Today is Remembering Our Babies Day; Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day. I did not know that this existed, but since I just found out I thought it would be a good day to remember our losses. We do at other times in the year as well, but this is a national day to remember and so I will.
We had been married about 6 years and had been trying for a baby for about a year. It was the end of the summer in 2001 and we were in the process of building our house and we found out I was pregnant. Everyone was so excited! We went to the doctor at 6 weeks and everything was fine. We went back in at 10 weeks and the doctor couldn't find a heartbeat. We had an ultrasound to confirm that there was no heartbeat and were told that the baby was dead. We were in shock. We didn't even know how to handle this. I was told that everything would pass out of me eventually, or I could have a D&C. I said I would wait. But, the more I thought about it I just didn't know when the baby would pass or what it would be like, I opted for a D&C. It was my first of five that I would have through the course of having babies! I was convinced that our first baby was a boy, and named him Caleb. It was a difficult time in our lives, but we got through it and a little over a year we were blessed with our Skyler.
We lost another baby after that Skyler. Our little Gracie was very special, but I will save her story for her birthday, which is coming up soon.
We will be lighting two candles tonight for our little babies in heaven!
The kids were so excited about this family fun night!
We dined by candlelight because it was more spooky that way!
I found these in Skyler's room the other day. I was so surprised to see something like this, but I can understand where he is coming from. He made these signs, one says No Lily Allowed and there is a circle with a girl in it crying with a line through it and the other one say Yes Lily Allowed with a girl in a circle smiling. How did these come about? Well, I don't know the whole story, but when he comes home from school he likes to go in his room and color, cut, or draw. He likes to do this by himself and with no interruption. Lily has missed her brother all day and just wants to play with him and is pretty persistent about it. So, one night when I was gone, he came up with these signs with the help of his dad (only for the spelling). I was pretty surprised that he came up with this idea on his own!
We took a family road trip on Saturday to Winterset, Iowa to go to the Bridges of Madison County Fall Festival. It was a long day, but we had so much fun! We walked around the town square, went and looked at two covered bridges, played at a cool park, and climbed a cool, castle-looking lookout tower. The beauty around us was breathtaking and we were lucky enough to have awesome weather. The trees were all changing color and it was just an amazing time! There was an awful lot of playing in the leaves. Fall is my favorite time of year and I loved hearing the leaves crunch under our feet and the smell of the leaves and watching the kids play in the leaves. I would highly recommend this. I would like to go back without the kids to see the other bridges that we didn't make it to. There was even a stone bridge we didn't get to stop at that was in the movie Bridges of Madison County. Good, good times.
