Since the 2015 holiday season has begun this quote has become the theme of our lives: Life was so different this time last year...
While I became pregnant in May of 2014, I didn't start showing or feeling the baby move consistently until late September. So my memories as a mommy-to-be of "this time last year" really started to become strong as Halloween approached. For a parent of infant loss, holidays are the kind of days that start to foster anxiety well before the day is here because they elicit the "what should be" feelings.
Halloween of 2014 was the weekend Heath and I spent in North Carolina for our Babymoon which is the new-age term for the final vacation a couple spends together before their lives are forever changed and locked down by the responsibilities of having a baby to care for. The irony of spending a babymoon together became extremely painful for me to relive this year. On our babymoon, I was 24 weeks pregnant, officially past the halfway point and we had seen a beautiful, healthy baby on the anatomy scan at week 20 with a worry-free follow-up ultrasound planned for week 28.
We were blissfully and naively excited to spend this alone time together over Halloween 2014. As expected, 2015 halloween broke my heart to think back to that couple that was making plans and dreaming about our new life that was about to start as a family of 3, to be daydreaming back then about how we would spend halloween together the next year as a family, showing off our cute little baby dressed up for his or her first trick-or-treating.
I couldn't bear to spend Halloween at home this year because I couldn't stand to open the door for happy families and perfect children being reminded every time the doorbell rang that we weren't out there walking our baby around door-to-door. There really isn't anywhere reasonable to hide from trick-or-treating so "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" and I decided to go along with our dear friends as their bigger kids trick-or-treated. I managed pretty well with the support of our dear friends that have compassion for the pain holidays cause us.
Then comes November. November is my birthday. We spent my 32nd birthday excitedly driving home to Wisconsin last year. I was 27 weeks pregnant and thrilled to spend time with my family celebrating our expectant baby with our first baby shower on November 22. My mom and sisters (with the help of my aunts and cousins) threw us the most gorgeous baby shower for our baby whose gender we did not yet know. The theme was celebrating the Prince or Princess the Kings were expecting. It was a very long time before I could stomach looking at my baby shower pictures again. It was too painful to relive the idea of all these people gathered in loving support of our expanding family-to-be, to review all of these precious gifts that people spent their time and money on to help us gather the supplies needed to raise a baby. To relive the gifts that, all too much, we would never get to use with our baby-to-be. In reliving memories of Millie, I eventually did open the folder with the babyshower pictures and was able to go through them about 2 months ago. As expected, I found it so hard to watch my baby-to-be celebrated with so many gifts that she would never get to use, to look at the glowing smile on my face as I obliviously celebrated our future life changes. But then I came across one picture--one single picture--that caught my breath in my throat, caused my heart to pound in my chest and tears to swell in my eyes.
This is the picture that stopped me in my tracks:
This onsie. This soft fleece, warm onsie. This onsie that has the moon and stars printed all over it. This onsie that I chose to put my daughter in when her failing heart was causing her days to get long and rough. This onsie I chose because it was so warm and cozy to comfort my sick baby girl. This onsie I chose to put her back in after her very first bath because she was so comfortable and warm in it.
This is the onsie my daughter would be wearing when she was wrapped up cozily in her daddy's arms and took her very last breath. This is the onsie she was wearing while I cuddled her for hours and hours more after her last breath was taken but before the funeral director came to our home. This is the onsie our daughter was wearing when she was placed in a carseat and then carried to the hearse in our driveway by her pawpaw Jerry. This is the onsie Heath and I would go to retrieve from the funeral home 1 week after we buried our daughter.
This is the onsie that still lies in the pack-n-play that is still set-up in our bedroom. This is the onsie that I could bury my face in to smell my daughter's sweet scent for a few more days after it came home but now I can only look at to remember just how tiny my baby was. This is the onsie with the moon and the stars on it that my daughter was wearing when she left this earthly world and joined her place in the heavenly sky.
perhaps they are not stars in the sky, but rather openings where our loved ones shine down to let us know they are happy --eskimo saying
I don't know who gifted us this onsie but it breaks my heart to think that there was a day when that person bought this sweet little gift for our baby-to-be and never in a million years could have predicted that this is the outfit the baby-to-be would one day pass away in. This is why my breath caught in my throat when I came across the picture of myself smiling and holding up the stars and moons fleece onsie. If only that girl in the picture would have known that she was holding up the onsie her daughter would take her last earthly breath in.
So this is the season we are in now--the what I didn't know 1 year ago. The dreams and plans that I had, as that girl one year ago, are nothing like what I could have imagined for the next year celebrating this 2015 holiday season.
December 1st was one year ago that we had the 28 week follow-up ultrasound where it was discovered that our baby's heart was enlarging. December 12 will be 1 year ago that I was admitted to the hospital and the doctors started preparing for an early delivery. December 13 is 1 year ago when we learned we were having a girl and named our daughter after the strongest women we know. December 16 will be 1 year ago when we learned about her vascular malformation and potential brain damage. And everyday going forward will be some sort of 1 year ago memory. The memory of a couple that 1 year ago was catapulted into parenthood before our baby was born as we started preparing for a very different future with a baby that was known to be sick, for a baby that had to have serious decisions made about almost every single day of our last 9 weeks of pregnancy.
As we approach Christmas this year, I mostly feel numb about the holiday I have traditionally loved and cherished so much. My Grandma Shirley is the main reason why I have always loved Christmas so much, so there is some comfort in knowing Millie gets to celebrate the birth of Jesus with our Lord and my Grandma (as well as Heath's mawmaw Alma who Heath also connects deeply with Christmas traditions). However, I have been struggling in this season. I have felt lost figuring out how to honor the Christmas traditions that I have always loved and how to continue to incorporate our daughter whose 1st Christmas will be spent in heaven instead of in our arms.
I have been able to set out some decorations, including a stocking for our special baby girl.
Today is the morning after which St. Nick would have visited our baby girl to fill her stocking with Christmas treats. This is a holiday I traditionally grew up celebrating with my sisters and this morning Millie's stocking is glaringly empty. Sure I could filled her stocking with gifts that St. Nick would have brought her if she were still here but that just doesn't work for me.
So I have thought long and hard about what would warm our hearts as we celebrate Christmas with our daughter in heaven and as we quickly prepare our hearts to celebrate her first birthday one short month thereafter.
This Christmas season, it would warm our hearts if we could fill her stocking this year. I don't necessarily want to fill it with gifts she'll never get to experience. Instead, we would be honored to fill her stocking with letters. Letters from you, those of you who chose to write to Millie about whatever fills your heart. Maybe it's memories of her you hold near and dear to your heart, maybe it is things in everyday life that remind you of her, maybe it is the way she has touched your life, maybe it is something she inspired you to do differently this past year, maybe it is something you have done in honor of her. If you feel compelled to share, we would be honored to fill Millie's stocking with letters from you. Then as her 1st birthday and 23 days of life are celebrated and relived in our memories we will be able to further celebrate her time here on earth and how she continues to fill our hearts by reading your letters.
I will then create a scrapbook of sorts and/or compiled post to share the ways in which Millie has touched the lives of others, to show how her time here on Earth has been of purpose.
If you are interested in contributing and need our address please email me at lissawied@gmail.com. If a letter is not your thing but you are inspired in a different way to express Millie's impact on your life then please share in whatever way moves you.
Heath and I are beyond Thankful for the gift of Millie, for becoming parents, for the love and support of so many family and friends in our lives. We are so blessed in way too many ways to even begin to cover but love, faith and relationships are at the top of that list.
Merry Christmas to you and your family with extra blessings from heaven this holiday season
