Impending

Have such a twisted up anxious feeling in my stomach tonight. If this is any indication of how tomorrow is going to go, (Cayden's due date) I think I might have to just stay in bed. Is it going to feel like this for every big day that is coming up? Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years? I want to scream........you should be here with me right now. There should be a sweet white cradle in my room next to my bed instead of books on grieving on my nightstand. I don't want to learn whatever lesson I am supposed to be learning. I don't want to shoulder this pain. What I want is you.....my sweet dark haired boy to be in my arms. I would be singing to you and trying to keep your big brother from loving on you too roughly. I would be trying to figure out who you look like the most Daddy or Murray. I would be nursing you and worrying that you were getting enough milk. I would be inspecting your circumcision and belly button making sure they were healing well. I would be making everyone who dared step foot near you wash their hands twice. I would be guiding your big brother on how to be my helper. I would be watching you sleep for hours instead of sleeping. I would be. Right now I am not. Give me strength to get through the day.

Line from Greys

Grief may be a thing we all have in common but it looks different on everyone.
It isn't just death we have to grieve. It's life. It's loss. It's change.
And when we wonder why it has to suck so much sometimes, has to hurt so bad....
the thing we gotta try to remember is that it can turn on a dime.
That's how you stay alive, when it hurts so much you can't breath. that's how you survive.
By remembering that one day somehow, impossibly, you won't feel this way.
It won't hurt this much.
Grief comes in it's own time for everyone. In it's own way. So the best we can do, the best anyone can do is try for honesty.
The really crappy thing, the very worst part of grief is that you can't control it.
The best we can do is try to let ourselves feel it when it comes.
And let it go when we can.
The very worst part is the very minute you think you are past it, it starts all over again.
And always, every time it takes your breath away.
there are five stages of grief. They look different on all of us, but there are always five.
Denial. Anger. Bargaining. Depression. Acceptance.

This was the closing from the season opener of Greys Anatomy. Strange how descriptive it is of all of us lost baby mamas in our different ways. Strange also how my head can KNOW something but my heart simply won't. My heart feels like it will be shattered forever that I will never let the smile on my face reach my soul. I don't know where I fall in the clinical 5 stages of grief, and I suppose it doesn't really matter, it all seems to feel the same.

Cayden left me 7 weeks ago yesterday. Next Weds the 30th is his due date. Those are the facts. But when I lay here at night......my heart and soul search for him.......reach for him.......and all I am left to do is cling to the memory of him and ache for him.

mommy of an angel

So Weds was a brutal day. I spent so much of the day thinking what could have and should have been with Cayden. We had so many plans for our fall. Everything is different now than it should have been. But in the midst of this Malory from mommy of an angel sent me an email. She had taken the time to think of my son. She, of the same broken hearts club as me, thought of me, thought of Cayden and took time to celebrate his life. She wrote his name on a happy yellow balloon and released it to the heavens for my boy. My heart about burst when I saw the photos. There is a Swedish proverb that says "Shared joy is doubled joy. Sorrow shared is half sorrow". Knowing you are here with me, sharing our sorrow......it helps. Thank you Malory. Thank you.

http://mommyofanangel09.blogspot.com/2009/09/cayden-alexander.html

Thank you

I wanted to take a moment to thank all of the amazing women who have been helping me on this horrible journey of grief. Just when I feel lost and alone someone comes along, or comes in an email, or in my mailbox.......and lifts up my broken heart and wounded soul. Thank you can't begin to be enough.......but it's what I can do.
This is the bracelet my amazing friends Carmae and Brenda made for me. I wear this every single day like a badge of honor to be the mother of my boys.

This is from my friend Laura. I love the noise it makes when I move. It makes me think of my sweet boy every time I hear it.


This is from Debbie at For Your Tears........she makes these hankies and sends them to mothers who have lost their babies. It is such a wonderful gesture......and will be well loved and used by me.

To all of these wonderful, supportive women.......your gifts have come just when I needed them most. I thank you. I appreciate you. You hold me up.

Today should have been the day

I was due Sept 30th and my original OB had me on her schedule for today for my c-section. This was before everything went wrong. But in my perfect world.....I would be a the hospital meeting my precious angel today.......not the 5th of August and not for only 3 days. But my aching heart is proof this is not a perfect world.
Eric and Murray and I want to release some balloons again today. My son must have the biggest bouquet of balloons in heaven.
Damnit I miss him.

it's only on the surface

I went to my cousins 18th birthday party tonight. She is filipino so it was a pretty big deal, semi formal dinner dance. Alot of my cousins were there and my fav Aunt and Uncle. Murray was doing his charming little thing dancing and having a big time. I love to watch him.....he has such joy and charisma. It came to me though tonight, my smile and happiness is only on the surface. It doesn't begin to touch my heart and soul, that is a dark and broken place that happiness hasn't found it's way back to.
There were helium balloons and Murray being 3 played with them all night and took one with him when we left. I thought he was going to take it home.......but he let it go......sent it up to heaven to his baby brother Cayden. What would I do without this sweet honery little man?
6 weeks ago tonight was our last time together Cayden. I held you to my chest all night skin to skin. I watched you breath and traced the lines of your face. And tonight.........tonight........tonight just sucks. I miss you so much I want to scream. Instead I will curl up between your Daddy and your big brother and try to remember every thing and every moment I had with you.

Bad Day

Had a bad day today. Eric and I just aren't connecting at all. He is quiet and I think something must be bugging him that he isn's sharing with me. I had to go to my 6 week post partum and being in that parking lot, that building, that office.........I cried the whole time. I had to fill out the post partum depression form wich asks how old your baby is. I wrote in big capital letters HE SHOULD BE 6 WEEKS TODAY. Then came all the questions, am I sleeping? NO. Am I crying YES. how much ALOT. Am I happy? NO. do i see the joy in things like i did before ? ah hell no. things like that. So they had me come into the nurses office to be sure i am not depressed on top of overwhelming sadness i keep with me at all times. the nurse practioner turns out to be a friend of my family and was very very kind and positve. a little weird getting a pap and breast exam from someone you have had family funtions with,,,but comforting too.
So anyway Eric and I had planned a date night......got a sitter........going to go to a movie and dinner and then come home to "reconnect as it were". But I was off and he was off sending me further off..........tears sitting right at the surface. I guess I am just not strong enough for the two of us to be off. So no reconnection tonight at all.......in fact pretty far away from each other right now. He is watching baseball and I am 1 1.2 ambiens into leaving for the night, murray is trying valiently to cheer me up with hugs and love. I know this kid will save my life. I love him for everything that he is. i miss cayden for everything he was and would have been.

You are near me

Most amazing thing happened while we were camping. I was walking through the campground with Murray and a friends 6 year old daughter Emma who knows all about what yellow butterflies mean to me. I look down in the dirt........in the dirt.........and shining up at me is this metallic yellow butterfly. I showed it to both kids and Murray of course said "butterflies make you happy mama" and sweet Emma (who shoos any yellow butterflies she sees back to me by telling them "shoo shoo, hurry go to Cristin so she will know you are ok"). This just completely astounded me. I know in my heart it was a message from Cayden. I believe he was telling me to keep going the path I am trying to take. Keep trying to find my way to happiness and he will be with us. I am trying sweet Cayden, I am trying. For you and for Murray.

I feel you Cayden

I went camping this last weekend with my parents and brother and sister in law, my nieces, some friends and Murray. It was bittersweet to say the least. I wasn't sure when we talked about this camping trip if I would be able to do it, as I would have been 2 weeks away from the scheduled c-section for Cayden. We all know how that turned out. booooo
At any rate it was a really great trip. I felt so connected to Murray, like I haven't been in soo long. I know he has felt it. Even when I am here with him, trying to concentrate on him, part of me is elsewhere. But this weekend I was all his and he ate it up. We took a hike "mama, you hike? you can hike mama??" and he was so happy. I felt a glimmer of my old happy self coming through. Of course then I started to feel guilty and sad. How could I be happy. How could I laugh and have fun when my baby was gone?? But.......I suppose it was a small step to the new version of me. I told a woman I know this weekend that Murray is depending on me, and not just for his pb&js. But for his life, for a happy life. He needs me to be a mama who is there with him and for him and his daddy. I guess this weekend was one step in that direction.

5 weeks

Sweet Cayden, 5 weeks ago today you were born. 5 weeks ago tonight you were in the NICU hooked to too many tubes and wires, but you were alive my angel. 5 weeks ago right now I had such hope for you winning your battle. 5 weeks ago tonight I had no idea how much pain I would be in. 5 weeks from today I will miss you just as much as I do right now.

Bad Day

Couldn't sleep at all last night. Just couldn't shut my mind off. Kept replaying little moments of the time I had with Cayden over and over and over. Kept trying to remember every single little detail about him, about our time together. And so this put me over the edge.........was still wide awake when Eric got up for work and then the tears started and wouldn't stop. Was up at 730 with Murray. Needless to say this has not been the most stable emotion days for me. Trying to go to bed now and catch up on some sleep but I think my boy Murray is getting sick so he is whinnnneeeeyyyy and NOTHING will make him happy. Arent' we a pair tonight my boy.

internet

not sure if all this internet is a good and helpful thing for me. I have been devouring the internet looking for support, help, something. I don't even know what I am trying to find, all I know is I won't find Cayden there. I have been reading Trying to Conceive stuff on Babycenter and Loss in 2nd 3rd trimester stuff and devouring other womens blogs. Part of me takes solace in other women knowing my heart and my pain but it scares the sh*t out of me too........alot of these wonderful women are a wreck years down their road. I do not want to still be a wreck that far down the road. I am only a month out........today..........my Cayden slipped away 4 weeks ago today and my pain is very real and raw and I don't see an end in sight..........but I know I will find my way back to some sort of happiness. I know this because I am a mother.........and Murray is depending on me to guide him through this life and he deserves all of me or at least the best that's left of me. So I will keep putting one foot in front of the other, putting on a brave face when it's needed and sneaking away on occasion to cry my heart out for the child I am missing. And someday down this road I will feel honest happiness and know that it's how it should be and know that I am who Cayden would want me to be. I will never ever not miss him or long for him or feel the empty spot in our family, but it doesn't honor him for me to lay down and quit. I will be a new version of me.......and if I have learned anything from other womens blogs......I can be a pretty good version of the old me. I hope it will be enough, I hope and pray I do right by Murray and Cayden. I hope when I get to heaven Cayden will hug me and say "good job mama, I knew you could do it".

preschool

Murray started preschool officially today. My poor little prince was trying so hard to be brave. I woke him up with breakfast in bed (scrambled egg with cheese cuz Amo said he needed protein) and grape juice. He was excited at first, then thought better of it and got upset. We made a deal that I would take him somewhere fun after school which of course didn't end up happening, but that was his choice. So he decided it would be ok to go to preschool with endless promises that mama would come get him when it was over cuz mama was too old to go to preschool. Then as soon as we pulled up to school the tears started rolling in........he was wiping his eyes and trying to hard NOT to cry it almost made me cry right then and there. Took him in and when I started to leave.....he started to get upset. The teacher grabbed him and gave me the nod to go. Barely made it to the car and lost it. The tears were on free flow. Came home and got Caydens blanket out of the tupperware in the closet to smell him and really let the tears flow. Cayden would have been 4 weeks old today, or should have still been safely inside me still waiting till the 23rd when the doc planned to take him and Murray was at preschool........where he didn't HAVE to be. I don't work.......he doesn't have to go. About an hour in the head lady at the school called to tell me he was fine........no tears......no questions of when it was over.......just playing, painting and having a great time. I sure wish the head guy from heaven could call me and tell me the same thing about Cayden.

obsession

Eric just mentioned (and of course I didn't think about it at all until now, and now I can't quit thinking about it) that he wishes we would have had our photographer from Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep get a family photo of us. I don't know if she did or not........but now it seems it's the only thing I want. Seems lately that's all I do is want things I can't have.
Before I went to bed last night I looked through all the text messages I have on my phone.......from when I was in the hospital and Cayden was still with me, then I looked through all the photos on my phone of him. Pretty much cried myself to sleep and it feels like it's going to be a tough emotional day for me today.
They said there would be days like this.