There is light at the end of the tunnel :)

I realize I haven't blogged in nearly a year, so I thought I would give an update. We moved to a new town in August, my husband got a better job that he absoultely loves. In October we found out that we were expecting another baby :) Now I'll be honest with you, I was terrified when I saw the positive on the test. My mom was the first to know since she was down for her birthday (which happened to be the day I took the test, what a birthday gift!!). Being in a new town that is much smaller than our previous town, I had no idea who to call. I finally found a doctor an hour away from where I live, and I absoultely love him. I saw him at 10 weeks and explained that my previous pregnancy ended in a miscarriage, so he explained to me that he wasn't going to try to hear the heartbeat at that appointment because if we didn't hear one, he didn't want me to get discouraged & freak out, so I waited another month. At 14 weeks I heard that beautiful heartbeat!!!! Such an amazing sound it is too. I never realized until having children how beautiful that sound is. Life was literally beating inside of me & it reminds me just how great our God is. Anywho,I was blessed to share this moment with our 4 year old daughter and she thought it was so cool. 18 weeks-Ultrasound Everything looked good, baby was healthy and very active. Alyson thought the baby was a cutie pie when she saw the picture on the screen (how great of a big sis is she gonna be?). The tech tried so hard to tell us the sex of the baby, she would get an image that made her think boy, then another angle and she would think girl. So they told us to come back when I had my next OB appt and they would try again. Are you kidding me? I have to wait another 4 weeks to find out if we are team blue or pink!? Can you tell paitience is not my strongest trait? lol We took our pictures and info to our doctor and he told us that our baby is growing great and is in the 96 percantile, which could mean i'm going to have a good sized baby. 22 weeks I went to get another ultrasound done where we got some amazing pictures of baby, which made it very obvious what we are habing.....a BOY!!!! Oh, i'm so happy about that. My dream of having a boy and a girl are finally coming true!! So here I am, 28 weeks along into this pregnancy and I'm feeling good. I'm ready for June to get here so I can meet our little guy, but I'm also not wanting to rush progress either. He needs his time to grow big & strong so he can be ready to live life with big sister :) I will do my best to stay up to date with this, but I cant make any promises. If any of my readers are still healing from miscarriage, just know that your time will come. We weren't even trying for a baby and it happened. So please be patient & just have fun with your partner :)

Mother's Day Gift

My husband brought in a package this morning that was left in his car yesterday and set it on the table so I wouldn't miss it when I came downstairs. The box said "Happy Mother's Day", there was no name to go with the return address either, so I was very curious to see what was inside. Inside the box was a teddy bear. Now most of you may think that a teddy bear is a teddy bear, but this bear is special. It has some weight to it, kind of like what a baby would weigh, and its dressed in a baby outfit. The bear represents my Cameron and how I can hold him whenever I want. To me this is the greatest gift I could ever recieve. I'm thankful that I know one person from the town the return address is from or else this would be slightly weird. But I do know at least one person from there and I'm so grateful for her.

God is bigger than your troubles

The title of this post is something im battling with at the moment. Tonight at church Pastor "Joe" talked about giving our troubles to God during communion, I did just that. But at the time my troubles hadn't been bothering me as much as they did once I gave them to God. Isn't it funny how that works? We are told that God is bigger than all our troubles (problems, worries etc) and that He can handle whatever we give Him, so why is it so easy to just let them go once we hand them over? I've realized we often don't fully give them over to Him because we like to be in control of our lives and its so easy to let these things consume us. Yes, I struggle with this myself. </p>

Last week I felt the urge to pray dangerously by asking God to show us where he wants us to be, and I asked some family to do the same. A day after I asked my Grandma to pray this with me, He answered my prayers. Now we don't understand what it all means yet, but something about the answer, or clue just feels right. Im still praying that He shows us where we belong in this strange world. I know wherever it is, we'll be happy.

Sweet dreams friends

So in my last post I had mentioned, okay complained, that I hadn't had my monthly visitor yet. Well, turns out I just needed to be patient and let my body do it's own thing. Although I did get it, I was a little sad that I wasn't pregnant. But I'm guessing God is trying to teach me to be even more patient that I think I am. I know someday He will bless my family and I with another baby, I just have to trust in Him that it'll happen when He sees fit. At the end of January I joined my very first bible study ever with a church I had only attended two times. I was scared out of my mind! For about a year, God has put in my heart to find a new church to grow spiritually with Him. I finally got the courage to do this, despite my husbands effort at first, so I went alone. That first service was amazing, I didn't know how much my heart was aching for sermons like that. The pastor made everything so clear to me, it felt like he was speaking directly to me. When I spoke with the pastor after the second time attending church, he informed me that the women were getting ready to start a new study. Can I be honest with you? I was scared out of my mind that first night of bible study. I was so afraid that these women would judge me and would be able to see all the hardships I had been through. I thought maybe I would been seen as someone similar to Hester Prynne, but instead of an "A" they would see "M" for miscarriage on my clothing. Boy was I ever wrong! These woman were so nice and welcoming. I had no idea that they would welcome a complete stranger to their church so openly, but they did. Over the past few months I have made new friendships. It's amazing when you open your heart to God when He is speaking you, what He will do in your life. We just wrapped the bible study up and are taking a month off before we start our summer one. So many woman have signed up that we have to have 3 different groups, one of which I am leading. If I thought my nerves were crazy attending the bible study then, I can only imagine what they will be like the day that I have to lead it by myself. I do know that God will give me the strength and right words for it, I just have to believe in Him. Since atteding the study I can tell I'm a more confident person and I know its because I had a great leader and the book was amazing in helping me realize some of the stuff I was doing was only hurting me. For example, being jealous of people who seem to have it all (cars, house, family, most of all money) but the study taught me that I'm not equipped to have what they have, both the good and bad. I just pray that I can do the new book justice and make my new friend proud in choosing me to lead this group. Enough about me for now. Have a safe Cinco De Mayo weekend!! God bless

Yiruma - Kiss the Rain

This is the song my husband and I were talking about on Easter and heard during the Remembering Together Service in October for infant and pregnancy loss

Easter Sunday was a pretty good day for me and my family. We went to church in the morning and then my husband grilled steaks and made a delicious lunch. While we were eating, my husband was playing a song on his phone that he came across earlier in the week. We decided that it sounded eerily familiar to both of us and spent a while trying to figure out where we heard it from. We decided we heard it at a funeral and had to think of who's it was that we had been to recently. Then it dawned on my husband and he said, "I know where we heard this, it was at Cameron's memorial service". That is the first time I had heard him refer to our baby by his name and it broke my heart all over again.

Hearing Brady speak Cameron's name Sunday has had my emotions all over the place. No crying or anything, just feeling jealous of all the women who are pregnant right now,jealous of the people who have never experienced the loss of a pregnancy (and I don't wish it on anyone).

About 3 weeks ago I experience some abnormal bleeding a week after my regular cycle, and I was advised to stop taking my birth control until we figured out why this was happening. I took a home pregnancy test, negative; took a blood test, negative. Last week I had a yearly exam and am currently waiting the results. I was supposed to have my cycle this week and have yet to have it. Normally when I have switched or stopped birth control pills, my body has bounced back and if it was late it was only a day late. I am four days late.

I have no idea what's going on, its like I dont even know my body anymore. Anyways, I just had to get this off of my chest, thanks for listening (reading). I hope you all had a great Easter weekend!

One year later....

Yesterday was the one year "anniversary" of my miscarriage. I put it in quotes because anniversary is supposed to be a happy celebration, this is not that time.

Yesterday started out okay, I paid bills, balanced the checkbook, followed by going to town to get some groceries. I spent the day fighting my emotions because I dont want to cry in front of my daughter, doing that only makes it worse because her innocence is so sweet. All in all, the day went much better than I thought it would (but dont ever go shopping when you're feeling blue, not so good things will find their way into your cart).

Has anyone noticed that when you're feeling down about something, anything at all, your kid refuses to listen to you? That was my daughter yesterday. Somehow we managed to survive the day without hurting eachother.

Yesterday went on almost like any other day, except for that huge reminder of what happened a year ago. Today, however, hasn't started out so good. I was woken up by the awful smell of skunk, not pleasant to wake up to. Then I get on facebook and see a friend has posted a picutre of her pregnant belly.

Cue all emotions flooding at once.

I dont want to be jealous or angry about her having a healthy second pregnancy, but I can't help it since my second one failed. I'm only human right? I dont want to get into too much detail, but I have a lot of reasons to be jealous and maybe envious. I haven't felt like this in all my life, but since I miscarried, I have been angry at pregnant women who flaunt their bellies and have a beautiful glow about them. And what makes my anger and jealousy worse, is seeing that pregnant woman with another kid or two towing behind her.

Yes, I dont know her story but even if I did, would it stop my anger and jealousy? Only God knows. One thing I have learned from the bible study I'm in, is that I'm not equiped to handle what these women have. The good and bad. I have to constantly remind myself of this whenever I start to have all these feeling racing to the surface. It's not easy, nothing in life is, I have learned that over the past year.

I was planning on releasing balloons yesterday, but since my husband has been working out of town, I have decided to wait until he gets home. My best friend sent off a green balloon, with a message on it for me yesterday. How did I get so lucky to have her in my life? She's been so amazing to me this last year and I'm ever so grateful for her.

Don't think that since the first year is done and passed that I'm going to quit blogging. I will continue to blog, it may not be very often, but I will still let you know how the healing process is going. :) Have a good one!

This is a line from Taylor Swift "Back to December", but this line kept playing in my head this morning and I find it kind of fitting.

Prayer

I found this prayer in a book that I've had close to me for the last year, and I want to share it with you.

"Jesus, during your time on earth, you healed broken people who came to you. I come to you now seeking healing for my own brokenness.
My body feels broken.
My spirit seems broken.
My heart is broken.
Please, lay your hands on my life:
make me physically whole again;
help me trust you in this shadow season;
fill the excruciating hole in my heart.
Nurture & restore the relationships that sustain me:
my relationship with my spouse;
my relationship with my own parents;
my relationships with my friends;
my relationship with you,
Hold me during this night, so I can be watching when the morning breaks and joy comes again.
In your name, Amen."

These words are everything that I am currently praying for and have been all year. Losing a child is extremely hard & relationships sometimes fall apart in our time of grief. We have to fully rely on God to heal us, and I've learned to accept that He heals on his own time, never ours.

Penny for my thoughts

As the one year approaches, I'm finding myself having conflicting emotions. One day, I'm completely fine and unaware of the approaching date. The next I just want to stay in bed and have no human contact. But as a stay at home mom, staying in bed is not an option for me. Today is kind of one of those days.

As the day draws closer, my mind keeps replaying the night I miscarried. Like I've said in other posts, I want to shake the images from my mind but I also want to hold on to them because I get to see my baby. I regret not holding the baby still to this day, but it's something I have to live with. I think I'm having phantom pains as it gets closer too. I get these cramps out of nowhere, for no reason whatsoever and nothing works to make them go away (tylenol or motrin). If I'm already having these now, I pray I don't feel that horrible feeling I did that night that Morphin couldn't numb when the day finally approaches.

I've been in contact with some people from church about getting a group started for women who've miscarried and I have met someone who has started one for Infertility and Miscarriage, it should be interesting to see how we can help women. I've always wanted to help people, but who knew I'd be helping them because of something tragic like this. I know God has a plan for all of us, so I'm going to listen to Him & do his will.

I plan on releasing ballons on March 7th for baby Cameron, a few of my friends from other towns are going to release one as well. Im very blessed to have these people in my life, withouth them I dont think I could be as strong as I am now.

There's a song that recently came out from one of my favorite christian artists, Britt Nicole. It talks about God always being with us and never leaving us. It's brought me such comfort since it came out and I'd like to share it with you. I hope you like it. God Bless.