Right Where I Am 2014 Edition: 3 Years, 9 Months, 2 Weeks, and 4 Days

this is my fourth year participating in the RWIA project. here are my first, second, and third year entries. every year it seems to sneak up on me, and it's been no different this year. and yet again i find myself wondering how another year has passed without Julius.

a few months ago our family expanded yet again. Julius' baby brother, rainbow #2 (E), was born. life has been busier than ever with a newborn and a toddler at home. but grief is the friend that never goes away. and why should it? after all grief is the price you pay for love.

i have found joy again. my rainbows bring me nothing but happiness, and laughter. don't get me wrong, we still encounter the daily struggles of parenting a toddler who is too grown for her own good, and a newborn. but i'm so thankful to be experiencing those struggles. every single giggle, kiss, hug, meltdown, etc. is a blessing for me. i'm almost in tears thinking about how happy i am to be an earthly parent again. i didn't think i would ever get another chance after Julius passed away. i didn't believe i would ever enjoy life again.

just as i parent my rainbows, i find myself parenting my grief and Julius' legacy. some days grief remains in the background allowing me to breathe a bit easier. but days, like today, it has me by the throat - choking me. all it takes is one trigger to send me down a downward spiral. an article on a popular website that was supposed to be written in jest. and it would have been funny if i were anyone else but myself. planning for the baptism of E, and remembering the baptism of his older brother. or even looking at pics of my boys and realizing that i will never get to compare how they look at months 5-12.

sister is such a great sibling and she continues to be super affectionate with her baby brother, which is also bittersweet. she still doesn't quite understand what has happened. but she has taken more of an interest in the book "Someone Came Before You". she reads it frequently, and asks us to read it to her. she understands the pics in the book, and can point out that the mommy and daddy are "sad" and "crying". but she doesn't really comprehend why. and i know that my grief will take on yet another form when she does get it and begins asking questions about Julius.

so almost 4 years later, grief is still a very real part of my life. but i continue to feel more and more like i am "living" instead of just trying to get from one moment to the next. i continue to live my life focused around love and the love i have for my children. and i continue to take it one day at a time parenting all 3 of my children.

4.5 months

this should be a joyous time, rainbow #2 is fast approaching the 4.5 month mark, but i'm filled with fear and anxiety. this is the age Julius was when he passed away. and with both rainbows when i have gotten to this point, i panic inside. will history repeat itself? i feel like i'm constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop. and now particularly because rainbow 2 is a boy, i feel a heightened sense of impending doom. it makes me a little nauseous to be quite honest.

i wonder if i will ever get to see a little boy of mine live past 4.5 months. i beg the universe to give me the opportunity for a long life with this son (with both of my rainbows for that matter). the passed 2 weeks i have felt as though i'm holding my breath. i'm just trying to make it through the month of july. this is just the 1st of a series of milestones that i'd like to pass with this little boy. and even when i make it passed this milestone, it will still be deeply saddening because i never got the opportunity with Julius. bittersweet is what it is.

on top of this, i've heard of 2 or 3 other families in the last 2 months who have recently lost their little ones to SIDS and are just beginning their grief journey. my heart hurts for them. for us. this is an awful reality. losing a child is just so unnatural, and i hate that anyone has to feel this kind of pain. every time i hear of a new loss, i flashback to *that* day, those suffocating emotions of just being shattered and broken, lost and alone. how will they manage to make it through? how will they go on? how did i?

mom of multiples

of course when i decide to almost give up on this blog, i find some inspiration on new topics to blog about. go fig!

i've been thinking about this a lot since L's arrival. typically in the midst of some incredibly hectic, chaotic moment in which i'm desperately trying to juggle the needs of both of my living children. like when baby girl is being a diva, and L needs to be fed. and after i get both kids settled, i take a breath, stare at them, and thank the universe for allowing me to have such a moment.

it sounds crazy, but it's in those moments that i feel the most peaceful. after baby girl's arrival, i was just so happy to be actively parenting again. but, again, i felt a bit like a fraud. at that point, i was a mom of multiple, but if you didn't know our story, you wouldn't know. and when we were out in public, strangers always just assumed that she was our first.

now, while we still get those hurtful comments from strangers (which will never end, i'm convinced) about how now i have 1 girl and 1 boy (ugh!), they now SEE me as the mom of multiple children. i've found that i get more of an opportunity to talk about Julius though. sometimes people will ask if i have any other children, so i get to talk about all 3 of my kids. it's nice and hard but comforting.

i think back to the time when my grief was just so fresh it was suffocating, and i NEVER would picture that in a few years i would have 1 rainbow, let alone 2. i didn't even think i would survive losing my firstborn. many days i prayed not to. but now i'm the mom of 3 beautiful amazing kids. and i'm so thankful i have my 2 rainbows to help me through the dark days without my son.

Right Where I Am 2013: 2 Years, 8 Months, and 6 Days

seriously, WTF??

that reaction pretty much sums it all up. it sums up what i thought as i scrolled through my blog list to see all of the other RWIA posts that have already been done. it sums up my feelings to the amount of time that has passed since the last time i saw my beautiful boy. it sums up feelings about the fact that i am still living this nightmare of being a bereaved mother.

how could it be? how could i have given birth to a child that isn't here anymore. some days it all feels like a dream. but i look around and see the pictures of him everywhere, and know that it's not.

last year i wrote the post a day before his 2nd birthday. our rainbow had just made it to the 4.5 month milestone in which we lost Julius, thus officially outliving him; anxiety was at an all time high, and my heart was so very heavy with worry and grief.

since then...we just celebrated his 3rd birthday {which was a difficult one for me. and i've figured that they are all pretty much going to be difficult ones because there is no way that i can adequately plan a day worthy enough for him}. his sister just turned 17 months and brings more joy/love into our lives than we ever thought we would be able to experience again.

but as she continues to grow and develop, so does her "interactions" and understanding of her brother, which brings another dimension to my grief. see all this time i have been grieving MY broken heart, and MY missing him. but more and more i feel as though i am grieving for me and rainbow. as i mentioned in a previous post, she kisses her urn with me now. and she has recently started grabbing his picture off of the entertainment center, kissing it, and saying "baby".

oh, how my heart breaks even more to see how tenderly she treats him. it aches to think of how she would act with him in person. she is such an affectionate girl. she loves love/affection, she gives kisses and hugs so generously {maybe a little to generously} to all the little kids/babies she meets. and i wonder would she be as affectionate with her older brother. it makes me angrier to know that she will never get the chance. she deserves to experience all the fun of having an older brother. he deserved to get the chance to be an older brother. but, unfortunately, it didn't happen.

my grief is still a part of me. while i am finding it easier to "live" again, instead of just merely "surviving," i can still feel the ache in my heart. i still avoid conversations about kids/families with strangers. i still avoid some parts of town that remind me too much of *that* day. i still have days in which i have to close my office door because i need to cry. i do have a lot to cry about, but my children give me so much more to smile about. and these days it's easier to smile for both of them...

Community

in 2011, i had the honor of meeting a few other BLMs when i made my way up to MN. it was an incredible trip - therapeutic, emotional, relaxing, necessary. i had time to meet some the women who had become part my biggest support system since losing Julius.

last weekend, i got a chance to make another similar trip. my rainbow and i made our way to IL to meet several other BLMs and their rainbows. and it was...awesome! i think in total 14 moms (a few dads) and 14 rainbows were in attendence in person (plus our babies that we carried with us in our hearts - the ones that brought us together). and while i didn't know all of the BLMs that were there before the trip, it was still great to just meet them and their rainbows.

it was inspirational to see so many women who have survived the unimaginable. it was wonderful to be able to share my son with people and not fear that i was making them feel uncomfortable. and when i cried (because of course there was crying done by me), no one tried to get me to stop, or spouted out some useless platitude. they let me cry, they brought me tissues, they cried with me.

and those rainbows!!! wow. how those babies were loved and adored by all this weekend! the amount of love that was in that house...well, i'm surprised the house didn't implode in on itself. everyone was just so wonderful with my rainbow, and showed her so much love and affection. it warmed my heart. she usually has to warm up to strangers, but i think even she realized that these women weren't "strangers". i think she knew that these women knew me/my heart, and that they have helped me survive. seriously, i'm not sure how i would have managed the last 2.5 years without their comments, emails, messages, cards, etc.

i'm thankful. i wish i never had to meet those women the way that we did. i wish we all had our babies in our arms. but i appreciate every single one of them that made it last weekend. i appreciate their rainbows because they have brought some happiness into, not only their parents' lives again, but also mine. i appreciate their babies that were not able to be there with us in person, because they led me to their mommas. and i appreciate those BLMs/people who weren't able to be there, for whatever reason, but have shown me support, love, and comfort in the days since losing Julius. living without Julius is the hardest thing i am currently doing, but i'm thankful i have this community walking with me.