And she lived to tell the tale.

I totally survived the baby shower. I ROCKED the damn baby shower. Okay, maybe not. But really it was fine in the end. It could have been a lot weirder than it was, I think.

Everyone had a good time; there were no silly games (apologies to those who enjoy silly games at baby showers – I do not. I feel that doing things like guessing how long a piece of string needs to be to fit around the pregnant person cannot POSSIBLY win you any friends. But that is my hang up.). There was some silly discussion (“My baby won’t even EAT white bread!”) and things that had me rolling my eyes, but overall it was fine. We even did talk about Oliver a bit at the end, and that was okay too – the truth is I *like* talking about him; I *like* bringing him up. I don’t always do it with the most grace, but you know – I think I’m even getting better at that as time goes on.

You know what? I think we should leave the baby shower conversation in the dust now . I feel like I’ve done a totally crappy job of explaining why it was hard or why I was having trouble with it, and….anyway. It doesn’t really matter. It’s over; it wasn’t so bad. I didn’t get the thing I guess I was secretly hoping for (something along the lines of “Gee christy, I wanted to tell you how sorry I am about that but it didn’t seem right to do in email or on the phone so I waited until I saw you in person” from my friend) but in my more magnanimous moments I can fully appreciate that baby death is bloody hard for a lot of people – as it should be – and maybe some people simply can’t figure out what to do or say.

In other news, this pregnancy is still ticking along and I remain so impossibly hopeful that things are going to go well this time. We have the Big Scans next week – anatomy scan in which they will make darn sure to really examine the placenta, and then a cardiac exam in which I am HOPING to find out there is no problem. The heart defect Oliver had carries something like a less than 1% chance of recurrence, but you know – once you’ve beaten the odds the wrong way you kind of hate to count on them too much. Oh, and we should find out if the pea is a boy or a girl. I can’t decide for sure what I think – this pregnancy is much more like my pregnancy with my daughter in terms of symptoms and things, but I don’t know.

Anyway, the scans are Feb 16. (And yes, for those following along at home, that is the day after what should have been Oliver’s first birthday. Wicked!) I definitely appreciate any and all prayers, good wishes, positive vibes, and anything else any of you want to throw out there in the universe for us. To be clear, what we’re shooting for here is:

* NO placenta previa. No no and a thousand times no.

* NO placenta accreta (apparently a fun thing you get to also worry about after a previous previa and c section).

* NO heart defects.

* NO abnormalities, issues, chromosomal problems, anything else (to be clear, Oliver didn’t have any of these – I just figure if we’re wishing for stuff lets go big, yes?).

What we are going for is a completely normal healthy placenta with a healthy full term (eventually) baby attached to it. Amen.

So hey, a couple of you asked me the GTA question last time. The answer is, sort of! I am in Ontario, yes. I live in a city that rhymes with Shmottawa now (HAH! I’m so secretive. Please don’t stalk me or hunt down my daughter okay? Do feel free to drop by for coffee if you like.), but my parents are still east of Toronto, and that’s where the baby shower was.

I shall report back after the scans on the 16th……..eeeep.

Baby Shower: Wheeeee.

So I am here, at my parents house, cheerily helping my mother and my old friend’s mother get ready for the baby shower that we are throwing her on Saturday. Have not seen old friend – she doesn’t live here. To recap for those who are new here, this girl was my best friend in the world from, oh, birth until sometime after university where circumstances and life more than anything kind of pulled us in different directions. (She moved up north and married a guy up there; I went to Boston for awhile). This is the friend who was in my wedding, and I in hers. This is also the friend who – despite knowing what had happened – did not call, write, email, or otherwise acknowledge Oliver’s death.

I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t struggling with this. We all have these stories – of friends or family who let us down in spectacular ways after losing our kids. I should be thankful, I suppose, that the person who let me down in this case wasn’t someone I counted on as part of my regular support network.

Anyway. My mom offered to host the shower because of the friendship with her mom, and I totally get that – and support it. It’s why I’m here really. But it doesn’t change the fact that I am dreading Saturday, at least a little bit. I hope it will be better than I thought it would be.

So; I am here making cookies and asparagus rolls and trying to amuse my three year old. It’s not all bad by any stretch – it’s nice to spend some time with my family and we took Ani to the science museum today which was a lot of fun. I just feel like there’s this shadow growing over Saturday and I’m trying so hard not to be swallowed by it. I keep getting hit with random stuff like “(friend) has only gained 18lbs!” or “Friend refuses to eat any processed food while she’s pregnant.” GREAT. Good for her. Or something.

I need suggestions people – I can’t drink, (what with the pregnant thing – which continues to go pretty well I think, by the way) and I need to figure out a way to get through this. I’m open to anything – ideas? Conversationally bringing up my dead son with all of the shower guests? (Nah, no reason to dishonor him or be rude really – that’s not fair). Surreptitiously grind up some really processed lunch meat and add it to the crab dip?

Agh. I don’t want to be rude really; I am being snarky here but it’s not what I want to do in real life. I just want to get through it without feeling let down again. But I’m not sure what I want from her either. An acknowledgment I guess. For her to say “Hey, I’m sorry this happened to you – it sucks.” Something anyway….not nothing.

Anyone live in the GTA and feel like crashing a baby shower?? There will be crab dip and snark!

Hiatus, Unintentional.

Pardon me while I take a minute and dust off this blog. Hello? Is this thing on?

Wheeeee.

So, I know I disappeared for a while – kind of a long while actually. I didn’t mean to. It was one of those things where I was wrestling with some things and it caught me off guard. And then some stuff happened and then some more stuff happened and then….then I was wrestling with DIFFERENT things but I didn’t know how to put those things all together and then it became one of those things where there was simply too much and too much old back story to pick up the thread again and write here.

But the thing is, I missed it here and I didn’t want to just walk off into the sunset and let this fall to nothing. So I am back. I think. And I will fill in some of the back story so that when I start my next verbal wrestling match it makes some amount of sense. (Note: I did say *some*. At least there will be context – that’s a good thing, right?).

After we got back from the beaches in October I hit a bit of a low. Not a long one, and not something that flattened me – I wasn’t even particularly depressed about Oliver or anything – just kind of sad in general. It was triggered I think by the H1N1 outbreak, and hearing about a young girl who died in the hospital where Oliver died. And I know – it’s a children’s hospital; one of the best in the province. And the nature of that is that there are kids who will die there. I know there were probably way too many before Oliver died and have been way too many since. But all I could think about when I heard about the eleven year old dying was “Oh God, I know.” I mean, I obviously have no CLUE what the pain is of losing an older child. I can’t begin to fathom what it’s like to lose not only the potential of a future, but the memories – the loss of a person who you will miss whose life is cut way too short. But I do know that the hard part for her parents wasn’t watching her slip away no matter how hard that was. It was standing up – whenever that happened – and walking out of the hospital. That is the part that haunts me; the part I can’t erase. The part where I had to put him down and physically force myself to leave. To walk away, knowing I wouldn’t be back and there was no reason for me to go back. I felt for those parents so acutely.

That put me in a bit of a funk for a bit – and lit a fire under me to get myself and my people vaccinated (done and done). I also put my (now blessedly defunct) professional writing career to good use and wrote a trifold for my doctor’s office explaining the deal with H1N1 and what to do; where to go for information; etc. And then some other dr’s offices in other parts of the province got wind of it and requested copies tailored for their regions, so I did that too. It was fun in the end.

So then the stuff happened. The stuff is simply that I am pregnant again. I am a little nervous but mostly just freakishly happy. It just feels so completely like its own thing – it’s connected to Oliver, a little, but it’s not at the same time – it’s not a repeat of my pregnancy with him any more than my pregnancy with him was a repeat of my pregnancy with Anika. So I’m moving forward in faith and hoping for the best. I’m fifteen and a half weeks now and have had two ultrasounds so far – so far things look good. They won’t rule out a previa this early (Lord, please no), but it’s looking good so far. I have a detailed anatomy scan on the 16th of Feb and a cardiac ultrasound as well, and if both of those things are normal then I “graduate” from being high risk to being a regular old pregnancy. I am obviously praying pretty hard for that outcome – but I’m trying to really stay in the moment and be joyful about where I am at any given moment. So for today, I’m fifteen and a half weeks. Yesterday, on my birthday, I felt the baby move for the first time and I am feeling pretty good.

So I guess that brings me to the bigger and current dilemma and that is what to do with this space. I want this blog to be about my life – the big catastrophic event but also the regular life stuff. Because of when I started it and what happened so soon after this blog became (necessarily) about Oliver; about losing him; about picking up the pieces; and about missing him. And now….now. Now it still needs to be that, sometimes. But not all the time. Because in so many ways, I feel like I’m letting him go – not in a bad way; not forgetting him; but releasing him and releasing him with joy. I LOVED him. He was my son and of course I’d give anything to have him here but he’s not here. He’s free; he’s somewhere else and I’m happy for him. I’m happy he was part of my life, even if it was brief. I’m happy that for the rest of my life he is my son. I believe, fervently, that I will be with him again one day in Heaven. I sincerely believe that. And I don’t know if that’s why I’m feeling more at peace with things or if there’s some other reason….I worry about it, actually. It seems like there are so many people who take a much longer time to let go, and I worry that I’m somehow rushing a process that can’t be rushed or trying to “sweep something under the carpet” somehow. I don’t think I am really; I think that what I would tell someone else writing this is “everyone has their road to travel; whatever that road is. Your road is your own and it will take what it takes.” But when it’s yourself you are second guessing it’s so much harder. So I guess what I’m wrestling with is whether I can let this blog be simply about us and our lives. Whether it needs to be simply a space that is and was about Oliver, and if I want to write about other things I need to go do something somewhere else. I don’t want to – it feels like editing somehow and I don’t want to edit. I just want to be.

I think I’m going to keep writing here for a while and just see how it goes.

And in other exciting news, stay tuned for an update on the baby shower drama. (For those who remember my plight a few months ago, the shower is now coming up in a few weeks….and now I can’t even drink at it. I’m happy I can’t drink but if EVER there was a time where I’d need one….oy.)

PicturePost.

So I’ve been promising to upload pictures for awhile. I still don’t have any new sewing pictures taken (BOO) but here’s some shots from my brother in law’s wedding, and of our trip to the beach. (Yeah, most of them are Ani. But you know, am kind of biased. Feel free to move along if this is boring!

This is Ani and I, trying on our dresses a few days before the wedding.

There was a super sweet hairdresser the day of the wedding that did Ani’s hair for me. And then didn’t charge me a dime. AND THEN finished the whole thing off by whipping out a can of glitter hairspray and dousing her in that. She was a PROUD GIRL.

And this would be my little flower girl checking herself out in a mirror. I am so biased but she is freakin adorable. I love her so much.

And this is my girl with the bride.

So those are a few of the wedding pictures – or perhaps more accurately, a few of the flower girl pictures. (Again, Christy = biased.)

Then we headed off for our vacation with my parents, brother and sister, and my aunt (and her two dogs) for a week at the beach. This is not something we’ve ever done before and it was so much fun. Also, if anyone needs to know how to keep a toddler amused in a car for 15 hours? I am your girl. And I didn’t even use the dvd player. (It’s one of those things you know? I can’t bear to use it because if I do? THERE WILL BE NOTHING LEFT PEOPLE. If that gets boring then I’m out of options. So I always *have* it, but I am always to afraid to use it. I need it in my back pocket. Yes, I am ridiculous.)

On with the pictures!

Anika was terrified of the waves. So very scared. She didn’t want anything to do with them on the first day. She loved the sand, but waves? Uh, no. On the last day though she FINALLY decided it was fun to go into the water with her dad – she’d let him carry her for a bit and be splashed and then he’d put her down and she’d race back to the dry sand. Of course next time we’re anywhere near an ocean we’ll probably have to repeat the “why the ocean is fun!” process, but oh well. She had one fun day in the water!

Okay, so she was scared of the waves but she REALLY liked the sand. And also, dancing. This picture makes me howl.

Brandon took these pictures of us on the deck one night. I thought the first one was funny and the second one I just really love. It’s one of the few pictures I look at and don’t just see everything that I don’t like about myself – I really love that it captures Ani and I that way.

And finally, just as we were about to drive north into freezing temperatures, we took one last family portrait on the beach. We all look weird since Brandon had to hold the camera and Ani insisted on chewing her dress, but there it is!

Oh and hey! A picture of something I sewed. I made the dress Ani is wearing. You know, the one you can’t actually see because it’s cut out of the picture? Yes, that one. Nevermind.

Time. Snort.

So I vanished again – beach vacation with the family; rough life I know. But it was nice; we’ve never gone anywhere with my side of the family so a week on the Outer Banks of North Carolina was pretty spectacular. I frolicked in the ocean every single day regardless of how cold it might have been (or how raining for that matter) and you know, it was AWESOME. I love getting beaten around by the waves and trying to surf and snorting salt water. It was great fun, and great fun to introduce Ani to it (she was terrified. But really liked sand castles).

I’ve been thinking about time a lot tonight. How long it’s been, what he would have been doing. And it’s weird, but it feels like it happened in an alternate universe, not this one. There’s normal every day time and then there’s this other rip in that whole time space continuum thing and THAT is where everything that happened was. It didn’t happen here at all. I don’t look at other babies and be sad and wonder what he would have been doing because he wasn’t ever part of this reality. Or something. I don’t know. Maybe my mind is just really good at building clever defense mechanisms; I don’t know.

To illustrate the point, we got a card from the nicu at the hospital today. It was really very sweet, an “It’s been nearly 10 months since you lost him; we are thinking of you and remembering him fondly.” And I thought “Huh, that’s nice. I wonder if the nurses there do remember him really? Did he make an impression on any of them?” Brandon said “It’s nice they have people at the hospital that do that.” And we went on our way. Lalalalala. And it was about two hours later when I was putting Anika to bed that I started wondering about two things. The first was that I’m not sure where they found Anika’s name. She was never allowed in the hospital there because of flu season and stuff so no one there ever met her. How did that happen? And the second was when I started counting months on my fingers and realized that it has NOT been almost 10 months since we lost him. It’s been almost 8.

WHAT KIND OF PERSON AM I?? How can it possibly have taken me HOURS to recognize that there was a problem with how old they said my son would have been? What kind of dumb ass mother doesn’t know that?!? I….don’t even know. No idea. All I can figure is that I’ve somehow separated the idea of him from the “here”. He wasn’t supposed to be here. So he’s not. So I don’t even connect those things. Sigh. GaaaaAAAAaaahh.

I miss him though. I wish he was here. I wish it was different. I wish I was saying “Yeah, he’s almost 8 months….he’s finally sitting on his own!” Or, “I haven’t slept in days because dude won’t stop GROWING TEETH already!” Or any of those normal things. Normal. What a concept.

Anyway. I have missed you my little blog and I shall endeavour to actually update you a little more frequently now that I am no longer flitting away for various adventures. Picture post coming as soon as I manage to get them off of my camera. Yep, am awesome.

Clarifications and happy fridays.

So, I need to clarify a little after my last post. The baby shower my mom is throwing for this friend….yes; insensitive. But it’s okay. I think the thing is that this is a family that my parents have known since before I was born. My friend is six months younger than me and her mom used to “practice” with me before I was born. This girl swore for years that she would never have kids, and it’s one of those things right? Really my mom is happy for her friend (who desperately wanted to be a grandmother and adores Anika and helped look after her when I was in the hospital) and felt a connection to the girl and felt that no one else would do this and she wanted to. So I get that; I really do.

But you know what? It’s one possibly uncomfortable day. I will probably dread it and probably be extra snarky but I figure it’s just not worth getting upset about. My mom’s a good person; she wasn’t trying to hurt me. It’s a bit insensitive, but I’ll survive.

So hey, it’s friday! And you know, it’s not a bad one. Gorgeous fall day (except, where did summer go??). We met B after work at a park near the office and he and Ani played for awhile while I went for a run, then we all went to the pub for dinner. Ani dutifully noted that it was “VERY LOUD” there and thought it was great fun to use her “VERY LOUD” voice there. All fun.

Ani started nursery school recently – she just goes three mornings a week – and you know, it’s kind of hilarious. She seems a bit nervous going in but apparently shakes it off fast – she apparently told the teacher she “couldn’t come to the door right now because she was talking to her friend” when I showed up to get her. Hee. Of course when I asked her about her friend she blinked at me blankly and said “I glue hearts!” Huh.

She’s getting all social on me – tonight she stopped to chat up the soccer goalie – while the game was in progress – on our way to dinner. She let him know that she LIKES soccers (sidenote: all sports plural to Anika. Basketballs. Soccers. Etc.), and that she was going to have dinner now with mommy and daddy. This random conversations with strangers thing should probably make me nervous but in truth it slays me. I think it’s so funny that she’ll cheerfully go and chat up people.

Happy weekend – go drink some wine.

Ketchup

My gracious but I have been gone a long time haven’t I? Life has been a ridiculous chase the last while, culminating in the last almost two weeks being spent out of town. It was a good time though – we were out for my brother in law’s wedding – which was a very good time and a beautiful day. AND (do I get to brag for a minute?) Anika was the flower girl and did a SMASHING job of it. I thought she’d panic but she cheerfully agreed to hold the bridesmaid’s hand and walked down with her. She tried to hide behind the bridesmaid’s hand a couple of times but she did really really well. It was funny though, I kept telling her that daddy would be at the front of the church and that I would scoop her up when she got there, so not to worry. Only problem was, daddy got his hair cut that morning – and he hadn’t cut it in like a YEAR, so it was really long before – and she didn’t see him post haircut. So she spent half the service looking for daddy (the best man) and not finding him until he turned around to sign the register and faced her. Then there was a very loud “THERE’S MY DADDY!!!”

So funny.

Anyway, when last I wrote I was angsting over whether or not to acknowlege my old friend’s pregnancy or not (GLARGH). I….well. So the first thing that happened was my mother (God love her), called me to tell me that she’s offered to HOST A BABY SHOWER FOR HER. For crying out loud. I was….not angry but not happy – kind of in that place where you really just want to slam your face into a pillow and laugh at the utter ridiculousness of the situation. Sigh. So I knew it would be AWKWARD if I didn’t go, so….I go. I guess. Sometime in January. Or something. I don’t know. GAH. Anika is SO coming with me and I am going to sit in a corner with her and make fun of people. It will be FINE. (Or I’ll run away to the computer to post minute by minute posts up here).

Then she emailed me on facebook to “officially” tell me her news, and it’s great – I am truly happy for her, and I’m delighted that it happened for them. I responded and basically said congrats; chatted about a few things she’d mentioned and then just said I’d missed her this year. I haven’t heard anything since. I still don’t know how I feel about it all but I guess I’m getting thrown into it no matter what. C’est la vie.

In other news, we finally picked up Oliver’s remains. It was hard but I feel good about it I think. I’m glad we did it. I don’t know what we will do with it now – it’s a little pewter heart urn, and it sits in a box that had a plaque in it with a passage from psalms that we liked. The heart just has his name on it…..it’s too small to fit anything else there. I…like it? I guess? I actually have an easier time thinking of it as an “it” now than I did before. Before I kept getting tangled up in “it” vs. “him” and now, seeing it….it is very clearly an “it”. It is not my baby.

Otherwise we are just catching up here. Trying to make sense of the world and reclaim my house from wedding unpacking chaos. Once I get some photos downloaded I will share a picture of Ani in her wedding finery.

Hope everyone in blogland is okay; I’ve been totally internet-less for two weeks or so – must catch up!

Sigh.

I’ve got a picture post coming; I swear I do….it’s just that I’m having a hard time coming up with the energy to post pictures of clothes I made when the sad news about Craig and Mirne’s son has taken over my head. It just seems a little too frivolous somehow. I am still me though (and still occasionally frivolous) so I will do it soon.

Today I am….argh. I don’t even know. Today I found out that an old friend of mine is pregnant. This girl was my BEST friend from pretty much birth. We grew up together; we were close all the way through highschool (although we had different circles of friends then really). We were close. We drifted after university; I moved to Boston for awhile; she went up north to teach, where she met her husband and stayed. We were bridesmaids in each others’ weddings. Our parents still live a street away from each other and are still part of each others’ lives. Her mom looks after Ani sometimes when she stays with my parents. I still talk to her parents sometimes, but I haven’t spoken to her in awhile now. We used to keep up via email and occasional phone calls but truthfully she was never very interested in me. She always wanted to talk about what she was doing, and she rarely showed any interest in what I was doing. And she always seemed vaguely defensive – I don’t know why really.

She never wanted kids; has maintained for years that she didn’t want them. We all thought that was really sad. I knew her mom desperately wanted to be a grandmother – she dotes on Anika when we see her. And I just thought it was a shame – this girl would be a good mom I think. I hope.

The thing that upsets me is that this girl – this girl who knew me my whole life; who was my best friend for so very long – she never once contacted me when Oliver died. She didn’t even write an email. Not a card; not anything. I didn’t need much; it’s not like I was looking for grandiose gestures or anything – just a “hey, I heard about this and I’m so sorry that happened.” Something. Some acknowledgement. But I didn’t get anything.

And now….now I learn that she is pregnant. She’s due in March. And I really am happy for her. For her mother certainly. I think it’s a good thing for their family. I do think she’ll be a good mom. But I can’t help it – a big part of me just kind of wants to shrug and say “So?”.

It’s not “me” to ignore this news. I would normally send a note or a card and congratulate her. I would normally do something. Send a gift when the time comes. But I’m angry – I’m angry that I didn’t mean enough to her to even acknowledge when the darkest thing in the world happened to me. That at a time when I needed every last scrap of support I could get, I didn’t get it from her – someone that should have been there for me in some way.

I don’t know what to do. I want to be able to rise above it and be the bigger person, but at the same time I’m tired. I’m tired of being the bigger person. I don’t want to rise above it. Part of the problem is I know I’m a little jealous too. She’s pregnant and I’d really like to be. It makes no sense to be jealous – I have a living daughter who is wonderful. I know I can get pregnant; I know I likely will be pregnant again. But still. GAH.

The problem is I know me. I know that I will not be happy with the kind of person I am if I don’t acknowledge this. But I so don’t want to. What would you do? Send an email? Send a note via post so that I eliminate any risk of getting into a dialogue?

Sigh.

No words.

Today we mourn Jethro Craig Wilhelm. I pray that God receives him and holds him, along with his beautiful brother and sister. I pray that they are playing together, and that they are happy and at peace. I pray that comfort and love surround Mirne and Craig as they mourn the loss of Jet. Some things just seem so unfair.

We will remember. We will remember their names – Freyja Ione, Kees Henry, and Jethro Craig. We will lift them up, and we will remember.

Honest Scrap

That title makes me giggle. The lovely Kristy at http://mooooonandback.blogspot.com/ nominated me for an Honest Scrap award. I am so very very flattered. And surprised. And also kind of shocked that anyone actually *reads* this, let alone thinks that whatever I manage to clumsily commit to virtual paper is actually of value. So thank you Kristy, so much for this. I’ve been smiling all afternoon.

This award is, as Kristy says on her blog, for bloggers who write from their heart, from the depths of their soul. The rules for accepting the award are that you need to pass it on to seven other bloggers, and you need to list ten honest and interesting things about yourself.

So first, I’d like to nominate:

Catherine – betweenthesnowandthehugeroses.blogspot.com
Salma – alsultanaa.blogspot.com
Tracey – livinginthegardenofroses.blogspot.com
Leanna - nicholastouch.blogspot.com
Gal – http://growinginside.blogspot.com
Tess - http://tesspeak.typepad.com/
Julia – http://uncommonmisconception.typepad.com

10 things about me….hm. Okay, here goes.

1. I used to whitewater kayak and rock climb. I stopped paddling because as much as I loved being on the water, the harder whitewater scared the living daylights out of me and I finally thought “Hey…why do that then??” So I stopped.

2. I still like rock climbing. I just don’t get to do it much at all.

3. I am a mechanical engineer, but I never actually worked as one. I got hauled off in another career direction and well, there it is.

4. I secretly always wanted to be a doctor. By the time I figured it out I was a good chunk of the way through my engineering degree so I didn’t switch streams. I still think about going back though. I think I’d like to be a family doctor, and do a lot of volunteer work with the homeless community.

5. The idea of a house church scared me to death when I first heard of it (what kind of crazy people worship in their house?? You need an old building! And a steeple! And stuff!) Then I came around, and now we are not only part of a house church, we are a house church that meets at my house. And you know what? It is really hard to be late for church when it is in your living room (bonus!). It is also really hard to get your two year old to understand that she can’t just play with her toys when service is going on (not-so-bonus). We’re moving the church out soon but it’s been an interesting experience.

6. I used to live in Boston. I loved it there, but lack of green cards sent us trailing back to Canada after four years. It’s pretty nice here too. Sushi’s not as good but the snow is all kinds of fun!

7. I am a closet martha stewart. Nothing makes me happier than doing things with my hands – sewing and knitting particularly. In fact, Ani’s been with my parents this week and literally all I have done is sew clothes for her for the fall. I’ll do a picture post soon.

8. I believe in Angels. I don’t think I did before Oliver died, but I do now. Not because I really think of him as an angel, but because I am pretty sure that God had an Angel with us, protecting us when Oliver left us. I have this memory of being surrounded by a soft light that wrapped around the three of us and didn’t let anyone else in.

9. I was secretly relieved to learn that our Children’s hospital has a new NICU that is opening this month. That means that even if (God forbid) we had another baby that needed to be there, I wouldn’t have to go back THERE. I realize this is silly and fairly irrational.

10. I can’t wait to have more babies. I’m terrified but I can’t wait.