Thanks!

Thank you for all your kind comments to my post yesterday. It made me feel a little better to finally come out and say what I've been feeling for so long. I guess her due date affected me more than I thought it would.

She is in the best possible place. I know that. In the cemetary where she is buried she is surrounded by family.

I was just being selfish by wanting her here with me.

Just in case you haven't sen it yet...

A new day

Yesterday was strange. It's hard to celebrate and/or grieve a day that really means nothing in the whole scheme of things. But yet it's there hanging on to the edge of my thoughts. I had a mornign meeting at work and then because it ran late I had to rush to my Peri for another appointment. In the midst of all that the haunting "It should be like this..." kind of thoughts kept pushing their way in to my mind. I haven't done that for a long time.

T didn't remember what day it was and I didn't mention it to him. We had a long talk recently - he thinks it's unhealthy to give so much power to dates. So I let him remember things in his way and I remember in mine. No hard feelings - just a mutual respect of the fact that we are very different people with very different approaches to life. (Believe me - this has take us a LONG time to figure out, but it works)

We live three hours away from where Ellie is buried so I didn't get to go visit her grave. That makes me a little sad. I wish she was here with me, that she was always within reach.

After she died I wish someone had talked to me (us) about our options. Everyone who I've ever known who died got buried. It didn't even occur to me that we could have her cremated so that her ashes could come home with us.

I'm not from the area where I currently live and neither is my husband. So a local cemetary wasn't really an option for us - because who knows how long we will live here. So we chose to have our daughter buried at the church where T grew up. In the plot next to his grandparents. It's a perfect place for her to be - except for the fact that I wish she wasn't there.

There are so many things that I wish had happened differently - I've learned to accept most of them because they were completely out of my control. But this is something that I just can't let go of.

Some days it easily slips from my mind - but then there are days like today that I wish I had more than a wilted flower and some tiny footprints on a card in a decorative box to hold onto.

The day that should have been...

Today should be Ellie's 1st birthday. But instead she's been gone for almost 16 months. There is still and always will be an empty place in our lives.

Who knows if she would have even been born on this date at all.

I wish we had had the chance to find out.

Welcome to this world

Introducing Molly Ann! She was born on 5/12/09. She is the brand new grand daughter of my dear friend and boss. Welcome to this world little one!

Questions...

Happy Friday! A always gets so excited to know it's Friday - brcause she's learned that Friday means Saturday and Sunday come next!

I have a couple of questions that I'm hoping someone out there can help me with...

1. What is the best way to cook and eat Dandelion Greens and Swiss Chard? We got both of these in our veggie share this week and I have no idea what to do with them. I tried to wing it with the beet greens last week - but that didn't turn out very well so I'm hoping that you guys have some good ideas for me. I hate to let them go to waste.

2. When is the best time to prune roses? Ours are out of control tall and really look strange but I don't want to kill them. They are one of the few things that grow in our yard.

9w6d

This week our blurry little blob is measuring right on for our original due date of 12/11/09. The US machine was being difficult today so we didn't get any good pictures but heartbeat was great, placenta looked low - but the US tech said that was normal for this early in a pregnancy, and BP was AWESOME 116/68.

So why don't I feel better yet? I constatnly feel like I'm just waiting for the other shoe to drop. T is over the moon with excitement. He was all smiles this morning after our appointment. I'm just not there yet I guess. It feel like there are just to many things that can still go wrong. Everyday I wonder if something has happened that I can't feel yet. Did I eat enough protein - did I drink enough water...

Today was a bittersweet appointment. It's kind of a long explanation - sorry... The perinatal clinic that I go to is about 1 hour away at a major teaching hospital - but they have a satellite clinic in our local hospital on Monday's and Thursday's. My MFM has set it up so that I can go for most of my appointments locally. Which is so nice of her to accomodate me like that - but it means that I have to see who ever is at the satellite clinic that day. Not a problem, for the most part. But today was hard. The MFM from my pregnancy with Ellie was there today. Don't get the wrong idea - I love her. I could not have asked for a better Dr to help me through such a horrible situation. When I was laying on the US bed and I heard who the Dr. was I just started to cry. All kinds of hard painful memories came flooding back. She came in and gave me a big hug and said how happy she was to see us again. Everything looked great today for this baby - but I was still lost in the memories of everything that wasn't right the last time. I guess I'm still trying to sort out the ghosts of pregnancies past before I can accept the present.

Another U/S tomorrow

Don't you just love the beautiful flowers I got for Mother's day. A & T picked them from our back yard. It may look like we have some sort of garden - but really it's just a glorified weed patch that happens to have a few brave flowers that poke their heads up every so often.

It's only Wednesday and already this feel like a long week. I have been so tired in the afternoons that I am pretty much useless after about 2pm. It makes my drive home miserable.

I have my second US tomorrow. I'm hoping things still look good - but trying not to assume that they will. But the good news is that my BP has been completely NORMAL since my appointment last week. (huge sigh of relief). Hopefully I'll have some pictures after tomorrow's appointment.