Her birthday...and her last day approaches

Sage's tree is blooming..sweet pink and yellow flowers...5 more days until her second birthday. 11 more days until her second anniversary of the last day I held her. It seems more and more like a dream....sometimes I don't even think it happened to me...to us...then I get a flashback and WHAM...it is right there again. The screaming...the ambulance ride and my midwife with her hand up inside trying to keep her head off her cord....the surgical suite with the anethesiologist forcing a mask over my face with no air in it and me shoving him away....the team yelling at me to push when I had nothing to put my feet into for leverage...the sound of cpr being performed on my little girl...still warm and pink but already flown from this world...The cocky doctor saying to give me Versed "she doesn't need to remember this"...the sound of the trauma helicopter coming to take Sage to another hospital...then the smell of betadyne...the smells of the NICU....the sights of the smallest ones struggling and thanking all the gods that my girl was spared that fate....she was perfect...still...warm...pink...but gone...so very very gone. These memories flash back to me every day like a smack in the face just for an instant and then gone...then they return again and again....I change the radio station, TV station, web page...I hum a tune...I walk in a circle...I rub my pendant I've worn ever since and try to ward them off....I cram my life full of thoughts and worries and good memories trying to drown them out but still they come...slowly at first when the weather turns colder building up to a barrage. It will suck for the next few days...weeks...and then they will recede like the tide...I will be left again with faint images and occasional skipped heart beats until next year...when the air turns cold, her tree blooms again, and her movie starts to play once more in my mind.

Choices and conflicted feelings

SO things have been chugging along beautifully with Eli. He is robust and big and healthy and BOY through and through. There is nothing soft and frilly about him. No, he is loud, brash, tough, and just as flirty as can be. Total opposite of girl....that's for sure. And time is flying by. He is 6 months old already and I can't believe it has gone by so fast. He is no longer the little infant but a scooting, eating, yapping, bouncing baby. It's amazing!!! So on one hand I should be grateful for the miracle that he is and call it a day, right? I am, after all now considered "advanced maternal age"......ugh. I can't even type that without sneering. But when we look at him and hold him my hub and I can't stop thinking about maybe another. Maybe one more so he can grow up with a sibling more his age. Iris is great and loves him but she is 10 years older. Before we know it she will be out of the house and Eli will be by himself. That happened with my younger brother and we are only 6 years apart. He says he always felt so disconnected from my older brother and I and kind of lonely. I don't want that for him. On the other hand, I want to finish my doctoral studies, get more on our financial feet, have Iris more stable emotionally, and I have to admit, I am liking being more in shape again (but I looove my body pregnant just not the after part so much). We are torn. We don't want o wait too long as we want to be young enough to enjoy our kids but not sure the timing is right......ugh what to do what to do. The fact that I haven't gotten my monthly cycle back yet kind of is deciding it for the immediate future. Maybe I should just let it go.....cause I do that SO well....;)

Christmas

No matter the toys, tree, lights, squeals of delight as my children open their gifts, there will always be one empty stocking....and that sucks.

The spirit tree

Sage's tree with her snowflake friends. Connor, Aquila, Lukas and others all have snowflakes here. They sparkle and shine and sway in our lovely Florida breezes.

Thanksgiving

I am thankful for so much. My husband who was my first love, my family who has been my rock, for the opportunity to parent 3 wonderful children, no matter how long I got to parent them, my friends new and old who stood by me when it was scary, sad, tragic, and hopeful, and for my amazing life. I am blessed...so very very blessed.

My 3 children

.....

So before I totally sabotage my entire life by packing it with way more than I can handle I have decided to go back into therapy. Feels like surrender......