Party time!

We had Ellie's party on the 9th and it was wonderful! We had close to 70 family and friends come and celebrate Ellie's life. We were blessed with wonderful weather, we were all biting our nails the day before hoping the storms would hold off. We served foods that I have craved during the pregnancy: faux Arby's sandwiches, fruit, chocolate kisses and we had to have some delicious cupcakes! We had a table set up with all of the Ellie box contents and all of the things we have been given through out the pregnancy. We were surprised to learn that people brought gifts. That was not something I had planned for. We are surrounded by so many people who are there for us during this time. I can't tell enough people thank you for everything they have done for us. And I will thank everyone for the gifts they brought to the party when I get some free time. I started another grad class so my summer break has temporarily ended.

Tough moments lately...all of the girls. Jason and I have so many friends that just welcomed little girls or are expecting little girls all within months of Ellie's due date. Some days are easier to hear about those other girls and some days I have no idea how to act because in my mind I am screaming it's not fair. All of these sweet girls are beautiful and have wonderful parents and we don't want them to ever feel like they can't talk to us about their baby or soon to be baby. But the hardest thing is that what you're going through with your little girl we will not get to do with Ellie. We didn't have any baby showers, we don't get to set up a nursery, we aren't excited about our due date. We will never hear Ellie call us mom or dad. We will never know what Ellie will look like in school pictures. And what I realized in the last couple days is that I will always look at these other girls and think about Ellie and how she should be just months younger or older than them. Every milestone these girls will reach I will be sad that Jason and I won't get to watch Ellie reach milestones. As time goes on I hope I will get better with handling these situations.

I went back and forth thinking about deleting that last paragraph...I am sorry if you are reading this and you believe you are one of the parents to one of the girls. I am so happy for you and you deserve to be happy, I apologize if I have upset you in any way.

We are getting closer to our due date and I have so many mixed emotions. I don't even know how to sort them out. I know I need to trust in God and let him take us through how it he intended this to all happen. I don't know why I even think about this, but I am afraid of who will be around me and how to act after Ellie passes away.

It was Father's Day this past Sunday. I couldn't even pick out a card without crying. I walked away from the card selection 3 times. I couldn't decide if I wanted a card from Ellie or from me. You know how some cards are meant to be from certain people? Finally I settled on a card for Jason. I found one that was from Ellie and I. I cried writing in the card. I cried hiding the card. I cried thinking about the card. I cried laying the card on the counter. I cried while Jason opened the card. I am crying typing this. I had no idea it was going to be so hard. Everyday is not a good day. But Jason is always my good thing in everyday. Without him I don't know how I would be going through this journey. I am so sad that Jason won't get to be the protective dad to his daughter. He is a wonderful dad to Ellie and I know he will be a wonderful dad to the children we will have in the future, I think he will be an even better dad having gone through this.

strength

A lot of people have told Jason and I how strong we are and they don't know how we are going about life like we do knowing that we are going to lose our daughter. I get it quite often on my own, not everyday but at least once a week. Sometimes I feel kind of guilty with how normal we go about normal life. I know God deserves a large amount of credit for our strength. We also have fabulous families and friends. Do I have my days/moments where I don't want to get out of bed? Of course. But when you think about it you're pregnant for almost a year of your life, that is a dang long period of time. We found out very early on about Ellie's condition, we still had majority of the pregnancy ahead of us. What are we going to do? Be angry and hate life for the next 9 months? no. We have 9 months to be parents to our little girl. There are moments when I am bitter listening to other expectant mothers talk about the frustrations of their pregnancy or about the expense of welcoming a child into the world. Sometimes I want to get up and not listen. What about J and I's expense of our pregnancy? We will pay for the birth of our child and quickly after pay for our child's funeral. It is wrong. Period.
But other times I get caught up in the pregnancy conversation and am able to laugh and enjoy sharing stories. Why shouldn't I? I have found sometimes that the fact we are going to lose Ellie doesn't even cross my mind while talking about my pregnancy with other pregnant mothers. For a moment I get to be like any other normal pregnant lady.
Ellie deserves to hear us laugh and joke. Am I going to screw all the "don'ts" of pregnancy because its already as bad as it can be? no. Ellie is alive and well right now, she deserves a healthy environment.
At this point I think we deserve to be happy and to enjoy life while we can, enjoy Ellie while we can. Just because we aren't crying everyday all day doesn't mean we don't love her and aren't thinking of her 24 hours of the day.

Come the end of July, beginning of August, we are going to dig ourselves into 12 foot deep holes and probably not come out for a very long time. The people we have been all of our lives will probably disappear for a while. I can't even imagine the reality of the pain we will feel this summer. So for these next few months we deserve to be happy. I say "we deserve" for myself, not because I am trying to prove a point to someone else.

We are also finding things to look forward to. For example we are going to have a party for Ellie in June. Some people have a hard time understanding why we would want to do that. The only birthday Ellie will have is her BIRTHday. So as parents we decided we want to throw her a party while she is alive. To have as many people near her that love her and want to celebrate her life as possible. That is something that as her parents we are excited about, this is the only party we will get to throw for her.

I think of this quote often when I think of Ellie and her impact on us and everyone surrounding us. 

Didn't work...

I was trying to load a couple of You Tube videos...apparently I don't know how. Hopefully the links work by clicking on the song titles.

Worn- Tenth Avenue North
Need You Now- Plumb


I have heard those 2 songs on the radio in the last week and they seemed to sum up my feelings pretty well.

We had our cinnamon rolls this morning while talking about something that I think is pretty exciting. You will find out in the next month or so what I am excited about. : ) I don't want to say too much just in case it ends up not working out.

I hope everyone had a great weekend!