Adam's fateful lunch dessert

Please let this mean that someone somewhere (even if it's just the dude handing out fortune cookies at PeiWei in North Hills) knows that possibly we'll get good news this weekend.  It would be an amazing Mother's Day gift and I'd be due on my birthday in January.  More acupuncture tonight, I really hope that's helping us.

International Bereaved Mother's Day

Today is International Bereaved Mother's Day.  What does this mean, you ask?  Today a day that was created 2 years ago and falls on the first Sunday of May.  This is an excerpt from the blog Carly Marie Project Heal that was created after the loss of her son Christian.

This special day was created to honour and celebrate mothers who carry some if not all of their children in their hearts rather than their arms.  In our modern day society, mothers who are grieving the death of their babies and children are usually forgotten. The traditional Mothers Day has proven to be an emotionally difficult day for so many mothers around the world.

On this day each year we come together to celebrate our connection, our babies and children and our hope for the future. We look at their ultrasound photos, polish their urns, lay flowers at their graves, visit special places and light candles in their memory.

Sunday May 6th 2012, get together with your closest friends and family who understand and celebrate you. Celebrate your children.

I have met many friends online that have lost their children, whether it was pregnancy loss through early miscarriage or late pregnancy loss.  These are some of the strongest women that I know.  It's the best support group I could ever have.  We are mothers too, even if we're not recognized in the traditional sense.  We have sons and daughters who are forever in our hearts, some with names, others that we didn't have a chance to name.

I read a quote the other day that I just love and though it can be applied to many different situations, I think that it is so meaningful for those of us who have suffered an unimaginable loss or choice that we had to make for our children.

"You know my name, not my story.

You've heard what I've done, not what I've been through.

 If you were in my shoes, you'd fall the first step"

Today I am celebrating the lives of our daughter Addison Lila, born on September 29th, 2012 and our second baby, who left us on January 11, 2012 at just 7 week gestation.

Acupuncture!

Today was my first try at acupuncture.  I know that some doctors like to do it conjunction with IVF or other IF treatments.  Though I don't have IF, and we likely will never have to do IVF, it couldn't hurt to try.  Maybe it could affect my ovulation and maybe make my body work better.

I met with the doctor and we chatted for a bit beforehand.  We talked about what I wanted to get out of this and the paperwork that I filled out.  She told me about her own struggles to get pregnant with ended with a story that was pretty much, she stopped trying and focused on her health and it happened.  And then told me other story about a woman who did 4 IVFs and was taking a break to get healthy and bam!  Magic pregnancy.  She almost lost her credibility to me.

We continued to talk about my diet and everything.  I'm supposed to stop using Splenda (because really, it's a neurotoxin) and drink whole milk (gag).  She asked me about soda and I told her really I drink it for the flavor.  She asked me about stevia (of which I'm not a huge fan) and told me of Zevia, a soda product sweetened with that.  She told me to eat the full fat milk (when I drink it, I'll drink 2%...whole is a little too much) and cheese and yogurt.  Our bodies need fat and it's not what makes us fat, it's sugar.  So those are the diet changes she wants me to make.  I'm okay with that...I was afraid it was going to be a  lot worse.

She did some sort of Electro Meridian Analysis, measuring 6 points on each wrist and my feet, which represent the energies in my body.  My Lung Meridian was WAY unbalanced, which pointed to some sort of adrenal thing and it's funny she asked me if I had any insomnia or I was sleeping through the night.  She told me that parts of your body wake at different time and the lung woke from 3a-5a.  Every time I wake up, it's sometime between then.  Interesting.  I also have palpitations, which is part of that.  My large intestine meridian was off.  I have IBS, so that was no surprise.   She also thought I might have some adrenal issues and those affect all my hormones.

She did 4 sets of needles.  My body pushed out 2 sets.  And then it pushed out the "relax" needle right in the center of my forehead.  It was weird.  She asked if I could clear my mind and I said no.  After we were done, I was noticeably itching and she asked about it.  I told her I was itchy and she gave me a knowing look and said that she really thought it was my adrenal glands and gave me a questionnaire to fill out and apparently I scored really high which indicates adrenal exhaustion.  She thinks the rash that I've had the past few days is really tied to that.

Then she did some weird thing with a supplement where I needed to hold my right arm up and try to resist her pushing it down.  I couldn't.  So she grabbed an adrenal supplement and had me hold it in my left hand close to my core and then she had my hold my right arm out again and she could barely push it.  She said it wouldn't work if, say, I held a male hormone replacement.  I held it and she could pushed my arm right down. 

She said I could either take the supplement for a few months or I could cut out all sugars and let my adrenals heal that way.  Knowing my weakness for carbs, I couldn't say I'd cut out sugars when I'm not sure that I realistically could.  It sounds lame, but I know myself.  So I bought the supplement.
So that's about it.  I'm going back on Monday, so hopefully I can continue to work on these things.  It will be nice to see if these things really work and I can feel better overall.  
Also, she said I was holding on to a lot of guilt and grief.   O_o   It's amazing what the body knows and shows in different ways.

Another month

Today marks the beginning of another cycle trying to have a baby.  Our second medicated cycle post miscarriage was a bust.  I guess I just had my hopes up because we got pregnant so quickly after we started medications.  Not to say it's take a long time, since it was only our second cycle back.  Just stings a bit.  I think what hurts the most is the psychological pain of not having a baby in 2012, when I was supposed to have on in February 2012 and then in August 2012.  Realistically, there's not much difference between December 2012 and January 2013.  It's just the psychological thing, I think.  I'll start Femara again on Friday to induce ovulation. 

In other news, last week I started the Couch to 5k program.  It's a running program that has you do a combination of running and walking, 3 days a week for 9 weeks and at the end you can (theoretically) run a 5k.  I like it because it gives me a goal.  I haven't signed up for any actual 5ks, but we'll see.

There isn't a day that goes by

that I don't think of Addison.  I thought that it was just a saying.  It's not.  It will be 6 months next Thursday and there hasn't been a day that I haven't thought of her.  Especially now that she should be almost 2 months old.  I wonder all the time what she would have looked like as a newborn, a 1 month old, a 2 month old...everyday.  I'll never know.  Everyday I miss her.

I want to win some fluff!!

I just entered a giveaway for a BumGenius 4.0 diaper on The Awesome Cloth Diaper Blog!  I'm so excited about building our fluff stash.  We keep saying we'll buy one diaper a pay check!  But since really we're not pregnant again yet, it seems like it's getting pushed in the corner.  Hopefully we'll get some good news next month and we can start building a stash for a reason.

a thought from a friend

I have a new friend I met through a Loss support board.  Her son Andrew also had several congenital heart defects and they chose the same thing that Adam and I did.  Then I actually met another person somewhere else whose son had the exact same defects as Addie, who chose to carry him to term (the right decision for them).  He lived for 24 days and struggled everyday.  I told my new friend this and this was her reply:

"I hurt every day for Andrew as I know you do for Addie, but they didn't hurt for a second."

So true.  <3

I've got the crud

I was sick a couple weeks ago when I flew up to NY to visit my friends Gina and Erin, but it was mostly a sniffly, runny nose cold.  It went away for a couple weeks and now it's back, but it's more of a chest cold.  Poor Adam has to listen to me hack and hack...but of course, I have to listen to him snore all the time.  I stayed home sick on Friday because I sounded so bad.  Too bad I have no motivation to do the work for that class that I missed.  None.

Weight watchers is not going so well right now.  I have one leg on and one leg off the wagon.  I need to get all on.  I'm still down 8lbs since my miscarriage, but I was really hoping to be down a whole lot more before our appointment on Monday.  I haven't been taking Chloe on as many walks as I should, because she was sick for a while and I was just lazy and tired.  Today I had a piece of Starbucks Reduced Fat Cinnamon Swirl coffee cake.  I love it and it's 6 points for WW.  Overall, I don't think I did too bad today.  We had sushi for our Valentime's (yes, "times") day dinner tonight and then we made this chocolate cake, which was delicious.  I bought whipped cream cheese frosting and then we put sprinkles on it!  Yum!

We have our first RE appointment on Monday since our miscarriage.  I'm excited to go, and I don't even know why.  We'll do Femara again like last time, unless she wants to do something else, which is unlikely.  I'm ready to start again, though.

Dear Addison

Today was the day we were supposed to be saying hello.  Instead, we have said goodbye one more time.  Today is the day we so looked forward to, and recently, it has become the day that I dreaded.  To know that it was time for you to come home.  Time for you to become part of our family.  You will forever be part of my heart, never be forgotten by me, your daddy or your family.

This is the first time that I have written in the blog since your diagnosis.  I started the other blog in hopes that you would make it, that it wouldn't be so bad and that we could take you home and you would be healthy.  I was hoping that I would keep that blog to update our family on your progress, your surgeries and your health.  I haven't been back to that blog since.  I want to, though...maybe I'll read it later.  It's not like I have to be reminded, though.  I remember everything about that day...when we found out that your little heart would hold so much pain...crying for hours that afternoon.  Daddy and I laid on the couch and cried and cried that day.  I remember going to the ultrasound, hearing what the doctor had to say, meeting in the room with her.  Memere was there too.  She cried along with us.  We did the amniocentisis and we found out several days later that chromosomally, you were perfect.  But your heart was broken.  Too broken for us to fix it.  We couldn't put you through that pain.

The day that you became an angel and the days leading up to it were horrible.  They marked our paperwork at the hospital as "Unwanted Pregnancy."  Which couldn't have been farther from the truth.  We wanted you so badly.  We still do.  We wish that you were arriving (or already have arrived!) soon.  We just couldn't let you feel the pain of the short life you were bound to live.  The night before you became an angel, I could feel you kicking me.  All night.  I apologized to you all night long.  I'm sorry, I'm so so sorry is all I kept telling you.  I tried to tell you that we were doing what we thought was best for you, even if it meant that you would never be an "outside baby," that would you only ever be an angel.  It meant that we would never hold you in our arms, but forever hold you in our hearts.

I want you to know that I think of you every day.  There is never a day that goes by that I don't think of you.  I think about what it was like when you were in my tummy.  What it felt like when we found out I was pregnant and the ultrasounds we saw of you.  When we found out that we were having a daughter.  We only ever saw you in the pictures.  We never saw you on the outside.  We couldn't bear to deliver you and hold you, knowing that you would never be alive, it would just hurt too much.  You were a beautiful baby in the pictures.  I often wonder what you would have been like if your heart didn't need to be fixed.  Would you have been like me?  Or like Daddy?  Would you have liked sports or been artsy?  Would you have been both? 

I hope you are safe, where ever you are.  I hope that you are with Grampa, and that he is holding you tight.  I hope that you got to meet your brother or sister, who was with us for just 7 weeks.  It's your job to take care of him or her...since you're a big sister now.  I hope that you understand what we did and why we did it.  It wasn't for us, it was for you.  To keep you safe and free from pain.  We love you more than anything in the world and we wish you were here with us.

Maybe someday we'll get to meet you.  I hope that when we do, you'll forgive us and still love us, knowing that our intentions were pure.  We needed you to be safe.  It was our first big decision as parents and it was a completely unfair decision for us to have to make.  We did the best we could with the information we had.  I hope that you will someday understand.  I will never, ever, ever stop loving you and wishing you were here.  You will always be my first born child, born on September 29, 2011.

I love you always and forever.

Love,
Mommy