Valentine's Thoughts

2/14/2012        10:23 pm

Dear Brynna,

Today is Valentine’s Day and I just wanted to take a quick second to let you know how much I love you.  I have been thinking about you all day today and, of course, wishing you were here. 

One of the very first outfits I bought you after finding out you were a girl, was an outfit that would have been perfect for today.  It was a cute onesie with cherries on the front and a scalloped collar with red stitching.  There are matching jeans with little cherries near the ankles, and a matching red button up sweater with little white hearts on it.  It was a perfect Valentine’s outfit and I thought so many times today, how darling it would be on you.

Daddy and I gave your brothers love notes and cards today letting them know how we feel about them, and I want to do the same for you.

I love you.  More than you will ever know.  Someday, when I get to heaven and get to wrap you up in my arms and kiss your sweet head, I am going to spend hours just telling you how much I love you.  “I love you to the moon and back…and then some more.”  I love you as much as a mother can love.

Everything we do from here until forever, we will think about you and where you fit in.  We miss you each day and think about you all the time.

I have been wrestling with something lately and I wanted to talk about it with you.  When everything went the way it did when you were born, I had to have surgery that now makes it impossible for us to have babies anymore.  We had gotten so excited about you coming to join our family and were pretty “hooked” on the idea of having a daughter and the boys having a sister.

Your brothers talk all the time about how they wish you were here so that they could take care of you and “teach you all kinds of important things.”  They are really sad that they didn’t get to love on you and help bring up their little sister.

So now, my sweetheart, your Daddy and I are thinking about trying to adopt a little girl.  We are wondering about bringing a baby that doesn’t have a mommy and daddy, into our home to be a part of our family.  To be your sister, and sister to Cole, Aidan and Jackson.  How do you feel about that? I sometimes worry that you might feel like we are trying to replace you, and that thought makes me cry.

I want you, Brynna.  I want you so badly in my arms, in your crib, in our home.  But I can’t have you right now because you are in heaven, hopefully having the most wonderful time. 

I do not want to bring a baby into this house in effort to replace you.  I want to bring a baby into this house so that we may remember you.  So that we may feel joy again, and remember all the good things about what it means to raise a baby.  I want to bring you and the boys a sister and when she gets older, I want to tell her that you, my sweet girl, are the reason our hearts found her.  I want to feel happy when I remember you, honey.  I want to love you forever and one day.  And I want to share that love, spread that love so that someday when we meet again, you can see that your life had such a great effect on our hearts that we just couldn’t let the sadness be the end.

I love you, Brynn.  Happy Valentine’s Day.

Love,

Momma

"It hurts this much because we love her this much.."

2/3/2012          3:03 p.m

Dear Brynna,

Hi baby girl.  I love you and I miss you.  I have thought about you lots today.  I have this new thing, kind of like a mantra, I am doing when I feel like I am on the verge of losing it.  I tell myself, “it hurts this much because we love her this much”.  The pain in my heart is the price I am paying for the love I have had for you since the moment we found out you were on the way.  So much attention.  So much hope.  So much love has gone into the thought of you, and planning for you.  At times I feel without purpose now that you are in heaven and not here with us, but then I remember that my purpose was (and always will be) to love you.  I can do that.  I will do that.  I am doing that.  I am hurting and crying and breaking each day because I love you.  Because I love you so much more than words can say.  So even though it feels like I might break beyond repair sometimes, I am going to continue to let the sadness come as it needs to, and I will rest in the truth that I love you. And that will have to be enough.

Love,

Momma

The Bereaved Mother

1/31/2012        10:34 a.m

Don't judge the bereaved mother...

Do not judge the bereaved mother.

She comes in many forms.

She is breathing, but she is dying.

She may look young, but inside she has become ancient.

She smiles, but her heart sobs.

She walks, she talks, she cooks,

she cleans, she works, she IS

but she IS NOT all at once.

She is here, but part of her is elsewhere for eternity.

A child that loses a parent is an orphan.

A husband that loses his wife is a widower.

A wife who loses her husband is a widow.

However, there is no word for a parent that loses a child.

For there is no word to describe such pain.

-author unknown

*(I found this poem on a blog and I feel it hits the nail on the head.  This is how I feel all day, every day.  Also, every time it says the word “mother”, we can surely substitute “father” because Steven feels it too.  It sucks, this life of being a bereaved parent)*

Steven and I went to a Tears meeting last week (or the week before, I can’t remember).  It’s a group for parents who have lost a baby.  So far, we have attended 2 Compassionate Friends meetings, 1 Bridges meeting and 1 Tears meeting.  We seem to be support group junkies.  :O/

The Tears meeting was by far the one that hit closest to home.  These people “really get it”.  The loss of a child is horrible regardless of age and circumstance, but each grief is a bit different.  The grief of losing a child to prolonged illness is different than the grief of losing a child to traumatic accident, is different still than the grief of losing a baby.  And the couples at the Tears meeting can meet us exactly where we are in this process.  There is just a little less we have to explain to them because they understand. 

We look forward to going back at the end of February. 

I have also been looking at more blogs written by bereaved mothers and fathers.  It is enough to rip a person’s heart out, but again, it is more reassurance that we are not walking this terribly sad road alone.  Even though it is dark and horribly uncertain, I am seeing that there are people all around us walking it as well.  

3 Months Out

1/31/2012          10:14 a.m

My Dear Sweet Brynna,

You are three months old now.  If you were here with us, you would be smiling and working on rolling over.  We would do tummy time every day on your pink baby floor gym.  We would be preparing to start introducing you to baby foods probably next month.  Which would be your favorite?  Your brothers all loved their sweet potatoes.  Would you be the same?  What would you love, sweetheart?  God, I wish you were here so Daddy and I could find out.

Three months already.  I can’t believe it.  The thought of you being here and already being three months old seems impossible.  Then, on the other hand, the thought that we have been grieving your loss for three months seems like a lifetime.  Time is truly a messed up thing.  When life is happy, it flies, and when life is full of sorrow and pain, it slows to a crawl.

I went to Portland with Grandma last week to get my hair done.  The last time I had it done, I was pregnant with you and so excited.  At that time we didn’t know you were a girl yet, just that we were going to have a baby and we just prayed for “healthy” everyday.  Anyway, I couldn’t bring myself to go back to the lady that did my hair that time, because I didn’t want to have to explain everything to her, and end up spending an hour and a half crying in her chair.  So I went to Portland to Grandma’s lady.  She already knew everything that happened so there wasn’t any pressure to explain.  It was nice spending the day with Grandma.  She misses you so much too.  We talk about you and cry together.  She thinks about you every day and loves you so much.  We all do.

I miss you, little girl.  I miss you so, so much.  I look at your pictures all the time and I listen to your music.  I go into your room and hold your blanket and your nightgown.  It is the only way I feel closer to you.  I hang on for my life, sometimes. 

Are you there listening and watching all this?  Are you safe?  Do you feel how much we love you? I hope so.  They say one day we’ll see you again, and I hold tight to that possibility.  I hold tight to the idea that one day, I will be able to hold you and tell you all the things I am feeling right now.  All the ways I love you.  All the ways I need you.  I don’t have the right words.  There are no big enough, “right” enough words to explain my love for you.

This hurts so much.  Too much.  It hurts so much because we love you so much.  We miss you so much.  We think about you every moment.  You are always with us.  Always in our hearts.  I just wish you were in our arms instead.  There will not be a day for the rest of my life that I don’t think about you and miss you.  I love you Brynna.  I love you so much it hurts.

Love,

Momma

Empty Arms

1/18/2012         10:53 a.m

How are we supposed to do this?  One day seems “okay” and the next I am brought to my knees feeling the pain of Brynna’s death like it was yesterday.  There is too much to process.  Way too much.

I go back and forth between sadness and anger to disbelief and despair.  When will this nightmare end?  Everyone says “never” and that is too much to handle.  Way too much.

I need my little girl in my arms.  I need to hold her, to touch her, to smell her, to love her.  I need my daughter.  This is way too much pain.  Too much emptiness.  Too much hurt.  Too much anguish.

I am not used to being a sad person.  With the exception of maybe one or two days, I have cried every day since the day Brynn was born.  There are too many tears.

I am scared because for the first time in my life, I have no idea whatsoever what I believe.  Everything I thought I knew about life has been shaken up and thrown onto the ground in a broken mess.  Why 41 weeks and 3 days of growing a perfect little girl to have this ending?  Why a ruptured uterus and emergency hysterectomy at 32 years old?  Why are good people like Steven and I denied the opportunity to raise our daughter and bear witness to the person she could have become?  There are too many questions.  There are no answers.   

Will I ever feel pure, unaltered joy again?  Will I ever stop being this robot of a person and feel something other than sadness again?  When?  I need a plan, I need some guidance.  I need God to get on his megaphone and say, “Laura, listen up, this is what you’re going to do and this is how you’re going to do it”.  I am lost and afraid.  I need my little girl.  I need Brynna.  Just one more time, I need to see her.