To try or not to try? That is the million dollar question!

I've been asked several times ever since Everett passed, "are you going to try for another one"? I think someone even asked me this the day of his funeral. I was told that people would say stupid things and to be prepared for that and we were for the most part. I do remember one of my grandmother's old friend's saying to me at the funeral, "don't worry honey, you'll have more children". I know she meant well by this statement but I couldn't help but want to yell at her, 'You have no idea how badly we wanted this child. You have any idea how much he meant to us, how much he will be missed and how he can never be replaced by another child', nor would it be fair to another child to do that. But I didn't say that. I just nodded and moved on.

I remember thinking throughout my difficult pregnancy that I was so glad this was our last child. We were finally going to complete our family. I also remember people telling us how lucky we were to have one of each. I honestly didn't care what the gender was of the baby, I just wanted our baby to be healthy. It was the same with Lilli. I have some metabolic issues I was diagnosed with in my early 20's and getting pregnant is not an easy thing for us. Both Lilli and Everett were conceived with the assistance of an amazing reproductive endocrinologist here in Indy. It took may months of fertility drugs, injections, ultrasounds, doctor appointments, hormonal roller coaster ride after hormonal roller coaster ride, and other invasive processes to get them. Then the pregnancy themselves took a toll on me. When I was on bed rest in the hospital, about a week and a half before Everett died, I thought to myself that this would be totally worth it in the end. And you know what, even with the circumstances that occurred, he was still totally worth it. If I could have the ability to choose the way things turned out, I would undoubtedly choose for him to be here with us and to not be going through what we have and will continue to go through. But I got to carry and fall in love with this beautiful red headed little boy, who wasn't so little, and who's long term legacy will go on to (hopefully) help so many other families in the future.

So when I'm asked the question, "Are you going to try for another", it's not that easy of an answer. I would love to have another child, or two if pregnancy was a piece of cake for me, but pregnancy itself scares the crap out of me. So does completely loosing my faith with physicians, people you are supposed to be able to trust. I put my trust in the people that were supposed to care for me and our son. I tried to advocate for myself and for Everett and no one listened. Would it be any different with a different doctor?

Dave and I met with a new Maternal Fetal Medicine Doc, in a different hospital system, for a pre-conception meeting. She looked through all 8 or 9 inches worth of my medical records before our appointment from my pregnancy with Everett. She assured me things would be completely different if we decided to get pregnant again. I got the feeling from her that she wasn't just telling us what we wanted and needed to hear. That she would actually follow through with her words.

We have a plan, we have a new team put together but I am not emotionally ready for that journey. I thought I would be by now and even gave myself a deadline. I came to a realization after much soul searching that a new member of our household shouldn't have a deadline on when to potentially arrive. I didn't want that big of an age gap between Lilli and whoever would come after and thought it was perfect with she and Ev being just about three years apart. Now that's just not an option. Our lives have changed and that is completely out of our control. How much of life is truly in our control? I'm learning that not much, if any, of it is. Although I still like to tell myself differently because it makes me feel better! :) I've decided to continue to let myself heal further emotionally before pushing the issue. I don't know when I'll be ready or if I'll be ready, but I think I owe it to myself and the next child to give myself the time I need before jumping into an already emotional process.

The six month marker of Everett's death has been the hardest, for me, by far. It makes me nervous for the one year anniversary, but at least we will be surrounded by friends and family who are planning to attend the inaugural Run 4 Everett. Things are coming together, slowly but surely, and I am pretty certain it's going to be a great event!

~Steph

Ray of Light

It's late, and I'm tired, but wanted to put some thoughts down before they left my head. I had a super awesome day with my three year old today and I've been reflecting on just how lucky I am.

Lilli entered this world on her terms, no surprise there, a little over three years ago. My pregnancy with her wasn't as difficult as Everett's, but it wasn't worry free either. I remember hearing at one of my ultrasound appointments around 30 something weeks I was carrying too much amniotic fluid and they would "keep an eye on it", as this can cause a pre-mature rupture of membranes, thus causing early labor.

It wasn't long after this I was at home, on a Sunday evening, and my water broke. I remember being in the bathroom when it happened and saying, "oh no". Dave heard me and asked what was wrong and I told him. I was a bit panic stricken as I was only 34 1/2 weeks pregnant and we didn't even have our bag packed for the hospital (Dave told me we had plenty of time to get that done). It was just earlier in that month we had finished our birthing classes. We went to the hospital and my Dr. met us there. She informed me since I was past 34 weeks they didn't give steroids for the lungs and my labor wouldn't be stopped. They delivered me in the O.R., not because it was a c-section, but because it was closer to the NICU. Lilli came out relatively fast, only three sets of pushes! She looked bewildered as they put her on me for a brief moment, almost looked like she wanted to say, "what the hell just happened"? Her eyes were wide open and we remarked on what a good size she was for being early, 5lbs 14oz and 19 1/2 inches long. Lilli's lungs were a little sticky when she was born and had to be "jump started" with a bag shortly after she was delivered. Once they did that she thrived from there on out! She only spent a short 6 days in the NICU, although if you asked me at the time it felt like an eternity!

The first year was rough as she didn't start sleeping through the night until she was over a year old. She was diagnosed with severe acid reflux at only 2 months of age and we spent her first Christmas in the ER with the reflux was so severe she decided to stop eating because of the damage it had done to her poor little throat! We finally got on track with a GI doc, an ENT and a new pediatrician! She had to have tubes put in at 8 months due to chronic ear infections from the reflux pushing it's way up to her eustachian tubes repeatedly! She had horrible textural issues because of the damage done to her throat (would cough, choke and gag on foods), she aspirated on liquids unless they were thickend, and had to be given medication six times a day. We got her in with a very talented Occupational Therapist through an early intervention program here, who worked wonders, and the rest is history. All of this now feels like a blur.

Even with all this going on and all the pain Lilli was having she was a very happy baby. She smiled all the time and the more you smiled at her the more she smiled back. We were told at her old daycare that teachers would come into her room to visit her if they were having a bad day just to get a glimpse of that smile. It's the type of smile that would just melt you and make all your worries go away, at least temporarily. Lilli truly is beautiful from the inside out. It radiates from her, even at three years old. I know I'm her mom, but I'm also not the only one who has noticed this! :) Sure she has her typical three year old moments, lately more so than not, but she always returns to that smiley happy go lucky girl.

This evening as I was laying next to her, trying to get her to fall asleep, she wanted to tell me all about her evening (it was grief support group night for me). She was full of excitement and just so happy about her day, a total chatter box. She told me several times how she had "such a good day today". She would just smile and look at me with her big beautiful blue eyes twinkling at me. Then to top it all off, she told me I was her best friend. I should get that on tape now, as I know she will not feel that way when she gets older.

When we lost Everett, Lilli had a sense about her that seemed mature beyond her years, which scared me a little. Her normally boisterous voice would change and become soft when she talked about her baby brother and how sad everyone was at the hospital. She still does this whenever she mentions him. Dave and I are so grateful to have her in our lives and both had stated we don't know if we could get through this without her. She brings us back to some sense of normal.

I guess you could say Lilli is our "miracle" child. We spent many months of fertility treatments to have her and considering how her first year was, I think it's ok to categorize her as that. All I know for sure is I am so happy to be her mommy, and even on her crankiest of days, I wouldn't trade her for the world. She will never know how much I love her, that is until she has a little darling of her own. Lilli truly is our ray of light.

~Steph

Grief Sucks!

Do you ever wake up, or have a hard time falling asleep, with your mind just filled with stuff and find yourself going over and over the thoughts, not being able to shut your mind off? I have had that happen to me a lot lately. At least I know what triggers it, but still, it's annoying. These thoughts are the same ones that haunt me from time to time. They are the facts of our son's death that have become my life over these last six months. It really doesn't help that I have now had three vivid dreams, two just this week, that Everett was alive all to wake up to the realization that he's not. When he first died there was nothing I could do to escape my thoughts. My mind was my own worst enemy and it still is from time to time. All the events leading up to his death and then everything after kept playing over and over in my head like a broken record and there was nothing I could do to escape it. All I could do was cry at the horror. I kept asking myself things like, did this really happen? Did I really spend just about the entire year pregnant? Because in a flash, the results of what I went through all year long had been taken away from me, taken away from all of us.

I've had several triggers in the last couple of weeks that brought me back to almost full blown grief, like the kind of grief I had in the beginning. This is the kind that's hard to escape from and causes you to go from calm to pissed in two seconds flat. This week though, has been the pits. It probably doesn't help that Everett died six months ago today. While I am so thankful that time has given the illusion to have flown by these last six months, I wish I could go back. I wish I could have advocated harder for him somehow. I wish I had been listened to by my doctors. I wish he was here with us and not in Heaven.

In all my trainings I've had over the years, including my extensive crisis response training, I've been taught there's no right or wrong way to "do" grief, unless you are harmful by immersing yourself in risky behaviors or drug or alcohol abuse. And I know in the back of my head that on some levels I am normal. But at times, it doesn't feel normal. I guess that's because it's still so new. Let's see here, there are seven stages of grief, although some models show five:
1. Shock and Denial-been there done that!
2. Pain and Guilt-Check
3. Anger and Bargaining-triple check on the anger one!
4. Depression, Loneliness, Reflection-I seem to be floating in and out of this one, although spending less time in it than I did in the beginning.
5. The Upward Turn-working towards it!
6. Reconstruction and Working Through-again, working towards it!
7. Acceptance and Hope-somewhat doing this one, I have hope for the future, am focusing on the race, but can't think about Everett without pain and that gut wrenching feeling of missing him horribly, and I would hope no one would expect me too!

I think sometimes people mean well, but expect you to move on way sooner than you are ready to and especially when grief entails loosing a baby, the taboo subject no one wants to talk about. With the loss of that child comes the loss of so many hopes and dreams. It's not knowing what that child would have become, not getting to see them grow up, not even knowing what color their eyes were. Dave and I drove past a soccer field this fall and I had tears filling my eyes as I watched a bunch of teenage boys practicing for an upcoming game. I remember thinking I'd never get to see Everett do that, or play football, or anything else he might have been interested in. You think about those things when you are pregnant, or at least I do. I dream about what my children might be when they grow up. What kind of actives they would be interested in, that kind of thing. I knew Lilli, from the womb, would be great at gymnastics and her tumbling classes are proving that right. Everett had a really strong kick in the womb and I often thought he'd be great at soccer.

I am including the poem we had in Everett's memorial card at the funeral:

Million Times

A million times we've needed you,
A million times we've cried,
If love alone could have save you,
You never would have died.
In life we loved you dearly,
In death we love you still.
In our hearts you hold a place,
No one will ever fill.
It broke our hearts to lose you,
But you didn't go alone.
Part of us went with you,
The day God took you home.

I included this because it was true then and it's true six months later. I am not the same person I was before Everett left this world and I won't be. I am still trying to figure out what my new "normal" is. To any of my friends reading this or others who know someone who's gone through something similar, don't be afraid to speak my son's name, or another child's name who is gone. Don't be afraid you will upset me by mentioning him. It helps people to know that the child they loved so much and lost is remembered by others than just them.

~Steph

Sponsor Sponsor, who wants to Sponsor???!!!???

So I have been super busy this past week working on all things related to the race. There have been meetings, a sponsorship letter written, some sponsors solicited and engaged and some not. There is still so much that needs to be done and the fund raising part is what I am focusing on right now. I am getting a little nervous because we have recieved several in-kind donations, which we desperatly need, but no actual money at this point. We need funds to cover the expenses related to the race itself, to make sure all things go off without a hitch, and of course funds to go towards Kate Cares. All proceeds from this race will be given directly to Kate Cares.

Things are starting to really come together and I can see the results of that which make me more than happy! So much more still needs to be done. If anyone reading this blog is interested or thinks that a company you work for might be interested in sponsoring our race, please feel free to contact me at stephralich@sbcglobal.net! Sponsors will receive recognition of their contribution with their names and logos on all websites, blogs, and T-shirts associtated with the race. Those sponsors who wish to contribute to the organization will receive a tax donation receipt.

Thanks!

~Steph

Happy Birthday Kate!

Dave, Lilli, and I would like to wish a happy birthday to amazing angel Kate Carmichael, the namesake of Kate Cares, who would have been eight years old today. If it had not been for this beautiful little girl, someone that so many people love, there would not have been a Kate Cares organization helping so many families throughout the state of Indiana!

This remarkable organization's mission is to support families experiencing a stillbirth by; "helping to understand why their baby was stillborn, the chance of stillbirth happening again and what can be done to help future pregnancies; Connecting families to medical and social support resources; Educating the general public and professionals about the needs of families experiencing stillbirth and creating opportunities for their involvement; Increasing the understanding of stillbirth and its effects to help other families; and Providing a framework to search for ways to prevent stillbirth."

Kate Cares is guided by core values that "every baby is valued and treated with respect and dignity; all families deserve the opportunity to explore why their baby was stillborn; The grieving process is unique for each family and every person; and Achieving their vision requires the collaboration of professionals, families, and others who have been touched by stillbirth. Any stillbirth is one to many for those who experience such a loss".

To learn more about this great organization, the beneficiary of Run 4 Everett, who is doing such important work for so many families around the state please visit the Kate Cares link on the side of this page.

Safe travels in the winter weather today!

~Steph

A New Logo

Recently, we (Steph) have been busy trying to get coordinated with the non profit so we can make sure all proceeds from race will get to Kate Cares.  And we (Dave) have been getting ahead of the more important details and focusing on what the race logo might look like. Since it is basically an exercise in choosing the right font it was narrowed down to 2 dozen or so fonts, then we started playing with upper and lowercase, etc. But the entire time, the number "4" with the star remained (I'll explain more about that in a minute). After the initial 2 dozen options, it was narrowed down again to about a dozen, then we weeded through those and got down to 3.  Finally, we landed on what was the first one created. We chose it because it was playful, yet readable and had some similarities to where I originally started a few months ago. So without further ado, here is the new logo for the Inaugural Run 4 Everett:

Now, a little insight into the design... as I mentioned, we wanted something a little more playful and the up and down lettering reminds us of a child running and playing. The "4" with the star is a little more personal to Everett for a couple of reasons: In the nursery we prepared for him, we stenciled sail boats with a star on the sail on the walls all around the room (see photo below). So the "4", is a little like the shape of a sail.  The Star is very special to us. After Everett's death we told our daughter, Lilli, that her brother Everett was up in heaven and that she could see his star  in the sky every night. It was something that provided comfort to us all. And to make it even more special still, Lilli's school had a star named after Everett. We received a certificate with the star name and location in the celestial sky.

The final element is the "waves" which again ties back to the sail boat, but also represents the rolling hills at Fort Harrison State Park that Everett would have played on (and one of the reasons we chose it for the race location). We now feel we have a logo that symbolizes our little angel a little better. I'll get the header to the blog updated shortly, but first things first. Now back to the important stuff of trying to get connected to a non profit so we can start approaching businesses to be event sponsors - without either, there won't be a race.

--Dave

5 months has gone by so fast

Everett passed away exactly five months ago today. In some ways it has taken forever to get to this point and in others the time has flown by. I miss him and love him so much that it sometimes hurts. I attached a picture of Lilli at 5 months old since I don't have one of Everett. There's not a day that passes that I don't think about what he may be doing now. Lilli was into giving herself baby food facials at five months, pushing up to prepare to crawl, babbling, and smiling all the time.

Lilli still misses her baby brother too. She doesn't talk as much about him as she did when he first passed. I think time is healing her as well. She did look through the pictures we have of him today and said "aw", when she sees his cute little face, hand and foot prints that we have of his. Lilli seemed to have such a connection to Everett when he first passed away. She would talk to him and act as though she could see him still. She even would "play" with him at times. A couple of weeks after he passed we were having dinner at the kitchen table, Lilli looked off in the distance and started talking to someone and laughing. I asked her who she was talking to and she stated Everett. She was giggling and I asked her where he was, she pointed to an open spot on the floor. I asked her what he was doing and she said he was being really silly and started laughing again. I have heard that sometimes children can have a connection with loved ones who are no longer here, but had never seen that in action. It was a little eerie at first and then comforting to think that maybe she still got to have a relationship with her brother. She still talks about how sad mommy and daddy were at the hospital and sometimes draws his heartbeat, as she got to see it many of times on the monitors I was hooked up to before he passed.

We've got 2011 off to a decent start and I am hopeful that will continue throughout the year. I received an iron infusion this past Friday, I have iron deficiency anemia, that will hopefully help with my energy levels, as long as I can hold onto those iron stores! I still managed to get myself to the gym and work out regularly even with my iron saturation at a crazy low level! No excuses, even though I have about a million legitimate ones I could use! I have to keep functioning and pushing forward, and yes, I still have some days where I don't want to. Moving backwards in the process is not an option and it's not going to help me or anyone else who depends on me. I feel like I need to get back into some form of work and have some ideas I'm working on now. I'm really hoping that things are going to work out with that!

I will close with a beautiful poem that I came across and brings both tears and a smile to my face when I read it:

I thought of you and closed my eyes and prayed to God today.

I asked what makes a mother and I know I heard Him say

A mother has a baby. This we know is true.

But God can you be a mother when your baby is not with you?

"Yes, you can" He replied with confidence in His voice.

"I give many women babies, when they leave is not their choice.

Some I send for a lifetime, and others for a day

And some I send to feel your womb, but there's no need to stay".

I just don't understand this God, I want my baby here.

He took a breath and cleared His throat and then I saw a tear.

"I wish I could show you what your child is doing today.

If you could see your child smile with other children and say...

"We go to earth to learn our lessons of life, love and fear

My mommy loved me oh so much I got to come straight here.

I feel so lucky to have a mom who had so much love for me,

I learned my lessons very quickly, my Mommy set me free.

I miss my Mommy oh so much but I visit her each day

When she goes to sleep, on her pillow is where I lay.

I stroke her hair and kiss her cheek and whisper in her ear.

"Mommy don't be sad today, I'm your baby and I'm here."

"So you see my dear sweet one your child is OK.

Your baby is here in My home and this is where he'll stay.

He'll wait for you with Me until your lessons through.

And on the day that you come home, he'll be at the gates for you".

So now you see what makes a mother, it's the feeling in your heart.

It's the love you had so much of right from the very start

Though some on earth may not realize that you're a mother until their time is done,

Remember all the love you have

And know you are a special mom!

By: Jennifer Wasik

We love you Everett!

Mommy, Daddy, and Lilli

~Steph