Baby Doll

I bought a little baby doll at Target today. It's just a $3 one that's barely bigger than my hand, but she's got brown eyes and a cute pink sleeper on.

While other people may buy gifts for their child's grave, I just can't fathom putting anything like that on Felicity's grave when it will be destroyed by the elements. It would just be another reminder of death, seeing it become dirty and worn, without ever having been played with. So this baby doll will hopefully make a little girl somewhere very happy when she finds it in her Operation Christmas Child box.

I will admit though, that it will be hard to pack her away. As much as I chastise the boys for all their toys lying around all over, I'd give just about anything for a bunch of dolls and little girl toys to be part of the mess.

Approaching

I can hardly believe some days that Felicity's been gone almost 2 years. I recently wrote about how I feel I'm doing in my grief. Oddly enough, within days of writing that, I had some days of sadness where I spent a lot of time thinking about her.

Her pictures are displayed throughout our home, but I came across a few the other day that knocked the breath out of me when I saw them. I literally couldn't breathe for a moment and even now as I'm thinking back to how that felt, I feel short of breath again.

She was so beautiful! Did I really have a baby die? In the car the other day, I flashed back to when I routinely traveled that same road to visit my midwife for appointments. It still feels so surreal to me sometimes.

Little things trigger my emotions: seeing an ambulance and wondering if it was the one that took her lifeless body to the hospital, seeing a cute little brown haired girl at the playground, sitting at the dining room table when it's dark out and seeing my reflection in the patio door. I remember doing that the night before she was born and being so tired of being pregnant. I took for granted that my baby would be born healthy and soon.

I told my friend Heidi the other day, that I kind of feel myself shutting down as Felicity's birthday approaches. I still don't know how to do this - celebrate a birthday for my daughter who's not here. And yet, I want to and I have to. The boys need to remember their sister and now that Caleb's here, I don't want it to seem like he's replaced her. The planning of these things always seems to fall on my shoulders though, and right now, I feel too weary to even think about it.

A Lot of Rambling

It's been a busy week since returning home from Copper Harbor, MI where we vacationed.

My emotions have been busy, as has life.

We've got so many things to get done around the house before winter sets in. Here in MN, that could happen anytime from October on. When I woke up this morning, Paul had turned the heat on before leaving for work since it was a balmy 27 degrees outside. I'm wondering what survived in the garden since I didn't know it was going to frost and nothing was covered.

Anyway, we decided last week to finally go ahead and start redoing our front entry landscaping. It's been a big frustration for me what with weeds and other plants that have taken over. It did not look inviting. So with coupon in hand, we've been hanging out at the local landscaping nursery, planning our "new look." I tease Paul that last Christmas he gave me "cabinet jewelry" and this year I'm getting "lawn jewelry." I wonder if this counts as an anniversary, birthday, or early Christmas gift. Hopefully on Saturday we'll be putting our new look in.

Speaking (or writing) of new looks, the other day in a fit of personal frustration with my own current look or lack thereof, I spent too much time trying to find a new blog template. It wasn't fun, but I like this new one and it was free, unlike a brand new wardrobe and hairdo.

Now as for emotions, I'm doing okay. I spent some extra time on Saturday crying in the shower. I just felt overwhelmed with missing Felicity and struggling to find sense in the past year. We've had many positive changes in our family since losing Felicity, but it's often hard to see the big picture impact. I realize I may never see a big picture impact, but I don't want the pain we've gone through in the last year to be meaningless either.

Since Saturday, I've been doing okay emotionally. Today though the tears are back and I'm just at a loss to describe how I feel. I don't feel hopeless or depressed or angry, just sad, I guess. I'm so thankful we have Caleb to look forward to and my heart aches for my grieving mommy friends who are facing anniversaries of their babies' deaths without the hope that a new baby brings. But there's still sadness. There probably always will be, I guess.

I'm struggling with the idea of going through Felicity's pictures, video, cards, and clothing. I had always planned on doing it on her birthday, but the thought of it now is overwhelming. And yet, it's something I really need to do. I think I need to go through it all and have a really good cry and then maybe I'll actually feel better. It's been awhile since I've relived that day in my thoughts. I remember when there were days, it was all I could think of, especially while trying to fall asleep at night.

I'm sure you'd love to read more of my ramblings, but there's so much to do today. I need to try to bring in all our pumpkins and acorn squash, if they survived. We have school to do which has been taking more and more time each day and I need to get out the boys' warmer clothes now that the weather has officially turned. Plus I have to go pay for our new landscaping plants and we have AWANA tonight, which makes the afternoon quite crazy.

As always, thank you for your prayers. May God bless you all!

Almost Here

Only 10 days until Felicity's one year Heaven Day.

Just like the fog outside this morning, I've been feeling the sadness building. There were many times during our trip that I missed her and realized we probably wouldn't be vacationing had she lived.

In fact so many things about our lives would be different.

It's hard not to think about those things.

Biggest thing on my mind lately is imaging what she'd be like as a one year old. Would she be walking yet? Would she be sweet and gentle or rough and tumble in order to survive two older brothers? What color would her eyes be? Would her hair be curly like Elijah's?

Oh, how I miss her!

I've been thinking for months now how we would celebrate her birthday and as it gets closer, I find it hard to plan. I want to honor her memory, but honestly, sometimes it hurts too much to think about trying to have a party for someone who's not here. Add to that the fact that Jeremiah's due date is only three days after Felicity's birthday and I'm not sure how I'm going to handle the next two weeks or so.

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UPDATE ON CALEB:

We had our 22 week MCA scan and growth scan yesterday. We're happy to report that Caleb's scans have been going so well and his numbers are so good, that we don't have to go back for two weeks!

Blessings,