Angel Memories

This is my first blog post.  From the advice of a dear friend, I am going to try this out.  This will probably be all over the place and I apologize for that.  Two years and 8 months ago I lost my 32 day old daughter.  Her passing was sudden and unexpected.  It happened at 4:00am and the memory of it is still as fresh today as it was then.  Since her passing I have devoted my life to my family and work.  I have a daughter that is 5 and a son that is 14 months.  These 2 adorable creatures are my life.  I don't know who has experienced the passing of a child but it is a fight every day.  Even today I feel detached to the world around me.  As time passes, it becomes easier to try to integrate myself back into the world.  Some days are better than others and some days I am just weak.  Waking up panicking that my children aren't breathing is a nightly ritual.  Waking up screaming call 911 is starting to fade but it still invades my nights.  Sometimes I just don't have the strength to fight the tears and the ache that consumes me.

When my son came, I was over joyed but I spent the first year with a baby monitor attached to my ear and a panic that was always haunting me.  Every little breath was monitored and forcing myself to NOT get out of bed and check on him every 5 minutes was a struggle.  I had to try and let go a little.  Resolve myself to the fact that some things are just out of my control.  At a month old my son got RSV.  He was in the ICU for 2 weeks with a breathing tube and respirator.  He came through with flying colors but that set the panic in even more.  We almost lost him too but thank goodness, he is still here and thriving.

Now I have found out that I am pregnant again.  This is fabulous news but the panic is setting in again.  It has been almost 3 years since my daughter arrived and then left.  Many people around me don't know what a mother goes through when a child is lost.  This is a pain that I am going to feel for the rest of my life.  There are days that I can actually feel my heart ache and it hurts.  The ache goes through my body and I just want to crumble.  I have this constant thought that I need to be strong and fight it so hard.  I need to just let myself feel and crumble.  It seems that people have forgotten.  I know they haven't but if you haven't been through this you don't know.  I don't want people to forget.  The selfish side of me wants her to be remembered.  I remember the morning she passed I was staring out of the car window on the way home from the hospital and I was thinking "how can the world go on???  Don't they know that a sweet baby has left this world?".

I just need to know that there are people out there that understand my pain.  I am not alone.  I am not asking for allowances because of what I have been through, but sometimes I am weak.  I miss her.  When the pain of missing her hits me, it takes the wind out of me.  I can't breath, I can't think, I can't do anything.  I can tell spring is coming because she is in my thoughts more and more each day.  I hate this time of the year.  A time that is supposed to be happy, flowers are blooming, the winter grumps are fading, the days are longer and warmer, and all I want to do is hide.