What's in a name?

I first off wanted to thank Jill from Footprints on our Hearts (LINK) for the wonderful, beautiful, absolutely perfect keychain that I was lucky enough to win for the 25 Days giveaway!  You're amazing, Jill, and I am just so grateful!  I got a picture of it on my keychain, but it wasn't blog-worthy in quality.

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I've been getting lots of the "Is Alice your first child?" questions lately.  Every single time, my heart says, "No" - but I sometimes struggle with my answers aloud.  I usually try to say, "She has an older sister in Heaven," but there are admittedly times when I just don't have the strength to get into that.  It hurts to explain, and it hurts to not explain.  There is truly no right answer.

It would help if there were a way we could easily identify ourselves.  It's easy enough to explain my fertility issues - "I'm a PCOS-er," or "I had to do IVF" (whatever acronym they may understand).  There really isn't a quick way to explain being a mother of a child who has passed on, however.

The common one we've adopted is "baby loss mamas" - but something about that one bothers me a little bit.  To be precise, it's the word "loss" - I didn't misplace Maddie.  It wasn't thoughtlessness or anything I could have controlled that took her away from me.  I know precisely where she is at all times.  It's a well-meaning term, but a little laden with blame.

Slightly better is "orphaned parents," but that one just confuses people.  "So, you're a parent, but your parents died?"  Not easy to explain.

Is there a better term of which I'm just not aware?  When it comes down to it... does it really matter what I call myself?  No matter what you call it, I still can't hold my daughter, and it hurts even if I don't have a name for the emotion.

I hope the holidays are a time of healing and love for all, and brings them closeness with those they've lost.

Giveaway Winner....

I first off wanted to thank everyone for their wonderful comments on the giveaway!  This meant a lot to me - I was a little worried that it wouldn't be an idea people liked.

On to the fun stuff!  I used our friendly generator at random.org, and the winner is...  Cheryllookingforward!  Cheryl is a wonderful lady - her Baby November and Maddie would have been due around the same time. 

Thank you so much, everyone, for your wonderful comments!

25 Days of Giveaways - Day 16

I am so grateful to Tina for letting me participate in the 25 Days of Giveaways!

After Maddie passed away two summers ago, I took a step back to reexamine everything in my life and see how I could do it better.  One of the things that made me think was how my family celebrated Christmas - we all usually got each other gift cards to buy things we didn't really need, or maybe even want.  While we all appreciated and loved the gifts and each other, it wasn't really what I would call productive.  So, last Christmas, I proposed the idea instead of giving to a charity of our choice, and then sharing on Christmas Day to where we donated, and why.  This idea was received so well that we're doing it again this year.

My donation both years has been to the March of Dimes.  I know it's not a traditional giveaway, but I would like to do the same for the winner of this giveaway.  Please leave your blog link and your angel baby's name in the comments below, and I will donate to March of Dimes in your baby/babies' name if you win.  If you are a frequent reader/subscriber, please leave a second note reminding me of this to double your chances.  Comments can be submitted until midnight Pacific time.

I will post the winner here tomorrow, and will also try to leave a comment on your blog informing you that you won.

Happy holidays!

Eventful

It was an eventful weekend/Monday!  Here's the gist of it:

Saturday - Alice's first blizzard.  Super-excited to get that milestone out of the way.  We had intentions of going to see Santa in the "big" city nearby, but the roads weren't allowing for that... so we went to the local one.  It was okay - Alice has been having stranger anxiety lately, and so luckily she didn't see him when we put her on his lap.  She did, however, grab a handful of beard hair first thing, so she was clearly his favorite child.  The picture wasn't really good enough to be scanned, so it's just going in the baby book.

We got home, and she hit a couple of major milestones!  She tripod-sat for the first time unassisted (go, baby girl!), and then this started happening (forgive her sleep-sack-and-Babylegs look, and my pajama pants):  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Klj-gSj1NdE

Is it weird that I am honestly more excited/proud about her doing this than I am about almost anything I've ever achieved in my whole life?

Sunday - I woke up several times through the night with some pain in my lower right abdomen.  Hunh.

Monday - Pain continued, so I went to the doctor.  My blood tests showed that my white blood cell counts were pretty elevated, so he got a CT scan.  It came back normal, but he's still worried about the cell counts (I might still be at the beginning of appendicitis), so I go back today.

While I was at home waiting for the results, Alice started getting sick.  Lots of pooping, fever, etc.  Her fever finally broke at about 4:00 a.m. this morning, but we were thisclose the whole time to meeting the pediatrician's requirements to go to the ER.  It was a long night, but we're doing better today!

I'm hoping that 2011 is drama-free.  :)

Pretty, pretty, pretty

Thank you so much to Franchesca for my gorgeous new blog look!  Here is a LINK to where you can purchase her services - even though I was on a waiting list, her turnaround time was so fast, and she was absolutely amazing!

She did SUCH an amazing job with incorporating Maddie's footprints into my header... and my new blog button!  If you'd like to link to me, she has a button right over here somewhere:

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4-month Appointment Fun

Alice's 4-month appointment went awesome.  She was 24.5 inches long (37th percentile), 15 lb 8 oz (79th percentile), and had a head circumference of 17.5 inches (99th percentile!).  I joked to JTD that we have the cutest Bobble.head on Earth.

She did great with the shots, though - she only cried for about ten to fifteen seconds, and was then fine.  She ran a low-grade temp all weekend, but I think it's better.  She giggled when the doctor was checking her hip joints, like, "What is this dude doing?"

Update on baby Isaac Liam - thank you for all of the prayers for my nephew.  He's doing great - he's not eating very quickly/efficiently, but they took him off of the CPAP yesterday because he's breathing so well.  He was moved to an incubator, so they can control his environment more.  We went down and saw him on Saturday night after he was born, and he was grasping my finger - it's amazing how strong he is already.

prayers, please

Please keep a very special baby in your prayers. After a totally uneventful pregnancy, my brother's wife just delivered their baby boy, Isaac, at 32 weeks. He is doing great, but could use prayers.

I guess our family can't have a normal pregnancy...

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