Maddie's third birthday came and went quietly yesterday.

July 6 is usually actually worse than July 7.  That was the day that we found out I was in labor, that we found out she wouldn't make it.  The day I felt her last kick.  I usually have flashbacks at different times on that day.  At 11:00 a.m., I'll usually think that is the time I realized I was in labor, 7:30 or so was her lack kick, etc. 

The 7th, on the other hand...  She was born at 12:08 a.m., so I really didn't have a whole lot of time pregnant on that day.  On the 7th, I got to hold her the first and last times.  On the 7th, I got to sing to her, to tell her I loved her, to look at her precious face.  The 7th has a lot of good moments, as bittersweet as they are.

Alice drew some pictures for "Mannie," as she calls her.  I had some difficulty finding a place that had helium, but the small flower shop I did find tucked Alice's photos into the balloons, and we went to the same park where we did last year to release them.  The problem with having an almost-two-year-old who is INCREDIBLY active (and a bit of a runner) is that it is difficult to watch those beloved balloons drift off - you have to keep one eye on your Earth baby.  Even when I had to turn and couldn't watch them fly away anymore, though, I still knew they were there, I kept checking for them and thinking of them... just like Maddie.

We love you so much, Maddie.  Always and forever.

I look at this blog, and realize the evolution it has gone through. It started off as a place to pour out my grief, then a place to catalogue my second FET, then the terrors and wonder of pregnancy with Alice, and finally a place to occasionally update about her life story.

That being said... It may be time to hang up my hat. This is for several reasons.

First, it is not really cathartic about Maddie anymore. I don't have new revelations about her, I have a dull ache that will always be there, that will ebb and flow some, but isn't likely to change. I can only say the same things so many times.

As for Alice... I want her to be able to tell her own story someday. That isn't my place. And I stay so busy with her that I don't have much time for this space, to develop thought fragments in my head.

We are in a holding pattern about our next FET, and it just hurts too much to talk about the unending infertility.

And, to be honest, I really don't have any readers. This isn't to backhandedly beg for comments... That is just what happens when you largely stop posting for a year and a half.

So, I will continue to read others' blogs, commenting occasionally, but it feels like this isn't a place I visit much anymore. I visit Maddie elsewhere. Thank you to anyone who did or still reads.

As usual, I don't have a lot to post. I have been so busy/stressed at work that my brain just crashes when I get home, and I am uninspired. Plus, I get too excited to spend time with my family...

Let's see...

I don't write about Maddie much anymore. This isn't because I don't think about her, not even a little... But for a few reasons. It sometimes feels like I am forcing her on a world where everyone but me has forgotten. I know that isn't true, but it kind of is. And it isn't healthy to think of only the sadness all of the time. It isn't fair to Maddie for that to be her ONLY legacy. So, that explains that.

Alice is amazing. I mean that in the literal sense of the word, she amazes me. She is so sweet and precocious and funny and weird. My goodness, is she weird. It makes me laugh every day how she has such goofy habits and specific likes. She is 16 months, and obsessed with books, dolls, and purses. Her favorite word to say is, "Baby," and she wants to stick her fingers in everyone's belly buttons.

JTD is on the day shift now after working second shift for almost two years! He does IT at the local hospital, and got promoted. We effectively used to be two single parents, butnpw we are a married couple! I love it!

That is all I can think of, however tedious it might be!

I have clearly taken a bit of a blogging sabbatical. I don't think it was intended; in that time, I even met one of my dear baby loss mama friends (Christy) and her daughter Avery. I just have been caught up in life.

It has amazed me how much Alice has helped my heart. It will never be fully healed, I will always think of Madeleine and miss her terribly... But my heart tries to protect itself now. I still have occasional breakdowns, but my mind won't let me go there often, it resists. I know that isn't healthy, and it makes it harder when I do fully mourn, but sometimes it seems the only way to go on without curling up into a ball. I don't want Alice to suffer because I am damaged. I am already so protective, and that isn't fair to her. I want to do them both justice.

I am not sure if I should laugh or cry that Stillbirth Awareness Day is the day after Labor Day, but it is today. Remembering Maddie and all of the other perfect gifts who left too soon.

When I was I-don't-remember-how-old-but-way-too-young, maybe fifth grade, I started needing a bra. Not, like, "That is probably smart whenever we get around to it," but more like, "Dang, that kid has some boobs!"

For the longest time, I was mortified of the twins. I made my mom buy me my bras, I crossed my arms over my chest, you know the drill. Anything a 5'2", 110 lb girl with a D cup would do in high school to keep them hidden.

As I got older, I started to get more used to them. I bought them nice, pretty bras, named them (Hall and Oates). On occasion, they would do things in return for me - get guys to buy me drinks, etc. I still kind of saw them as a nuisance that was hard to dress around, however.

It sometimes feels like the last 13.5 months of my life have centered around my chesticles. It is more accurate that it has had to do with Alice's need to regularly drain them of nourishment, but it would shock you how many times a day my breasts come into my brain.

Anyway. Nursing is still going strong, despite a record-breaking number of setbacks (that is its own blog). It is a lot like wrestling an angry badger sometimes, but I do love the closeness with my girl.

I haven't been able to post much lately. I have been in a funk.

Alice's birthday went great, lots of friends came. The next week, she came down with croup. A few days later, a staph infection (about which I had tried to get her in, but they put us off for almost a week until it got bad), and then... Pickle broke her arm. I feel like a total failure, even though the orthopedist explained we couldn't have prevented it, and it is common for super-active babies. It is a buckle fracture, caused by falling. Which toddlers do. But my baby barely got to a year before we broke her! I know I couldn't do anything besides wrap her in bubble wrap... But I wanted to protect her from any pain ever. I pray daily that she has a long, healthy, happy life that is free from pain or want, and I wish she wasn't hurt.

I usually try and stuff my deep feelings about Maddie down where they don't hurt so much, but they have come out in great gasping sobs a few times lately. That sounds overdramatic, but it is the best description I have. I call them "bad Maddie days" - I remember her, love her, talk to her every day, but it is just hard, and the funk... It doesn't help.

What a grim post. Gah.

Today is the Pickle's birthday! I can't believe it has been a whole year since I nervously held her for the first time, listened to her cry.

I have been so blessed to be able to nurse her for a year, and still going - not everyone gets that chance. I am proud of our choice to never make her cry herself to sleep. I have adored safely bedsharing with her since she was about six weeks old, and a plethora of other things.

Mostly I am so proud of the independent, confident, charismatic wonder she is. I am certain our parenting choices have helped this, but I think she is just an amazing little person. She is so happy and laid-back, despite my worrying. She is truly a miracle in every sense of the word.

Happy 1st birthday, Alice! <3

Dearest Maddie, I wish I were holding you today instead of writing you a letter in Heaven. I wish so many things for you, but I am so grateful to have had the all-too-short time we had. I am so proud that you made me a mother, that you are Alice's big sister... And I am making sure she is proud of you, too. You are magical and special, and even getting pregnant with you was an IVF miracle from the start. You are everything I could have ever wanted and more.

Love always and forever, Mommy

Two years ago today was the day before I went into labor, the day before my heart broke, when I was still serenely happy. I spend these days chasing the shadows of what we were doing two years ago.

Goog.le Calendar just e-mailed me to remind me that Maddie's birthday on the 7th. How thoughtful, as if I could ever forget my firstborn, my first little angel.

Sometimes I feel like I am walking around in circles with my grief. Shoot, I think I have even named a post this before.

Maddie's birthday is in a couple of weeks. It hurts so much to know it has been a whole additional year since I last got to hold her, to kiss her. I so desperately want to hold both of my girls. That sounds like such a simple statement, almost hollow in its simplicity... But I don't know how to say it in a way that imparts the desperation with which I feel it. I want the hands of a two-year-old, not an urn. I want to be thanking God as I watch her enjoy life, not for taking care of her. I want to have her and Alice play, not just to have to pray about her with her.

Always it is longer and longer since we last saw her. Alice's first birthday is also coming up two weeks after that - it is so hard being so torn in my emotions for two very different babies.

I know I am getting old and impatient and unhip... And I largely don't care. I absolutely hate the phrase "FML.". I think I hate it because people use it so flippantly. "I slept through class, FML. I can't go to this concert, eff my life."

I don't wish on anyone for their lives to be destroyed, but I think it is obvious that the people whose lives have been "effed" are almost never the ones using this phrase. For most who read my blog, you feel the pain daily of it having been too long since you held your baby, and the worse pain of knowing it will only be longer and longer until the day you die. THAT is life-altering pain. Death and illness, tragedy and loss. I wish the people who were so flippant would gather some perspective and see how this affects others, those who try to dwell on the positives and grow from their pain.

That sounded preachy, and I didn't mean it to be. FML, I guess?

I am unendingly amazed that we made this beautiful creature with thoughts and feelings and ENDLESS OPINIONS of her own. So beautiful.

"For this child I have prayed..." 1 Samuel 1:27

This past Saturday marked 22 months since Maddie was born.  I have thought of her so much lately, of those fleeting moments we had. 

Part of me looks back on those few hours that I got to spend holding my baby, when I was still in shock and hadn't slept in almost 48 hours, when I wasn't truly able to take every second from the time that I wanted... and I think, "That was it?  That's all I get?"  I don't ever get another chance to hold her, to spend even more time with her.  I don't get a do-over.

I cherish Alice in ways I can't speak with words.  I try to parent her in the best way I can imagine, even when I fail... but I want that with Madeleine, too. 

Of course there are the moments like her wedding, her graduation, all of those things that I wanted.  But more than that, I want the small things.  I want to put her hair in ponytails.  I want to watch her little hand curl around mine in her sleep.  I want to see her reach out for Mommy when she's sad, and to light up when she sees me come into the room.  I treasure all of these things with Alice, but I want it all multiplied by two.  I want, I want, I want. 

I miss her.

The Pickle is growing like a weed.  The last few weeks she's learned how to pull herself up onto things... everything, to be more exact. 

Our friend C took her 9-month photos last weekend.  Here are some highlights:

The Pickle turned 9 months old last Wednesday (4/20), so we had her nine-month appointment on Friday.

The stats:
Height:  28 inches (73%)
Weight:  20 lb 2 oz (82%0
Head:  19 in (off the charts still)

Alice first had to get her hep B booster - she is such a little toughy.  She never actually cried, just squawked for four seconds (this is not an exaggeration), and then was done.  We then had to take her to the lab to get her finger pricked for her iron test - again, she never cried, never even fussed.  She DID give the lab tech a look of, "What the heck are you doing THAT for?!"  Other than that, she was a tough little bird!

She is slightly anemic, so they're putting her on some iron supplements for the next month.  We go back on May 20 to see if it's gotten better.  Other than that, it was a blessing to read the phrases "happy, healthy, developmentally normal 9-month-old." 

I've been having a blogging drought lately.

As far as Alice goes, things are amazing and wonderful and she's perfect.  Things obviously have their imperfections (like the reverse cycling she's doing right now), but I'm so amazed and blessed to have such a perfect baby.  I sometimes just look at her and cry from her beauty.

I feel like I've already touched on all of my words for Maddie.  It's just hard and it aches and it's dull, right on my heart.  I can't change it, and I can't make it better.  There's not much new or different to say - it just hurts, and it will forever.  Sometimes I have insights into my own feelings, but they're just that.  Sometimes it feels so weird to share them, it feels like I'm assuming they're important to others when they're just mine.

I don't really know where I'm going with this.  I know April is an awful time for a lot of my friends, and my heart goes out to them.

I so very, very often go over the time we got to spend with Maddie, as short as it was. When the grief and despair are at their worst (like right now), I sometimes think of the futility of singing to her, rocking her, kissing her. She was already gone, she never got to experience them. It is my firm belief she knows our love in Heaven, but those motions... those were for us. I so desperately wish I could have done something for her.

My OB (who I adore) got me in yesterday. He treated my bouts of mastitis, but he looked at the weird red streaking and said, "I have never seen that! Let me grab the determatologist."

She said it was either very atypical mastitis, or an infection from a human bite. I am on FOUR medications. Ick!

When Maddie was born, my milk coming in (and then leaving) were incredibly emotional experiences. I so wanted to feed my baby with that, and it broke my heart when it went away, as if my body were forgetting her. Because of all of this, I knew without a doubt that I was going to be incredibly determined to breastfeed with Alice. I was going to start off with small goals (3 months, then 6 months, etc.), and try to attain each separately.


We started off incredibly rough. A lost over 10% of her body weight in the hospital, and they almost didn’t let us leave on the last day. My milk finally came in, and we were allowed to leave. All went well for a week or two, and then things went south. She was losing weight, my ni.pples were bloody and cracked, so they wanted us to supplement with formula. I got mastitis (103 degree fever and all), and my supply dropped a ton. I started seeing a lactation consultant, and we found that Alice’s tongue was too short and her palate too high – she wasn’t able to properly nurse. I started pumping almost exclusively but still nursing her on occasion, and we did that for several months. Due to my PCOS, the supply issues were very difficult to deal with, but I was able to fix them with a TON of work and dedication – she’s only probably ever had about ten bottles of formula. Around four months, she was big enough that we were able to switch to nursing while I was home, and things went well. I had one more bout of mastitis and about nine clogged ducts, a blood blister and one case of thrush, but it’s been much improved. I’ve been incredibly proud that The Pickle turned 8 months yesterday, and despite having just about every problem possible, we have battled through this to do what I felt was best for her.

Then she bit me.

To be accurate, she’s been biting for a while off and on, mostly when she’s ready to switch sides or is bored. This one on Saturday was awful, though. She just had the first bit of her first tooth poke through a week and a half ago, and so she bit me hard enough that I bled. And bled. I bled when she nursed. I bled when I pumped. Finally I got it to stop bleeding by Sunday morning, and have been putting Bacitra.cin and lanolin on it after every nursing session. However, during last night’s nursing sessions, the pain got a ton worse. It felt like I was getting stabbed – I have had radiation and several surgeries, but THIS was horrible. It kept me up a good portion of the night, and it’s incredibly sore all of the time – I found a little bit of white on it this morning. I have a call in to my OB/GYN, because I’m pretty sure that it’s infected.

I don’t, don’t, don’t want to wean her, but this is awful. Any words of advice? I’m just getting ready to clock in to work, but would appreciate any words of wisdom anyone may have! It was (and still is) my intention to nurse her until a year, and then to mix nursing with whole milk.