Hardly

Dear Addison,

Today would have been your birthday. Your Daddy had a flight booked to arrive at midnight on Friday the 12th. He would have spent that next day with your Grammie and Pop-Pop and then he would have traveled down here to see me and your "Biiiiiiiiig sister!"

We toyed with the idea of inducing on Monday, but I think we would have opted for today because that way your "Biiiiiiiiig sister!" would have been in school, something consistent, during part of the labor.

Instead I delivered you on October 28th. I don't think of it as a birthday. You didn't get a birthday. They don't call it death either, because in order for there to be a date for that you have to have been born, alive, first.

You actually died sometime during the night of Thursday, October 21st and Friday, October 22nd. It was probably in the wee hours of the morning on the 22nd. I know this because I felt it happen. I won't go into it now because I'm not ready to share that with everyone. I am not saying that I felt it like a "gut feeling" type of thing, though. I mean that I actually felt you fight for your life and lose.

Inside of me.

Then I carried you, dead, for a week.

Inside of me.

In one day, you were here...only not really.

I delivered you, but you were not born.

You died, but you did not live.

I get the best and the worst of this situation. I am the only one who knew you in life. I felt you move and kick and poke and flip. I knew you, in a tiny way, before anyone else.

And yet I didn't know you. I'll never know you.

I also knew first that you were gone. You stopped moving, you fought and lost and I had to carry you that way while we waited for a "good" time to deliver you.

There really isn't a good time for that, you know.

Today would have been your birthday. We would have gone to the hospital anxious to meet you. We would have been tired but so happy when you arrived. We would have heard you cry and I would have fed you and we would have held you and smelled your new baby smells.

None of that will ever be.

Today I went to the funeral home because your certificate was ready. The one that says that you cease to exist. It doesn't say that you were born and it doesn't say that you died. It just says that you are gone.

And that you belong to me.

I am your mother;
I carried you in life and death;
I brought you into the world;
I gave you the best farewell I could manage.

Your absence belongs to me.

I have to own that. I have to make that part of me. Instead of giving birth to you and taking you home I have a piece of paper. It is hardly sufficient. I don't even really want it. And yet I desperately want it because it is one of only a very few things of yours that I will ever have. We will never make memories with you. We will not be a family together. I will never care for you or teach you.

You'll never have a birthday.

Just a piece of paper.

It is hardly sufficient.

Memorial for Addison Leigh

Hello there.  I have some information regarding a memorial for Addison.  We've had people tell us they are interested in participating.  I cannot remember exactly who told me they are interested, so I have decided to post about it here and link to it via facebook. Hopefully between this and email we can let everyone know.  Please do not feel like you have to participate; many of you have already helped us greatly and we very much appreciate all that you have done.

We met with a professor at Virginia Western Community College, located here in Roanoke, Virginia.  There is a community arboretum on the grounds and within that arboretum is a children's garden.  We plan to put an educational memorial in that garden.  At this time we are thinking of a kinetic wind sculpture (video at bottom of page) as well as a child-sized bench to match the adult ones already present in the area.  I also like the idea of wind chimes being placed somewhere in the garden and if we have the resources I think that we will do that as well.

I cannot guarantee that this is the final verdict on what will be done; I do know that we really like the idea in general and these items in particular.  When a final decision has been made we will be sure to tell everyone the outcome.

If you would like to take part in the memorial, checks made out to The Community Arboretum and designated Addison Leigh Memorial can be sent to this address:

The Community Arboretum

P.O.Box 14007

Roanoke, VA 24038-4007

Any donations made can be claimed for tax purposes under the same category as a donation made to a college or university.

I know that not everyone keeps up with us here on the blog and that there are plenty who do not have a facebook account.  If you know that I have missed someone, please feel free to forward this information along.  I don't want anyone to think that we forgot them.

Again, thank you to everyone for your prayers and support; we are stronger and capable of getting through this because of our wonderful friends and family.  Please contact me if you have any questions.

Name That Movie

Now I look like I've gone and had a really bad boob job. I'd say about three sizes too big. I mean, people, I don't even have to bend over to have some spectacular cleavage. If you know me, then you know this is far from normal.

While the added...oomph...might normally be appreciated, there is no relief in sight. Right now they are taking the physical form of rocks. And by that I mean hard as.

Painful does not even begin to describe the situation.

It definitely gives a whole new meaning to the phrase "Over-the-shoulder boulder-holder."

Surely you know what movie that one is from?

Complete One-Eighty

Last Tuesday I went to my doctor's office for a check-up and ultrasound.  I had gained four pounds in the last two weeks (ack!), but everything else was great.  I got to see the little one all crammed in there.  The heart was beating at about 145 and the weight was about 5 and a half pounds.  Also, we finally found out that we were going to have another little girl.

Then the doctor asked if I'd like her to check me and I said go ahead.  I was already dilated to a 2 and 50% effaced....at which point she told me I probably wouldn't make it past 36 or 37 weeks.

Um, hello?  I was 35 weeks and 4 days at that appointment.

Jeepers Creepers.

So, I came home, called Rocket Man over in Russia and shared the news.  Then we told Miss Thing that she would have a baby sister.  Oh, was that good, because she told us "Just like me!"

On Wednesday I took her with me to shop for some clothing.  We looked all over the store and purchased a bunch of items.  Some were for now and some for months down the line since we'd need to take about a year worth of clothing back with us.

Miss Thing kept going back to a pair of newborn pajamas with snowmen on them.  She would take them off of the hanger and bring them to me and put them on her "baby sister".  They were "Juuuuust right!"

Thursday or Friday sometime Rocket Man and I talked on the webcam and I was able to show him everything that I had purchased.  I had two sets of matching pajamas, one for winter/Christmastime and one with a polar bear, which is appropriate for Russia...whether they live there or not.  I told him that in the next few days we would need to get the portable crib out here and pack bags and do all of those things since Saturday I would be 36 weeks and the doctor thought I might not last much past then.

Friday evening I noticed that she wasn't moving around as much, but her back was most definitely facing out and when this happened earlier in the pregnancy it just meant that all of the movement was much more difficult to sense.  Saturday morning was the same, so I broke all of the rules of Gestational Diabetes dieting and drank part of a real soda (egads!) to see if that would make her move a bit more.

We headed up to the pumpkin patch with Miss Thing that morning (post and photos to come) and I was walking around the whole time.  I still wasn't really feeling much, so when we returned I headed to the doctor.

I got to the hospital and they took me to a room and tried to find a heartbeat.  The nurse said she was getting blips here and there but she wanted a doctor to check because she wasn't sure that it wasn't me that she was picking up.  He came in and hooked up an ultrasound machine and there she was on there.  Looking absolutely perfect with all of her body parts...

...except that one wasn't moving.

There I was, 36 weeks, with a completely formed baby who looked great and who could absolutely survive outside of the womb at that stage...

...except she couldn't.

It had been four days since I had seen her little heart working and pumping.  Less since I had felt her moving, since I had poked on my belly and she had poked right back.

Everything changed.

All of our plans to accommodate bringing this little piece of us into our lives were suddenly void.

Instead I was calling Rocket Man and waking him in the wee hours of the morning to tell him that I was at the hospital and not for the reason we all thought I would be.  Instead of telling him exciting and happy news I had to devastate him.

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We are doing well, all things considered.  There is no explanation; there are no answers.  I am okay with that.  This thing, this event that is now taking place is not one anyone wants to experience, but it happens.  It just...happens.

Right now I am scheduling the necessary occasions: labor, delivery, meeting our little girl, burial.  Aside from meeting her, I am really not looking forward to much of it...and even that will be a mixed bag of emotions.

We are planning to induce on Thursday morning.  We will have a viewing on Saturday morning and will go straight from there to the graveside for a short service.

*********

I am sure that I will write about this more; it will help me.  I don't know what I will say and I imagine it will run the gamut.  I'll try to remember to put a disclaimer or something up so that if anyone doesn't want to read it they don't have to.

In my opinion, this is very much about whatever someone needs, which is how I feel about all of this.  If someone feels like they need to cry, so be it.  If they need to scream, that is fine.  If they just need to be there or if they need to not be there - whatever is needed and everyone is different.  None of it will bother or upset us at all because in a situation like this, what else can you do besides react however you need to?

We've all gone from anticipating a very happy event to now anticipating something that is unthinkable.  It is definitely a complete reversal and extremely surreal.

I'll write again when I can.  Or maybe just when I need to.

Hello from Tokyo!

This is a game called "Dee Dah, Dee Dah, DAH!" that Miss Thing has been playing with her Daddy and her Tokyo Souvenir, which she named Patches.

Enjoy and I'll hopefully post soon from the states!