My glass heart

If you squeeze a hen too hard the eggshell inside her will break.

Sometimes I feel like my heart is healing. Or that it is starting to be protected again. By a thin glass transparent heart shell.

But squeeze me a a little too hard and that thin glass shell will break and sliver into a thousand piercing shards.

Every moment.

Three and a half years old you would be. Three and a half. I miss you so much my sweet, sparkly Eva girl. There are days I still cannot comprehend that you are gone forever and ever until I die. There are days when I just can't believe I'm here living and that to other people I look whole when there is always a giant hole in my heart and my mind never lets you go. And I don't talk to other people about you as much as I once did. Maybe they think I have forgotten you and so don't mention your name either for fear I will suddenly remember and break down. But nothing could be further from the truth. You are always on my mind and always in my heart. Every moment you are with me and I think how the moment would have been different if you were physically a part of it. 

Every moment you are with me,

April 14 2014

Today is a sweet bitter day as we celebrate Nathan's first birthday and yet my grief runs afresh for never having Eva's first to celebrate except to eat cake she would never taste and sing to an empty chair.

Celebrating my little boy today, missing my girl and giving up my dream of ever having my own baby girl to raise. 

Shopping for a gravestone

I've been shopping a lot these past couple of weeks.

Shopping for a gravestone. I looked online and I ordered catalogues in the mail. Who knew you could order catalogues of gravestones? I didn't. I guess I've been sheltered.

One of the weirdest things is that in these catalogues are pictures of real gravestones that the company made.  And I know some of the people on the gravestones. It makes me feel weird inside to think that Eva's gravestone might one day appear in this commercial catalogue.

When Eva first died I wanted to bury her and Mike wanted to cremate her. I say 'wanted' very loosely here because what both of us really wanted was to hold our living, breathing daughter in our arms. I strongly felt like I wanted a place to 'go'. Mike felt otherwise and really I didn't care that much. I just wanted Eva. Eva died in August and that first winter I was 'happy' she was cremated and home with us and 'warm' in the living room and not frozen under a blanket of snow. The mind works in mysterious ways...

So anyway, I'm feeling like getting a gravestone and burying her ashes. Mikes mom and dad and my mom will all be buried there and so will mike and I, when the time comes, so she will be with family. And, you know she's not going to get married or have children so being with grandma, grandpa , Oma, mom and dad...well, that's the family she has, and she will not be cold in winter or scared of the dark because she is warm and blooming in heaven and laughing where the light of God shines always.

But, still, it's weird you know, shopping for a gravestone for your daughter...not something I ever signed up for...and I never thought I would compare prices...but there's over a thousand dollars difference in the places I've looked at for a comparable not very large monument. I hate thinking about the money but, well, why not? If I were helping her shop for a wedding dress the price would be a factor too I'm sure...

The journey to old.

I am feeling old.

Not really old. But old to be bearing children. I'm not really that old but age is how you feel I guess, and I feel old. Or at least on the journey to old.

I am tired.

And I am hopeful. Tremblingly hopeful this baby might be the Hope of my dreams, but afraid to hope too much because a boy would be loved all the same.

And I feel like there are places in my heart that can only be healed by the touch of my own baby girl, Eva's sister. I could be wrong. But, I don't think so.

And I am also afraid of a girl. Afraid of the emotions that would well up in me if we had a girl. Afraid of being over the top paranoid about a baby girl. Afraid of her dying too, like her sister.

I feel like this is the end of my journey through birth. And I am not sad. About that. We will never make the mistake we made in February 2011 again, so, I could be wrong about that too, but I don't think so.

And so I hope and fear and love all in one breath.

For Eva's sister. Or another brother.

Mommy and Eva...and a jewelry keepsakes pendant.

I have a lovely necklace of Eva that Mike gave me our first Christmas without Eva. It is oval and and has this picture of our girly on it.

A few months ago I had been thinking about how much I would like to have a heart shaped pendant with a picture of Eva on it.

And only a few weeks later I received a lovely email from Hallie from Jewelry keepsakes. I was offered to choose a piece of  memorial jewelry from their selection. The timing was amazing and I was so thankful.

I took my time choosing and finally decided on a heart shaped piece of cremation jewelry. I wanted to   have a photo of Eva and I together and put a strand of each of our hair in the heart. When the piece arrived I had been cropped out and only Eva's picture was on the pendant.

The necklace was beautiful. The inscription was beautiful. The picture was beautiful. But it was not what I expected and I was disappointed.

I emailed Hallie who offered to send me another piece with both of our pictures on it. Wow. I wasn't expecting this. I decided to get a plain heart instead. The new heart arrived yesterday and it was just what I had envisioned.

I wore it to church today and got several comments on it. My kids pointed it out to people and it felt so, so good to hear. Mommy and Eva. I can't explain how good it felt to hear the words 'mommy and Eva' in the same sentence, several times today.

On the back of the pendant I got the beginning of the poem by e.e cummings inscribed...

i carry your heart with me
(i carry it in my heart)

i am never without it (anywhere
i go, you go my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing, my darling)
i fear

no fate (for you are my fate, my sweet) i want
no world (for you are my world, my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud)
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)

e.e cummings

The pendant is lovely. Hallie was lovely to communicate with and jewelry keepsakes has a huge variety of  memorial jewelry to choose from. You are sure to find something you would like. The photo is etched in and is very hard to photograph well but I can assure you is completely beautiful.

However, for  me, the real gift was hearing the words 'mommy and Eva' together in the same sentence.

Thank you jewelry keepsakes for a beautiful pendant to review.

Recklessly hopeful.

We were so lucky to conceive Nathan.

And his little life has brought all kinds of joy back to mine.  I love all my children. But Nathan, Nathan Evan brought babyhood back to us. He is a gift from Eva in so many ways and we cherish him.

My pregnancy with Nathan was not easy. Physically I was fine but I was truly an emotional wreck. I hated people who said congratulations to me because it felt like they were congratulating me on Eva's death.  I wouldn't have been pregnant without her death so you may see my logic. I know it was  not what people meant but that's what it felt like. And I am not going to argue with my feelings, especially from back then.

I started eating trim healthy mama style while pregnant with Nathan and was physically healthier than I had been in a long time. I felt like my physical strength upheld my emotional weakness.

Labour with Nathan was very hard both physically and emotionally. I resented that I was in labour and in so much pain when I wasn't supposed to birth any more babies. Eva was supposed to be our youngest.  I didn't progress because I was so emotional. I wailed between contractions on the loss of Eva. It was powerful and painful. And, ultimately, his birth was beautiful as I caught him with my own hands while everyone but Mike's back was turned. Perfect.

And then a week before Christmas I saw two lines again and I was able to keep it to myself long enough to give Mike a tiny sleeper on Christmas Eve.

I didn't want to tell anyone until after an early scan confirmed there actually was a living baby there.

As we have slowly released our news to some people here in real life the experience has been much different than with Nathan. I don't resent congratulations and I am truly happy to be hopefully welcoming this baby into our arms in September.  It's just a different feeling all around. More at ease than not with this rainbow.

I haven't felt the baby move yet and it worries me but I am trying to live in hope and not in fear.
I was going to wait to share our news here until after our detailed scan and fetal echo but I'm feeling recklessly hopeful and wanted to share this hope with you before we know anything about this babe. Because we are immensely grateful for this gift. In whatever shape our blessing comes in.

I'm also going to risk sharing with you my hope that babe is a girl because Lord knows how much I want one. I feel like it's a girl but I have been wrong with those feelings before so I'm trying to keep an open mind and an open heart towards this special gift.

And I know this hopeful news for us is hard for many. And I'm sorry. I truly am. So sorry. And still didn't not want to post about this wee one.