Happy 4 month B-day Clayton

Happy Birthday little man!! You'd be 4 months old today, wow has time gone by. Some days I think it feels like just yesterday, others I feel like it's been a lifetime ago. Maybe it's because of how much I've changed. This journey sure has changed me, thanks to Clayton. This is the journey God had planned for us, it's a hard journey, but it is making me who I will be tomorrow.

So today, on Clayton's 4 month birthday. I reflect back on the other month birthdays, this one feels diffrent. Maybe it's because I'm getting used to the ache in my heart, or maybe it's because I know Clayton is in heaven having a wonderful time. It doesn't make me miss him less, it just makes it hurt a little less.
I have talked about my obsession with reading, well one of the books im deap into now is "Healing a greiving parents heart" it has 100 things to help mend your broken heart.(well attempt to) One suggested, writting a letter to your baby. So I thought it was good to do today, on his 4 month birthday.

Dear Clayton:
what i miss the most about you: I miss your sweet face & wild man hair! but really I miss your spirit, your strength & your Love.
what I wish I'd said to you: nothing really, I told you that you were such a strong boy & that Mommy & daddy loved you so much & that it was ok for you to go to Heaven, we'd see you again someday! 
what is the hardest for me now: It's the milestones, the firsts I don't get to experience, not that I never will someday, I just miss them with you, I wanted them with YOU!
What I'd like to ask you: who held you first in heaven? & will your siblings be healthy?
I'm keeping your memory alive by: talking about you daily, having your pictures all over the house, writing a blog, your memory bracelets, a just simply loving you with every breath I take.

I love you & miss you so terribly much, because of you, I have truely been given a wonderful gift. A gift of unconditional love. I have learned life isnt always easy, nor fair, but remembering the past, allows hoping for the future possible.
I Love you Clayton Michael- Happy 4 month birthday! XOXO-Mommy

Grateful

Today is a new day, the begining of a new season. So I thought I'd reflect on what im grateful for. Yes, there are still some things im grateful for!! :)
Clayton is still on my mind 24/7 but.......
I am functioning. I am sleeping okay. I am eating. I am laughing. I am crying. I am heart-broken. I am hopeful. I am changed. I am grateful, so very grateful.

I am grateful that I have Marcus, my friends and my family who have been my support through all this.
I am grateful that I have inner strength.
I am grateful that I have begun my journey on the road to inner peace.
I am grateful for the bad days because they make the good days so much better.
I am grateful for the opportunity to be a Mother.
I am grateful I am Clatyton's mommy.
I am grateful that I am healing.
I am grateful for hope.
I am grateful I suffer the agony of my heartbreak every single day so that my son didn’t have to.
I am grateful no other decision or experience during the rest of my life will be as tragic and heart-breaking as this one has been. Atleast I pray for that.

I am grateful, truely grateful.
XOXO-Emily

what is worthy of your blackboard?

I have now become obsessed with reading! Reading anything that somewhat relates to our story, or a story of baby loss. We don't know a lot of people personally that have unfortantly become a part of this "group" so anything i can relate to & not feel such like the "odd man out" I'm all about it! So recently I have been reading other blogs, about family's who have also lost the loves of their lives, their children. I came accross an article, where the Late Elizabeth Edwards spoke about the loss of her son, and and what it felt like.

I have often described the death of a child in this way: in life we have a blackboard on which we write all the things we are doing -- our jobs, coaching soccer, working at Goodwill, going to basketball games, whatever. And the board is full, so when the next thing comes along, we find a corner or the board to add a computer class or a space between other things for book club or sewing Halloween costumes. It is full and lively and seemingly all important.

And then your child dies, and all the things that were so important that you worked to squeeze them in? Well, they are all erased. And you are left with an empty blackboard. Everything you thought was important was not. And the next time you write something on the board, you are very, very careful about what it is. Your choices about what to do and how to do it are so much more deliberate. That is worth some of the space. And putting something on the board, well, it allows you -- in your words -- to function another day. And each day that you find something else worthy of the board makes it a little easier to put one foot in front of the other. And each day you functioned the day before makes it easier to function again. Are there still bad moments, even bad days nearly twelve years later? Sadly, there are. But they are not as frequent and they don't happen in that same emptiness you feel today. Now when they happen, we can turn to something that we have written, something worthy of our time, of his parents' time and we can function through that pain. As you will -- not without [your child], but with [your child]* not as a living, breathing daughter [or son] but as an inspiration and a helper to decide what is worthy of your blackboard.

Wow- I'd say she hit it on the head! thats it!
So as you go through your day, think about this. It's things like this, that give me hope.

Make today a beautiful day.

little band of memory

I am so humbled by all the continued love and support we receive from everyone. Especially with the resent request for Clayton's memorial bracelets, with every single request, my  heart is mending back together, bit by bit. Although I will never mend completely, I find comfort in this  & I smile when I look down at my wrist and remember my  sweet boy that has given so many people a gift, a gift of LOVE. With the little black band of memory I am also reminded of the journey we have been on. It's be one hell of a ride! I continue to "keep on trucking" on down the road! It hasn't been easy, but in some way, I am thankful for it. It has opened my eyes to LIFE & LOVE, sure there was life & love inside me before, but nothing compared to this. I am not the same person, but I know I am a better person because of all this.  I know this is the life God intended for Clayton & us to have, although i dont yet know why, nor am i yet "happy" about it, but I know that this is all I have and I'm left to make the best of it. 

So on I go, "keep on trucking"  and being thankful everyday for what I do have, with the little black bracelet following me on the journey.

Clayton's memorial bracelets

Clayton's Memorial Bracelets are here!!!! 

$3 each (or whatever you want to donate. all the $ we raise will be donated to the UI children's hospital & MDA

sizes- youth- black

adult- black or gold

they say- ALWAYS WITH ME~~CLAYTON MICHAEL

please let me know if you would like one

XOXO- mommy 

hope is found in a plastic storage bin

A wonderful friend said this to me the other day, & I choose to steal it from her, because I love it!
(& I don't think she'd care)

"Until then there's hope. My hope is found in a plastic storage bin full of  newborn outfits...waiting for that day that you might need them. Not b/c another child would solve all your problems -

far from it - but b/c Clayton was a beginning to your family, 

not an end."

This is so beautiful! I am so thankful for wonderful friends, that just know the right thing to say, not because they feel they should, but because they want to.This morning while getting ready for work, I walked by the nursery, which is still a nursery. Crib is still set up with bedding, recliner in the corner with the night stand, changing table & wall decorations all intact. I stopped and went in, and looked around. There isn’t much different than before Clayton was born, besides the multiple angel statues & the cleaned out closet. It’s as if we are still waiting to have a baby, as if we never had one.  But that makes me sad. Did I clean out the room too early? should I have taken everything out of the room, and not left anything? should I close the door? I know I did the right thing by cleaning it out early. It just would be way too hard now. I put everything away in our downstairs closet, the week of the funeral. It wasn’t hard, but I think because I was in denial that that was our reality.  I knew Marcus wasn’t able to do it, and if you know me, when I want something done, I do it, NOW! So I packed it all in new Rubbermaid’s, took apart the swing and bouncy, and carried it all downstairs, packed it in the closet, not for good, but until next time, because I already knew there WAS going to be a next time.  
Back to why the nursery stayed intact. Marcus hadn’t wanted to take down the crib or any of the furniture. He said it was his little reminder that this wasn't the end, the "sorry try again" was still playing in his head.(he's pretty darn amazing!) So there it's stayed.  Stepping in the nursery, it’s the same, the same as it was before Clayton, the same as it now & will be for Clayton’s siblings.

When I think about all the stuff he never got to use, packed away, it makes me sad. The clothes I was so very excited to buy or the lion bath towel that he would look so sweet wrapped up in, or the jogging stroller with Tacoma running by our side, it just makes me sad to think of all the baby stuff that was all so ready for him, but I hold out hope & happiness for the day I get to unpack it and be excited to use it again, for Clayton's siblings.

So like my friend said, "there is hope in a plastic storage bin"

As time goes on, I survive because I have hope.

University of Iowa childrens hospital radiothon

Today & tomorrow is the annual local radiothon to raise money for the University of Iowa children's hospital. I have listened to this for years. I always was so moved by the stories of the families.  This morning it was a little different. They were talking about us, our story, our son. We were now part of the reason they were raising money, we were "that" family.  It's still is so sad and moving to listen to the multiple stories of families affected by cancer, or micro preemies, or birth defects. It's just sad that things like that have to happen to kids. While driving home tonight, I was listening to it again, and they were talking about calling in and donating, and they said, most people never think it would be them, that they would never think they would be the family who would need the University. He was so right, never did we think we would be in the NICU, let alone did we think Clayton was going to be born with his condition and loose his life.

Clayton & some of his machines, might be scary at first, but you get used to it!

 This is why I am drawn even more to donate this year. The University of Iowa was amazing, I am so incredibly grateful for the experience. Yes it was not the outcome we wanted, but I can honestly look back and say I wouldnt have changed a thing about our experience. The university was wonderful, the nurses, the doctors, and the Love & support we received is irreplaceable. Clayton was given the best possible care and was Loved by so many. The nurses and doctors simply could have just "done their job" but they choose to go beyond. I often remember back and miss the NICU, I know it sounds crazy, but that was our home, that was where we became a family.
So i ask any of you, to think about all the babies & children that the University Helps, hopefully you will be so thankful that you have never/ hopefully will never have to experience the walls of a hospital.

I will be forever grateful & looking back on this time of our lives with a smile on my face.

sometimes I just miss him

I woke up Monday morning, Labor day to the blinds knocking against the window and a crisp chill in the room & it hit me, summer was over. Where did it go?  As I sat up in bed and peered at the picture of Clayton on the dresser, reality came quickly back. I know where it went. It went to grieving. 

Clayton was born on  Memorial Day weekend, the start of summer, A month was then spent in the hospital, day in and day out, then we spent the rest absorbed in our emotions & grief.  Wow, I can’t believe it’s gone. But with that comes all new thoughts about what is yet to come. Football season, raking leaves, Halloween, thanksgiving, snow, Christmas. and with that, I think of all the things we WONT be doing & the things Clayton will miss.  No “littlest hawk fan” shirt, no picture of him in the leaves, no Halloween costume, no “I’m thankful for mommy” bib @ thanksgiving, no little boy all bundled up in a snow suit, and no “babies first Christmas” stocking by the fireplace. Wow, this is reality; there is no firsts, at all. 

There are some days when I don’t think about what we & Clayton are missing, and I just think about how God had this all in his plan and that Clayton is in heaven, but other days, I just miss him, and think about what we had planned. This past weekend, while out and about I saw so many parents with their children, and I just thought, that COULD have been us, but its not. & that’s what makes me the saddest. I wanted that with him, with Clayton.  As time goes by, I am getting more comfortable with being in public, or talking with people, but I’m getting less comfortable with what we’re missing. I see other babies, whom are close to Clayton’s age, and I wonder if he’d be like them. If he’d be rolling -over? Or what size he’d be? We were with friends this weekend, and a neighbor of theirs was talking all about their new baby, newborn pictures, breast feeding, staying up all night, I had a moment, not in front of them, but silently I slipped away and just had my moment. It wasn’t that I wasn’t happy that they were happy, I was. It was just that it was reminding me of what I DIDN’T have.

I know this is going to happen, for petes sakes there are pregnant ladies and babies EVERYWHERE  I turn, but it’s one of those things, I just can’t prepare myself on how to react, to sum it up, IT JUST SUCKS.

I just miss him, sometimes I just have to say it, some days are great, some days are good, some days just suck! 

”A part of you has grown in me. And so you see, it’s you and me together forever
and never apart, maybe in distance, but never in heart.”
- Unknown