Happy Birthday to my precious little one gone too soon. This year you would be 4 and I would be buying you more toys than I would know what to do with. Instead I pray that your great grandpas and your sisters are giving you the hugs and kisses I long to give you. You were called home to early and we never got to meet but I held you in my womb for 23 weeks and I will hold you in my heart forever.  You are never far from my mind and on your special day I will think of you, raise my face to the sky, and sing to you "Happy Birthday".

Taken by CarlyMarie (http://namesinthesand.blogspot.com/)

 

How Life has Changed

I just got an email from "Michelle Obama" asking me to serve (no idea what this means and don't care to find out) on January 19th, Inauguration Day and then it goes on to talk about the first Inauguration Day the Obamas celebrated four years ago and that's when I realized how much my life has changed in four years.
The last Inauguration Day I found out we had lost Ziggy, so I was in the hospital waiting to deliver her. I remember this SO vividly, I can still picture Michelle Obama's white dress for the ball and I remember looking at the TV trying to find an escape from the hell that I was in but not really watching and soaking in what that event meant for our country.

Now four years later I have lost a total of 3 babies, we are insane and working on me trying to get pregnant one more time (I am confident this will be successful and I will give birth to a beautiful baby), I have lost 82 pounds (and gained 10 back), I have completed my Master's degree, bought a house, completed 2-5ks, and I have adopted 2 of the cutest cats in the world.

It is amazing how my life has changed in four years and how much I have changed (for the better I think). Here's to hoping that the next Inauguration Day I will have changed more (I will be 36) and that I can say how much I love having Earth babies!

Ramblings....

I don't really have a topic tonight or set thing I want to blog about but rather I have things on my mind that I want to share so tonight is about my ramblings and if you feel like giving advice feel free.

* Everytime I work out (mostly rollerblading) I think about how I will keep my activity up when I am pregnant and what I will do after I am pregnant. No, this is not because I am obsessed with pregnancy but rather I am obsessed with keeping all the weight I have lost off. Yes I know I will gain weight while pregnant but I want to keep weight gain to a minimum and I want to be a healthy pregnant woman.

* With thinking about pregnancy, I think of our beautiful angel babies and the pregnancies that gave my beautiful babies to me. All three pregnancies were "easy". I unfortunately gained wieght quickly but I felt good and overall I was healthy.

* Also with thinking about my past pregnancies and our girls I think about what I should have done differently while Libby was still here. I wish I had spent more time with her. I rationally know that I needed to sleep and take care of myself but all the times I sat in my hospital room watching TV, I wish I had been in the NICU watching her. I wish I had touched her more but I was SO afraid to make her sicker. I am so grateful for the time I did have with Libby I just wish I had, had so much more and that I had used the time I did have wiser.

* At times I am still distraught with grief over the loss of my girls

* When I am sad and upset I am able to find positive ways to deal with the pain and I can face and deal with the pain.

* I am physically, emotionally and mentally 100% stronger than I was a year ago. I have lost 82 lbs., I am training to run my second 5k and should be able to beat my previous time, and I am able to deal with my emotions and I have emotions other than sadness.

* I have wonderfully supportive family and friends.

* I am done rambling :) Thank you for sticking around and listening to my ramblings! Good Night

Footnote: no alcohol or other mind altering items were used prior to or after writing this.

A secret

I have a secret that I want to share (which will make it a non-secret but anyways). I deal with depression and I am not going to hide it or hide behind it. It is only an it, it does not define me or make me any less of a person. I am not like the TV commercials, I do laugh, I do find joy in life, but sometimes I don't but it's okay because I know I will get through and things will be sunny again.

There are some days that things are going really well for me and the depression does not get to me and there are other days that I want to hide. I have found that when I am stressed to my breaking is when I slip into these depressive times. I do not want to eat healthy, I do not want to work out, and for the most part I don't find I enjoy anything. For those who know me very well, I know they can see these moments in my interactions with them but for those who don't know me they see nothing but the happy woman I usually am.

I have learned to put a happy face on and let strangers/acquaintances believe that everything is okay while inside I am barely holding on. In the past I have been on medication to help with the depression and I have seen a psychiatrist which has helped immensely. I can now "see" the depression and as I try to make healthier choices in my life I have begun to try and find healthier ways to deal with my depression. I feel that I am lucky in that I no longer need the medication and the depression does not pull me under constantly and I am finding ways to deal with is but it is something I have to deal with.

I don't think enough people are willing to stand up and say they deal with depression, which makes it more of a stigma then it truly needs to be.  While depression is hard, for some (like myself) it is manageable and it's something that needs to be brought to light not hidden away.  I am learning through my weight loss and all the things they teach us at Weight Watchers that when you need help, you need to ask for it; that is exactly what I am trying to do in all aspects of my life. There are days I need help to put one foot in front of the other and there are some days I need help to not shove every fattening food into my mouth. There are other days that I don't need any help at all (for the most part these days occur more often).

So there is my secret. Nothing earth shattering or life altering but something I feel needs to be stated and dealt with. If I can get promote one more person to admit they need help in one way or another this blog post will have served a higher purpose than me just rambling.

Some of my favorite quotes that I think of when I feel down..

Fifty Shades of...Insanity

Before I start my review of the Fifty shades series I need to first state that I LOVE to read and for the most part I read trashy romance novels so with that I give you my review of Fifty Shades (SPOILERS included)

Okay so I will admit I succumbed to the peer pressure of the summer and read Fifty Shades of Grey, Fifty Shades Darker AND Fifty Shades Freed.

We were going on vacation and from what I heard these books sounded like good trashy beach reads. Not the case unless you are 12 and have NO idea about sex. First this is a book series that supposedly has gotten America’s women back into the bedroom…to do what???? I am sincerely hoping America’s women were not turned on by the sexual descriptions in these books because if so I suggest checking out Sandra Brown’s earlier books or anything by Carly Phillips, much trashier  and the women in those books call their private areas something other than …”down there.” So now that I have finished the whole series, the “action” was a little better in the third book but….

Second these two have more sex than horny, sex addicted teenagers. Okay I understand being turned on by your significant other but EVERY time they looked at each other one or the other was alluding to sex, by the third book I was rolling my eyes saying... “AGAIN.” Obviously this is not real life based or the sex only lasts for 2 minutes each time (which is NOT good) because honestly there is not enough time in the day to have this much sex, eat, sleep, and work. Oh or argue because if they weren’t having sex they were most likely arguing about something or other, which would then lead to sex because as we all know sex solves EVERYTHING. I was “proud” of Christian for being able to sustain when Ana was injured. She on the other hand was insatiable!!

Also while from time to time Ana has a backbone for the most part she is a sniveling, naive woman and as a woman who has a backbone and does not cower under a man this irritated me. When he is finally giving her what she wants she continuously questions him and worries about being “right” for him.While reading book 2 at some point I wished I could step into the book,strangle her and yell “he said you are the one he loves, get it through your thick skull and move on” For a smart woman she was VERY dumb when it came to listening to the simple words that were coming out of Christian’s mouth.  And if we heard about her inner goddess once we heard about her 500 times!!! By the 20^th time I saw Ana’s inner goddess referred to I skipped that section. Her inner goddess reminded me of Lizzie McGuire’s cartoon self in the Disney show Lizzie McGuire; when an issue came up the human Lizzie McGuire would “think” using her cartoon Lizzie McGuire...Anyways I digress.


These were books to pass the time while traveling but by the third book I think I only truly read 200 of the 451 (according to Kindle on iPhone) pages, this does not say much about the writing or really the storyline.  These books did not get me back in the bedroom (sorry Kyle) but they were okay one time reads, not really ownable as I will never pick them up again.


If you read these books what did you think and what made YOU pick them up????

My Husband

I don't know if I say this enough but I love my husband. We are your über cute couple. We both walk around with stars in our eyes for each other and we (mostly me) finish each others sentences. At times he can annoy the pants off of me (not literally, Kyle) but other days like today I am smitten with him to the Nth degree.

Today we went to Monsoon Lagoon (local waterpark) which is full of children. Through counseling and getting over my grief I have gotten better with dealing with the emotion that come up when I am surrounded by children especially babies. While it is still tough, I am not crying or left feeling come rely empty. Usually when surrounded by children I will say "I want one" to which my wonderful husband will answer with a hug and "we will have one". He dies not condem me for stating my hurt or my desire but instead embraces what it means to me.

Without Kyle I am not sure if I would be as strong as I am. I owe him the world for being there for me and always letting me feel the way I need to feel to heal.

For all the times I may not have said it I Love You and Thank You!

The love of my life, daddy to our angel babies, our future children, and our fur babies

How Will I Know

So lately I have been thinking quite a bit about being pregnant again. It could be because Libby has been on my mind a lot lately or the fact that I am 15 pounds away from goal weight; but no matter the reason it has been on my mind a lot. With the idea of being pregnant again the thought comes up of how will I know when I/we are ready. We have been through this two times prior and I thought both of those times that we were ready and I am not sure if we were. With the lose of Ziggy we waited awhile to try again and didn't end up getting pregnant a second time until 13 months after losing her. The next time I tried to get pregnant it was within a month or so of losing the second baby. Now looking back I realized that I should have done then what I am doing now but I wanted to fill the void and move on, not deal with the pain. After losing Liberty, Kyle blatantly told me that we are NOT trying for a year (and it takes two to make a baby). So for the past year we have focused on our relationship, on our grief and on life in general. I have focused especially on my weight and becoming a healthier human, which now I wish I had done before getting pregnant with Liberty.

Maybe if I was healthier before getting pregnant with her things would have gone better but truly I think I needed to find the bottom of the barrel to get myself to this point. It wasn't until I had hit rock bottom and was possibly facing never being pregnant again that I found the motivation I needed to get healthy and be a stronger personal physically and mentally.

So now here we are a year later and I am asking myself "how will I know when we are ready?" I know that I HAVE to hit my goal weight and sustain Lifetime status at Weight Watchers, I know I need to stop taking anti-depressants, and I know Kyle has to be ready, but how will I truly know we are ready and not just covering up the hurt still? Is it possible to have divine intervention? We can't just start trying due to my medical needs so Kyle and I will have to actually decide when to start trying and that is frightening. Once we decide to start trying the likelihood of me getting pregnant fairly quickly is very likely. So how can we willingly say yes we are willing to try again knowing what maybe in store. God willing we will NOT go through this tragedy a 4th time and the Dr. we are working with is very confident that the new medication they are going to add to my regiment will help; but still I am scared shitless.

I don't think that feeling is ever going to go away so I can't say I know I am ready when I don't immediately think "Holy Shit" and pregnant at the same time. I have started having baby dreams; which could be the divine intervention I am seeking or it's all the Toddlers & Tiaras I keep watching (yes i really watch it, it's my dirty little secret). I am anxious and excited to be pregnant again and every time someone in the entire world says that they are pregnant my heart drops a little because it's not me and I want to be so badly. All three times I have been pregnant I have loved it and felt fairly calm but this time is our LAST time and I know as much as I will love being pregnant I will also be quite anxious and worried.

At this point I just don't know. It's like a stereotypical conscience conversation; angel on one side, devil on the other except in my case it's baby on one shoulder and anxiety on the other. Both make sense to me and I don't think either will go away no matter what. I need the divine intervention or the faith to just jump in. Until one or the other comes along I guess i will jsut continue to work on my weight loss and trying to figure it out.