Butterfly

Our baby girl is 7 1/2  months old.  I have been back to work since mid-January which has made it very difficult to keep up with posting. 

I've been keeping up with all of the blogs I follow, and have even started reading a few more, but I just didn't know what to say on my own.   That was until yesterday. 

This July it will be 2 years since we lost our little girl to SLOS.   I remember sitting at the park in our subdivision with my husband only days after her death.  My arms were empty and my chest was throbbing, because her milk came in the night before.  I was so angry that my body was so ready to care for her, but she was no longer with us.

It was such a beautiful sunny day, and I remember thinking that it was too bright and sunny.  I was mourning, and would have felt more at ease with dark and dreary.  I sat on the swing, and just swung, feeling hopeless and lost in my thoughts.  I just remember being so uncertain of what I was supposed to do next, and angry that it was so sunny.  I am not sure how long I spent swinging, but once I looked up, my husband was still fishing, and there were several beautiful butterflies along the shoreline. 

Ever since that day at the park, whenever I see a butterfly I know my baby girl is checking in, and letting us know she is still with us.  Yesterday the most curious beautiful little yellow butterfly landed on Lillian's hand, and stayed for awhile. 

 

A Message

My maternity leave is coming close to an end, so I find myself trying to take in every moment that I can with Lillian. She has grown so fast and is changing everyday, it is so hard for me to imagine me spending my days without her. In an ideal world, I would get to do just that, but instead I have to return to work on January 17th.

She is 6 weeks old, and already I cannot imagine my life without her, but I also still find it amazing that I am lucky enough to get to be her mother. Actually, I feel so very lucky to be a mother to two amazing girls. I am excited to share Faith's memory with Lillian, when she is old enough to understand.

When we lost Faith I was often told that everything happens for a reason. I usually am a big believer in this, but when your grief is so strong it just doesn't make sense that there is a reason for the incredible heartache. A year and a half has passed, my grief has lessened, and as I look into the eyes of my beautiful healthy little girl, I now know why our little Faith's time on this earth was so short. She was meant to deliver us a very important message, and without this message we wouldn't have Lillian.

Faith continues to be a guardian angel over our family, and has blessed us all with the opportunity to have healthy children. I am eternally grateful for her, and feel so very blessed to be her mother.

At Last

We have been planning to start a family since 2008, and at last we met our little rainbow princess!

Our daughter was born at 2:07 am on November 22, weighing in at 8lbs 1oz and 21 inches long.

She was quite content not making her arrival, so at 41 weeks, I was induced. It took 16 hours from start to finish, with contractions every 2 minutes the whole way through. I hardly needed any Pitocin to get my labor to start progressing and was on 1ml/hr for 80% of the time, only ever getting up to 4ml's/hr.

I requested an epidural about 5 hours in so I could rest a little because the contractions were pretty intense, without a lot of breaks between contractions. I had some relief for a few hours, but the epidural ended up failing. I didn't have a specific birth plan, so I was open to both natural delivery and an epidural. I believe being open to both options going into the process, made it easier for me to accept, and move forward with the natural delivery.

I spent 2 hours in transition phase, and 2.5 hours pushing. She nursed within 30 minutes after her birth and has been a champ ever since, with a little help from a lactation consultant. The biggest complication was that I came down with an infection, and fever during the delivery, so we both needed antibiotics.

Our daughter handled the delivery so wonderfully, holding a steady heart rate the entire time. She has been such a calm, content baby so far, we are so in love, and have never been happier!

Sooner or Later...

On Friday I had my weekly Dr's appointment. Everything was looking great, but because of my paranoia, I asked if they were planning to check the fluid levels again. The Dr. agreed it would be a good idea to check just to make sure things are remaining at the same level or getting better. If they were getting worse we would have to discuss our options.

The AFI measured at 9.0, which is better than what was seen the previous week. Baby looked content and like he/she had gained a bit of weight. His/her face had a bit more "chunk" to it than we saw in earlier ultrasounds.

I have definitely felt much better this week after the follow up ultrasound, but now I'm just left very anxious for our little one to arrive. I also have noticed I am much more emotional this week, crying very very easily. I'm sure this is just a glimpse of what is to come after the baby arrives! My poor husband!

There are only 6 days left until our due date and I am finding it difficult to think of anything else! Here is to hoping baby comes sooner rather than later because we are so very anxious to meet this rainbow baby.