Capture Your Grief - Day 14 - Express Your Heart

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Express your heart with grieving. The powerfully painful transformation can turn you into a person of gratitude or into a person of negativity. I was both. Now, I'm the person of gratitude. During my journey with grief, I have experienced so many things that blessed me or angered me. That's what I'll be talking about today.

Words hurt. Actions hurt. Unfortunately, people don't realize this. Let me talk about the words part of this. From the moment we wake to the time we go to bed, we express ourselves with our words. There are phrases that we (angel parents) dread to hear directly after a loss. We don't want to hear that there was anything remotely wrong with our child. We don't want to hear that God has a plan and this is part of it. We don't want to hear that everything happens for a reason. To us, these are empty words. There's nothing in this world that can help us feel better. My best advice is just to pray for us. Tell us you're praying for us. Instead of using your words to comfort us and show you care, use your actions! Actions could be... cleaning up our house. Helping with our other children who are hurting too. Cook for us. I'm using the word "us" because when a baby dies... so many people are touched by this loss and only one person remains in the light of it all.... Mothers. People comfort and support mothers every way you look at it. But some do not remember the fathers, siblings, grandparents, aunts, uncles, etc. 

Now for that word... action... When helping a family through a loss such as stillbirth, which is what I have experience with... REMEMBER THE DAD'S AND SIBLINGS. They are grieving too. Bring a gift to them as well. This could be in the form of a physical gift, being there to physically help these members of the family, or just to let them use you when they need you.

In addition, actions that you're doing can directly hurt these grieving families. I see this today, as well as within the past few years. People who claim to love me as their own blood family, forget and refuse to acknowledge my daughter. I see these people talk about how much they love me or my living children. They claim me as a sister or a granddaughter but fail to realize that if they do not accept the child of mine who died.... they're not accepting me. I will not take this easy. If you're going to claim to be family to me and refuse to acknowledge the life that I carried for 40 weeks 5 days, then you're not going to acknowledge me or my children in anything. FAMILY sticks together in all the hard times life seems to throw at you. You can't pick or choose which rough times you can be my family. So, if you refuse to say that Dakota is part of your family... then kindly back away from my living children and me. We are not family.

I've accepted her death, it's about time for you to do so as well!!!

Capture Your Grief - Day 13 - Regrets + Triggers

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Regrets during my journey of grief:

1. I regret not being able to bathe and dress my angel. (I never got to do this.)

2. I regret not laying a baby blanket in her forever bed with her.

3. I regret allowing others to tell me how I should be grieving and listening to them.

4. I regret not being more grateful and more excited for her during my pregnancy.

5. I regret not holding on to her longer when I had the opportunity.

6. I regret that I didn't fight harder for her when I knew something was wrong and her doctor wouldn't listen to me.

7. I regret not making sure more photo's were taken of us. (Yes we had pictures done but I have one photo of me and my angel and it's blurry.)

8. I regret the fact that I wasn't the mother my oldest daughter needed while she was grieving too.

9. I regret not keeping up with the letters to my angel in her notebook and vow to start writing to her again.

10. I regret not knowing her exact weight, length, or more details of her that I'm slowly losing over time.

Triggers:

1. Baby girl clothes in the store.

2. Seeing her name written somewhere.

3. Certain ways my rainbow baby looks while he sleeps.

4. Fall to winter because I can't see butterflies on a daily basis.

5. When someone doesn't acknowledge that she existed when listing their nieces or grandkids on a card or social media. 

Capture Your Grief - Day 12 - Normalizing Grief

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The writing prompt for today is on normalizing grief. Some believe that this journey is nothing but heartache and pain. I wrote a post earlier this year that I believe ties into this post. You can view it here: Grief Can Be a Gift...Honest..

In addition to the post, my thoughts for today are this:

Grief is what you make of it. At first, it's hard. Actually, it's very hard. When I started my journey, I felt defeated and powerless. It took me close to two years to realize that I was allowing the grief to

control my life and that's when I decided to take control. I wasn't going to submit to it any longer. Yes, my daughter was here. Yes, my daughter died. However, I didn't have to stay in the state of loss and feeling sadness over it. Instead, I pulled myself together and started honoring her life in more than one way.

The first thing I decided to do was bring to light that she existed so I needed to tell the world. I managed to do this by writing our journey in a book and publishing it on Amazon for the world to read. I figured by doing this, I'm bringing awareness to Pregnancy and Infant Loss, as well as bringing her story, our journey to those who are going through it too. I figured that I could help them by sharing our journey. 

The next thing I decided to do was always honor my angel with different things throughout the year. Each holiday/season, I redecorate her forever bed for her to show my love. By doing this, I'm allowing myself to acknowledge life the way it is and to express the love for her that I can't physically show her.

Each holiday I include her in some way. Most of the time, I light her candle or I sing songs that remind me of her. At times, I even have my family and friends join in.

This is my normalizing grief for me and it works for me.

If you're on this journey with me, what is it that you do to normalize grief in your life?

Capture Your Grief - Day 11 - Glow In The Woods

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My glow in the woods would be my church sisters from Noah's Ark Assembly of God Church in Fairview, West Virginia. They helped me find the light of Christ when my world was filled with darkness. I have a small message for each one of them who have reached out to me and touched me in some way.

Alison- Girl, you have no idea what you do for me. I feel such a closeness to you and I love you as if you are more than just my sister in Christ. Your thoughts, prayers, guidance, and advice has helped me see things when I was blind to them. They gave me hope and helped keep my faith strong.

Shannon- From one angel mom to another: Thank you for everything. Over the many women who I have met during this journey, you have touched my heart. Your prayers aren't going unnoticed because I can see the Lord working around me and within my life. Thank you for supporting me in my journey and loving me when I couldn't love myself.

Carolyn- I gotta thank you for your sternness and guidance. There were times where I remember you telling me what the Lord needed for me to do so I could see the joy once again. Many people have told me to "Let go and let God", but it took your will and love to get me to see this. 

Barbie- Thank you for being the first person to just hold me and cry with me. To this day, I remember it and it brings tears to my eyes. No words were said during that time, but there didn't need to be because I felt the love of the Lord. That hug meant so much to me. You're the one to softened my heart so I could hear what the Lord needed me to hear.

To all the women within Noah's Ark:

Thank you for being you. Thank you for making me smile when I needed it. Thank you for making me laugh when I needed a laugh. Thank you for holding me, praying with me, and just helping me be the best Me I can be. I love you all. 

Capture Your Grief - Day 10 - W O R D S

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I wrote this a while ago and it still rings true for me. I did some editing to the original post to make it more fitting for me today. 

You can see the original post here.

I am STRONG because at 19 years old, I gave birth to my first daughter, Emma. She cried but one time and stared into my eyes while I held her. 

I am STRONG because I gave up college for that moment in time for the life I was meant to have.

I am STRONG because, at 23 years of age, my daughter was diagnosed with an eating disorder and Pica.

I am STRONG because at 25 years old, I became pregnant with my second daughter, Dakota. She was born May 27, 2013, and didn't make a sound. 

 

I am STRONG because on June 1, 2013, I buried my child, and I had never thought I would bury a child, but that my child would bury me.

I am STRONG because we didn't get to bring Dakota home. At 40 weeks 5 days, my daughter's heart stopped beating for an unknown reason.  

I am STRONG because I turned to God in my painful time and managed to continue with my life.

I am STRONG because even after our loss, we managed to try to conceive again.

I am STRONG because I have faith in God and he blessed us with our Rainbow baby.

I am STRONG because although you see me as parent with two children, I’m actually a mother of 3.

I am STRONG because parenting after a loss is tough and I AM making it!

I am STRONG because I am a SURVIVOR!!!

Capture Your Grief - Day 9 - Family.

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Today we are to share what our family looks like now. I think it's best to let the pictures do the talking for today. 

We are generally happy and we have found our joy again. We haven't forgotten our angel. We have learned to manage the pain and we learned to live. To me, Family is there for you ALWAYS! Yes, we don't always get along and we have our problems but we are always there for each other. We support one another when things get tough and nothing can destroy us.... we have Christ in the center of ours.

Capture Your Grief - Day 8 - Wish List.

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Today's writing prompt is for us to share our wishes for our grief journey. I feel as if I somewhat belong in this journey, however, a part of me doesn't. Crazy, isn't it? I thought so too. Then, I got to thinking. Why would any of my wishes have to be for the grief itself?

So, here's my rambling thoughts of wishes:

1. I wish Pregnancy and Infant Loss DID NOT exist. No mother/father should have to part ways with their children. No matter how many times I say this... it's never enough.

2. I wish the media and the world showed their support for Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness like they do with breast cancer. Yes, the breast are important. But so are the babies.

3. I wish to always strive to keep Dakota's memory alive by doing everything in my power to make her story known. I wrote it and published it... now to get it into as many hands as possible.

4. I wish my rainbow will always know BOTH of his sisters as he grows. I want him to tell the world he has TWO sisters, not one.

5. I wish my daughter could let go of the anger, bitterness, and heartache so she can FULLY live life with joy and peace.

6. I wish I could go back in time. I wish I could hug and kiss my daughter. I wish I could watch her grow up.

7. I wish for further wisdom, for deeper relationships, for a way to bring light to those in need, to be more playful, to further my connection with Greg and our daughter, for more laughter, and for others to see the light within themselves!

8. I wish to continue to keep healing and to find peace and understanding.