people around me are experiencing the heartache of losing a loved one. I wish it were different. I wish that I put three children to bed tonight instead of two. I can guarantee my aunt is wishing that her husband were lying next to her as she falls asleep tonight. Since we aren't in a fairytale and our wishes like that can't come true we make the best with the lives that we have and live our new normal. 
To the bereaved, be gentle on yourself. To the supporter of the bereaved, be just that-a support. Let them ride the grief roller coaster and be in the seat next to them holding their hand and covering their eyes when they need you to.

4th of July surprise

I have been so busy I haven't had a second to sit down to write this post so it's a little late. I have had so many people come up to me and the first thing they ask is if I am pregnant... No I am not pregnant.  Let's clear that up right now. The surprise isn't a surprise for you silly! It was a surprise for us.
Let me start from the beginning. I received a phone call from my dad the Tuesday before the 4th asking us if we had some free time on the 4th to let him take us to an art show in Huntsville because he heard that it was really cool. I, of course, said yes, but wanted to know more about this art show. What was it about? What kind of art was it? All he kept saying was that he heard it was pretty cool. So when I got off the phone with him Brock looked the art show up on the internet and in big bold letters it said "The 2015 Independence Day art show will not be held". I thought that was weird since my dad just said that he heard it was pretty cool. I called my mom and asked her if they knew that it was cancelled. She did her usual "Whaaaat" ( in a really high pitched voice). When she does that it means she's trying to keep something from someone. She's not a very good liar.... So I knew something was up. I didn't know exactly what, but I knew something was. The 4th came and we did our usual tradition of attending a parade and eating lunch in the park. It's always a bitter sweet day for me because I am always thinking of the 4th that Corby was with us. He wasn't really into the parade, but Brock's mom and dad got all the kids matching 4th outfits that year. Corby has two boy cousins that are 6 months younger than him so they all had the same little cute outfit on. Corby also got some "coo baby" sun glasses.

I was able to snap this picture at the parade and every 4th this is the picture that comes to mind.

So even though it's supposed to be a fun and celebratory day it's still on the hard side for me to act happy and wanting to be around people. Anyway, when we got up to Huntsville there was a big Independence Day carnival going on in the park. I was then thinking that maybe my parents just wanted to take us somewhere with just us and Huntsville was where they chose. After we got out of the car they b-lined it for one particular area. I found that odd, but didn't realize why until I saw these beautiful blue eyes staring back at me.

I immediately started to sob. I couldn't breath. It was taking everything in me to not fall to my knees and burry by head in my hands and sob uncontrollably. After I calmed down a minute the artist came over and introduced himself. He told me how much he enjoyed doing this portrait of my beautiful boy. He also talked a little bit about why he does what he does for families that have had a loved one pass on. He also talked about how with every portrait that he does he has some kind of dream about the individual. I was waiting to hear something like he saw him in a field of flowers or something along those lines, but he didn't. He talked about how he dreamed about Corby and how happy he was, and that he was sitting in a white highchair eating and spreading food all over it as happy and could be. It gave me chills because there is no way that he would have known that we had a white highchair nor how much Corby loved food. My parents told me that they never said a word to him about anything like that. I asked how they found out about him and when they started all of this. They said they found him through some friends in their ward and that they had been working with him for almost a year. They had him redo it several times because it wasn't perfect. So this has been a long process to get to this point. It makes me feel good that more people are getting to know my baby and getting to see a glimpse of how amazing he was. When he told me that I could take it home I was elated, but at the same time I wanted everyone to see my beautiful baby and to keep him on display forever.

Now that we have it home I'm still contemplating on where to put it. I'm the type or decorator that likes to ponder and take my time on where I want things and what I want. I'm not the impulse type and then later I'm patching walls like crazy because I didn't like what I did. This picture is VERY heavy so a few simple nails won't hold it. So here it sits on the floor. I caught Ledgyr sitting there staring at it one day for quite some time. I wonder what he thinks. Does he know Corby in his little self form, or does he only know him in his adult self? We have another picture hanging in the living room that I caught him staring at one day. I didn't have enough time to go get my camera and take a picture that time. I have heard stories of siblings that come after the child that has passed that know who their older sibling is and they can talk about them like they were always there. I hope that this is happening with my babies. I want all of my children to know their brother and remember him. 

I am so grateful that there are still so many that think of my baby. I'm grateful to be able to still talk about him and not have people get upset with me. There are now times when I don't cry when I talk about him, but there are still so many times that I still do. Every time I do I try to reassure the person that I'm talking to that it's ok that I cried. I feel so much better when I cry with someone than when I'm alone.