kind of dull...

I don't really have anything going on or anything exciting to talk about. Just enjoying a long weekend.

The emotions of learning about Ellie (that she is a she) are still raw and sudden sometimes. But it seems to be like when we found out our sweet baby was anecephalic, we had a week of being very emotional and now it is our norm and we go on with life. We enjoy talking about Ellie and not about "it". I have started looking at hats online for Ellie to wear...which feels a little surreal. I think that's because I enjoy shopping for hats but deep down I am shopping for hats to cover the abnormality of Ellie's skull and that hasn't truly sunk in yet. I can't seem to wrap my head around what she will look like. I know that no matter what she looks like I won't care because she is my daughter, but I am a little scared of how I will feel when I see her lack of skull for the first time.
I had a friend tell me that there is no skin where the absence of skull is, which almost terrifies me. How will I hold her? I don't want to hurt her. You will see dark matter (brain I am assuming) that is covered by a thin clear membrane. After talking to a few people and reading a little more I have re-affirmed my feelings of wanting a c-section, it seems having a c-section gives Ellie better odds of being born alive and living anywhere from minutes to possibly a couple days.

Well, I guess I had more to talk about than I thought I did.

Happy Easter!

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!

Ellie Martin Holmertz

Our daughters name is Ellie Martin Holmertz. Martin is my maiden name, it would have been the middle name either way, boy or girl. I wanted our baby to have a bit of both families in her name since she will not be here to know her family.

Knowing we are losing a daughter is incredibly hard. I find I am in tears more often than I was before finding out she is girl. I figured that was coming  because now every time I see something girl related I know that is something that I will not get to experience, that Ellie will not get to experience. Before, when we didn't know boy or girl, seeing baby/kid things was not as hard because we didn't know which we were going to lose. And now we know.

Our counselor wants us to write letters to her...even starting to draft a letter in my head brings me to tears.I don't even know Ellie and I love her more than anything. I miss her already. I try to imagine what she might look like at 1 years old, on her first day of kindergarten, on her wedding day. The thing that seems to be hardest for me is thinking about her going to Heaven...I know that sounds odd. You would think knowing she will be in a better place with loved ones we have already lost would bring me comfort and joy. All it reminds me of is that she will be there and not here with us.

If anyone is willing to do some research for me I would appreciate it...I want to know the percentage of Anecephaly babies born alive after a c-section vs. vaginal birth (assuming I go to full term). I plan to talk more about it with my OB but I want to know what is out there on the web but I am scared of what I might see. I also want to know what the top of her head will look like, will there be skin? Or will we be able to see the wound?
I did find these % when I was being brave yesterday...
7% died in utero 
18% died during birth 
26% lived between 1 and 60 minutes 
27% lived between 1 and 24 hours 
17% lived between 1 and 5 days 
5% lived 6 or more days 
from www.anecephaly.info (I did not look through this website in detail)

This info goes against some stats that our OB told us...

Here is our beautiful daughter.

Here is her profile. It was really hard to get pictures of her face, she wanted to hold her arms in front of her. 

Here is another profile, a little more wavy and hard to see. You can see her one arm is up and she is touching her forehead. 

It's a girl! You see her butt, her two legs going to the left, and then nothing between her legs... : )

Love you Ellie!



Our basement.......
Here is the before

The future family room.

Will become bathroom and bonus room

Laundry room/storage will remain unfinished.

And as of today!!!

The family room 

The hallway to the bathroom (on the left), bonus room at the end of the hallway, and then laundry room on the right.  Eventually the wall on the right will have built-in shelves. 

We'll get glass walls for the shower. 

Happy Saturday. 

I don't want to hold everyone in suspense...

This morning we found out our baby is a girl. It is very bittersweet and we are still working through how to even being thinking about this baby as a girl and our daughter without falling apart. I am going to keep this short so I can compose my thoughts and write again later when I have my head screwed on tight.
Thank you for all of the support and prayers!

Tomorrow

I have absolutely no idea how to feel about tomorrow. How should you feel when you're going to find out if the baby you are going to lose is your daughter or son? I have the slightest feeling of excitement...because we will finally know, boy or girl! The other 99% is a ball of emotions that I can't begin to organize into words and sentences. I am afraid of how life will change after tomorrow. Will I be able to function as well as I have been in the last 11 weeks? Will seeing other babies be even harder than it is now? Tomorrow determines how depressing it will be to think of pretty girly clothes or little boys playing sports until August 3rd and far after I am sure.

I have this reoccurring thought about Christmas in Iowa every now and then. While Jason and I were celebrating Christmas with family in Iowa last year we were having a fun conversation about how old the baby would be the next time we are in Iowa for Christmas...4 months. I keep thinking about that sweet 4 month old baby that I want to be holding in Iowa, wearing cute Pjs and being passed around by family...
Instead we will be empty handed and heartbroken.

Tomorrow at 10:30 (well lets say 10:50, they're never on time).

uff-da

uff-da doesn't really do justice to how I feel after this week. My parents were in town for a couple days (which was not part of the uff-da) which was wonderful! My mom was able to help in my classroom for 2 days, so nice to have another adult in the room for a couple days.

So either pregnancy brain is in full swing or this weeks jammed packedness (I know it's not a word, just go with it) momentarily stopped my brain from thinking clearly. Sunday while at the grocery store I forgot my pin...meaning Jason and to bring me a check (our grocery store doesn't take credit). Monday morning I woke up at 2:30 and couldn't fall back asleep...fast forward to 6:40am and I backed into my parents car, Happy Monday to me! I had to get report cards done and finish an assignment for grad school...all on Monday. Tuesday I had so much random paperwork to do at school to get ready for our field trip on Wednesday and then get some stuff together for grad school before leaving for home...only to learn that my homework hadn't properly saved!! err. Made it to class just in time Tuesday. All through class my mind is making a list of what do I still need to do to get ready for the field trip. Wednesday night I had to organize all the random stuff for parent-teacher conferences on Thursday. No time to think!

I made it to Friday!! Along with all of the other junk that was going on my mind kept thinking ahead to Monday  and finding out the gender of our baby...I am so sad and I don't even know why. boy or girl. I will be so sad either way. I can't even begin to imagine what it will be like to see our baby again in an ultra sound. I want to look but I am afraid of what I will see. I am afraid of falling apart after learning what the gender is. Knowing if it is a boy or girl is something that just thinking about brings me to tears. 

I have been thinking about the funeral a lot lately. We are half way through the pregnancy and I don't want to have to make a lot of decisions after we lose our baby. I want people to know what we want and how we want it so we don't have to be asked. I want balloons at the funeral...birthday balloons. I want to celebrate the BIRTHday of my baby because we won't get to truly celebrate a birthday. Sometime before the burial of baby I want everyone at the funeral to be able to release a birthday balloon in celebration of our baby. 

I have also been thinking about where we will lay our baby down. I don't have any family buried here and the thought of burying our baby next people I don't know scares me. I know Jason has family here that he loves and misses but I don't know them. It makes me so incredibly sad to have to make that kind of decision. I don't want to hurt other people with that decision but it needs to be something that makes both Jason and I comfortable. 

Ok, wipe my eyes. On to exciting things! Our basement! We are getting so close. Our bathroom is done!! We need 2 glass walls for the shower but we will take care of that a little later. All the doors and closets are in. Majority of the trim is done. Lighting will be finished Monday or Tuesday next week. We will hopefully start carpeting in the 2 weeks or so. I promise I will post pictures soon.  

It's Friday night and not even 7pm and I am exhausted. Story of my life. If someone asked me what my bedtime is...I don't think I can say 9:30 anymore. It is more like 8:30. I miss caffeinated coffee! One cup a day just isn't enough. I have decaf but it just isn't the same. Not to mention I have to be careful how much chocolate I eat...not fun. 

20 weeks

I am sure most moms to be are excited to hit 20 weeks, find out the gender, half way to meeting their baby, wearing more maternity cloths.
All I can say is that I am 20 weeks. I am not excited that I am half way "there". I am not all that excited to be wearing maternity clothes...well at least having them hang in my closet. I think I have moved into the bitter stage of grief. I have amazing people in my life who have been doing amazing things for me and Jason since we found out we are going to lose our baby. There is a group of people that work with my mom that have all contributed way too much money to help me buy maternity clothes. I am beyond grateful and really can't find the words to appropriately thank them. I went shopping last weekend and got quite a few maternity outfits...for the most part I didn't mind the shopping part. I wasn't congratulated a lot, I wasn't asked too many questions about my baby, those things helped. I was able to laugh at myself when I wore true maternity pants for the first time.
The following day I was off from school for a holiday, cleaning out my closet making room for my new clothes was really hard. I was just reminded that I have to clean out my closet and wear maternity clothes but I don't get the end result. There is no happy ending to all of this. I cringe at the thought of someone saying, "well, it'll all be worth it in the end."
I am enjoying watching my tummy grow, that has been kind of fun.

I haven't told my class that I am pregnant yet, tomorrow I will be doing that. This week I have gotten bored of trying to find really lose outfits to hide the bump, so I have been wearing what I want and have been carrying around random objects to hold in front of me.

On the bright side I received two gifts at school today...one from a student and one from a friend. I'll let you guess which is from who...

                                                         toilet paper and Edible Arrangements

Yes, one of my first graders gave me half of a roll of t.p. "Good morning Mrs. H! I brought you something." I had no idea how to respond...I am hoping this is because I told the class we are running low on Kleenex's. 

I don't have the words...

I don't have the words to describe what is going on in my heart. Today was hard. I was home alone most of the day and needed to clean out my closet to make room for maternity clothes.
As I was putting the clean sheets on our bed I couldn't stop the tears from falling everywhere. My mind wandered to every corner of what we're experienceing and will experience.

I usally use Pinterest's humor section to distract my mind; but tonight I was looking through the quotes and thought I would post some that stuck out to me tonight.



And life isn't going to get any easier for a very long time and that scares me.



Pictures of my dad and I

My grandma read my last post where I was wishing I had pictures. She scanned in some photos she had and emailed them to me. : )