Losing Bailey.

Most of my regular readers are familiar with our loss of our first daughter Bailey.  Yes, it was nearly 8 years ago.  There are times when it comes back up. 

Don't get me wrong, her loss is always in a way right at the surface.  It can creep below the scab for a really long time.  It's just when there are occasions that come up that remind of her loss, like this past week, it's like the scab has been ripped clean and the sore begins to weep once again.

First, I'm surrounded by pregnant woman.  Don't get me wrong, I love babies.  L. O. V. E. babies.  The women, the bellies, the pregnancy complaints, the comparative stories and the birth details.  [breathing deeply]  It's an exercise of keeping me from doing the duck and run.  It's not a jealousy thing.  Oh, I would never in a million years want to see anyone lose a child.  How it hurts.  I can't truly explain.  [insert welling tears]  I just wished that people could be pregnant and magically give birth in one fell swoop.

Frankly, I think that many of the pregnant ladies would agree.  (Not all, I know.) 

I have two cousins due within a week or so of each other.  They are due next month.  Christmas Eve dinner was the typical comparative pregnant women talk.  Nothing was meant as offensive.  When we drove home, Hubs had asked me about it.  I'm hoping that I hid my emotions better with everyone else or that he was just better in tune to me.  He said, "How thoughtless!"  "[Hubs], they are pregnant.  They truly meant nothing thoughtless or wrong.  Bailey has been gone for almost 8 years.  They probably didn't think about it.  I do all the time, but I doubt that they even gave it a thought."  (Neither one did anything wrong.  My cousins would be beside themselves if they knew of my sadness.)

"Well, I did." 

So there I am, doing the cringe on my own (silently, of course) and there is Hubs, in the same big Titanicish boat with me.  How thoughtless of me not to consider that either.

A couple of days ago, my aunt's health aide came down and they were telling me about how her granddaughter had given early birth to her twin babies.  They were at 4 1/2 months along, were born despite efforts to keep them on the bake, they stayed alive for 3 1/2 hours and were gone.  Their funeral is tomorrow.  She was talking about getting dog tags made with the babies foot prints on them.  I was talking with her about having Bailey's foot prints hanging on our bedroom wall.  I gave her the name of the memorial company who, when we told them that we were looking to purchase a stone for a baby, told us that they provide those stones at no cost.  They had a selection of maybe 10-12 and the gentleman apologized for not having more.  I told her that people were giving me a hard time about not having a stone earlier.  (It took us about 6 months after she passed to go.)  It's just not something that you snap right up and say, "I'm going grave stone shopping today!"

She was telling me about the beautiful photos that the hospital had taken of the babies.  Hands and feet, all taken in detail.  I told her that we had been provided with a roll of film that I've yet to develop.  They were living in the world of pinkish babies.  To skip detail, I can tell you that I was not.  No thank you, Baby Bailey will be in my memory forever and I can't do the photos.  Period.

We talked about how my mom went on the hunt for a dress for bitty Baily to wear.  In the end, I do recall that she was buried in a blue flowered dress.  I think that it may have been a doll dress and I know that it was provided by someone or something of the hospital or funeral home nature.

I sat in church this morning in tears.  It's not often that the loss of Bailey hits me so hard.   The water in the church has been tainted with major pregnancy hormones that have three ladies due within a month of each other this coming May.  We just had two babies born in the past week.  One pregnant mom was a part of the Christmas tea and gave full detail about how she wanted another baby, her husband wasn't on board, she prayed and had a bunch of other people praying about it and last Christmas he gave her a baby name book, they were having a baby and it's all good.  (I would want it no other way.)

So I'm in a funk.  Rachael would call it a down yo.  It's not that Christmas was bad.  We had a lovely time.  We spent time with family.  Christmas was very good.  I've just been working up to this funk. 

Smiles in my sparsely blogged week:
-  K- running from house to house delivering baked goods.
-  The true meaning of Christmas, of course!  (Not to be trumped by the baked good bit.)
-  Being able to get together with family on Christmas Eve and having it be like it was when we were kids. 
-  My parents getting our white elephant offering and being really thrilled.  It was a plug-in mini fridge for the car that we gave them, they decided that they weren't using it, they gave it to Hubs, we weren't using it, I tried to unload it at the yard sale, it didn't go and it was white elephanted.  My mom was so thrilled, as my father has said on numerous occasions how they wished that they had it back!
-  My father received the owl pellets.  Apparently, that will be a passable thing every year now.
-  We got the gingerbread house done on Friday.  Or was it Thursday?  Either way, it is upright and standing firm.  See, having Hubs build the structure is a very good thing.  No use in it looking like a forgotten foreclosure with candy stuck to it.
-  Hubs asked what I wanted for Christmas.  I'm in need of nothing, but told him a camera.  Mine is old and the delay is just awful.  Because I fancy myself as a budding photographer of sorts, he bought me a Nikon. We're generally Kodak people, but since the model that he was looking at was falling apart (FYI Kodak), he bought a lovely Nikon on sale and now I have a spiffy new camera that can apparently hold 10,000 shots or so.  Wow.  Now if I can just figure out how to work it . . .
-  The neighbor replaced my old and gigantic monitor with a new flat screen!  It's lovely and he didn't even know that the old one was ailing.  He bought Hubs an impact drill set and a few DS games for K-. 
-  K- is going to play in the snow.  I was thinking today.  We've had snow continuously covering the ground in some level of measurement for a month.  Colds and flus are flying around everywhere and I may very well have to suck it up and open all the windows and doors with the temp only being 39 or so at the end of the week.  I need to get us some clean, fresh air to keep us all well. 
-  The Baker Creek catalog is here and I'll have to be getting with Rachael to see what we'll be swapping this year.  (We are swapping, right?)

I've dumped.  I feel better.  How therapeutic it is to let it out.  Thanks!