Consoling Parents Cookbook needs your help

There is a support group in our area for parents who have lost babies through miscarriage, still birth, and infant death. Their website is http://www.consolingparents.com/. They are a wonderful organization. We had not heard of them until we lost Lane. They gave us a teddy bear and Lane has the same teddy bear with him right now. I love knowing that we have that SMALL connection and we both often sit in his room holding that teddy bear. They do great things for people who have gone through this awful, awful, awful experience. Although we have not attended any of their support meetings, I hold this organization close to my heart and try to help them any time I can. 

I copied this straight from their site....

To celebrate the 30th anniversary of Consoling Parents we are asking for your help to publish a cookbook for comfort and healing. Consoling Parents is celebrating its 30th anniversary! In honor of all the families supported by Consoling Parents over the past three decades, we are inviting you, your family and friends to share memories and recipes of comfort in a special cookbook. 

Cookbooks will cost $10 each and will be available in time for the holidays, with net proceeds benefiting Consoling Parents support group activities.

Guidelines for submitting recipes: 

• Each recipe must fit in with the theme “Comfort and Healing Through Recipes.”
• Each recipe must be submitted in honor of a child, family member or friend who, although no longer living, made an impact on your life.
• Submit your name, information about your honoree and your recipe, including information on ingredients, amounts, pan size, cooking times and temperatures. 
• E-mail recipes to cookbook@consolingparents.com. 
  
  
  *****They wanted 100 recipes, but only have about 60 right now. The website states that recipes were due in October, but they have extended this deadline. They hope to have enough recipes to get the books printed and distributed at the Walk To Remember next fall.
  
  Recipes do not have to be in honor of a lost baby or child. It can be for anyone who is no longer with you but made an impact.

unintentional vacation

It seems as though I've taken a blogging vacation. It hasn't been intentional. We're just trying to get through the holidays. When I'm having a good day, I don't always want to write-- I want to keep it a good day. When I'm having a bad day, this is the last thing on my mind and I don't want to "do" anything on those days anyway. I know I'm doing this for myself and for others who have experienced something similar or know someone who has.. but, I think I need a break more than I need to write.

We haven't put up a tree. We don't have stockings out... how do I just hang 2? But then, how do I hang one that will stay empty forever?  We aren't sending out cards... again.. this year. I keep thinking every year that we will have a baby to take pictures with and cards to send out. This year is by far the hardest. I told Dustin the other day that I wish that I was just disappointed again this year. This is so much worse than disappointment.  I could handle disappointment. We did finally do our shopping last weekend. This is my favorite time of year-- the weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas. I just wish it was January though.

Anyway.. I think I'll continue my little break for a while. I don't know who all reads this, but it has taken on a bit different form (in my eyes anyway) since I know that people who I know in real life read it. That's ok. I just don't have anything but sad stuff to write lately and I don't need another reason to be teary.

So, here's to 2009.... I'll be glad to tell it goodbye. I truly hope that this is the worst year I ever have in my entire life. So far, it takes the cake ten thousand times over. I'm ready for a new year and hopefully one where we win the lottery and Dustin can stay home with me every day and we get to send out Christmas cards. (It isn't that I want to be rich... this year has just made me want Dustin home every single second of every single day. I don't mind to still work every day and all day- it isn't about that.. I just want him here too. With me and safe and sound.)

I won't hold my breath though.  And, I hope that some day, soon, we start to see the "good" out of what happened with Lane. So far, it isn't very apparent and doesn't seem that it will ever be.

6 month anniversary and a ring

I've been wanting to get an emerald ring for the past few months. I bought one online and when I got it I was really disappointed in it. This is a ring I will be wearing every day and night for the rest of my live. I wanted something I LOVED but not something that was going to cost a fortune. (The one I LOVED was 2+ house payments.... no thank you). So, a few nights ago, we headed to Louisville to go to a mall where there are several jewelry stores.

This is the ring we finally decided on. I also wanted something that Dustin loved too. Although I am wearing it, it is a symbol for him also.

I don't wear it next to my wedding and engagement rings, I just can't hold the camera still enough to take a picture with my left hand! I need to have it sized; it is at least a half size too big. For now, I have a plastic sizer on the back of it. I told Dustin it feels like I'm wearing his class ring because of it :) I thought about getting a ring with all three of our birthstones. Dustin's is emerald also, but mine is peridot and looks like dirty pea green next to an emerald. Maybe when we are done having children I'll do something with ALL the stones plus mine and Dustin's. But, we decided that Lane gets his own.

Today is also the six month anniversary of Lane's birth.... and today Dustin and I have been married 3 years and 6 months. We are about to head out for a wedding rehearsal and dinner for Dustin's best friend's wedding that is tomorrow. Just like at Thanksgiving yesterday and with every breath I take, Lane was supposed to be tagging along.

Dr #6 and a disappointing but uplifting visit.. if that makes any sense....

So last Friday I went to see a new doctor... over the past 2 years I have now seen Dr. S... Dr. B.... Dr. T.... Dr. T.... specialist Dr. W and now Dr. Lewis. I am not a difficult patient. I am not a difficult person. It frustrates me that I have now seen 6 doctors.

The reasons for the switches.....
Doctor #1 (Dr. S)-- We went in for our first appointment at 12 weeks. We didn't hear a heartbeat but they said that wasn't something to worry about. The next night at 4 am we were in the ER having our first miscarriage. (that awful, awful ER trip will be blogged about in the future.. we actually had to go there twice that night/morning to be helped) I didn't have a D&C done and my hormones didn't drop back to normal for over 3 months. Then we got pregnant again and had another miscarriage. I called Dr. S's office on Monday morning. My call was returned at the close of business on Thursday before a three day weekend. I had already called Dr. 2 by that point.

Dr #2 (Dr. B)-- I still love Dr. B. She saw me on Tuesday after the second miscarriage (while I was still waiting for Dr. #1 to return my call). She saw us on her lunch break and just sat us down to talk. We were in there over an hour. Then, we got pregnant again; this time with Lane. Due to circumstances that arose because she is a widow raising a teenage boy, she decided to stop delivering for a while. This meant that she could not see us past 3 months. Dr. 3 practices in the same hallway as Dr. B, so we decided to switch to her.

Dr #3 (Dr. T)-- She was our doctor for the remainder of our pregnancy with Lane. I think it goes unspoken that we just cannot stay with her. I don't blame her... but she definitely was not a proactive doctor.. and a proactive doctor may have done the one more ultrasound that may have noticed that Lane was losing blood. (I need to post the things we've found out about what MOST LIKELY happened with Lane... and it just seems that one more ultrasound after our "quite unresponsive" tests and visit on April 29th may have made the difference...that visit should have been a red flag and should not have been my last ultrasound)

At this point, I started shopping around asking people I knew who have had babies in the past few years. 

Dr #4 (Dr T)-- She delivered one of my friend's babies. Most importantly, she is in the office with one of 3 specialists in Louisville that my insurance accepts. So, off I went to Dr T's office with my inches of medical records. I really wanted to see her so she would recommend me to the specialist. I liked her, but it just wasn't the "fit' I was looking for. It was the first time we had met, but I felt that she was spending more time asking me about my emotions than the reason I was there. And that reason was: Let's be proactive and get a plan together so we aren't losing another baby.

Dr #5 (Dr. W)-- He is the maternal-fetal specialist we saw on September 30. We sat in an office with him for an hour while he told us what most likely happened with Lane based on our file. He also wrote up a "game plan" for our next pregnancies. I am so glad that we went to see him. This is another reason I left the dr who delivered Lane. She should have recommended I see a specialist and didn't. I also had to beg/pester her to do more testing on me. And after reading his wording on his report, it doesn't seem that he's real confident in her actions either. Even without all this, I would never feel as confident in her as I will need to be in our next pregnancy.

Dr #6 (Dr. Lewis)-- Wow, number 6..... anyway, she was/is my sister-in-law's doctor. After we lost Lane, she treated Andi as though it had happened to her. So, I knew that if she treated her that well, we would be given even better treatment. I LOVE this doctor. I met with her for an hour on Friday. I didn't get the news I wanted. Dr. T had told us after Lane was born that we should wait 3 months. We thought "three months?! that's it?!". But we were so anxious to try again, that was what we wanted to hear. Dr. Lewis, on the other hand, told me that all the literature says that when you have a baby to wait at least 9 months. Sooner increases the chance of miscarriage, and we don't need anything working against us there. She went over my file, the letter from the specialist, etc. She even knows a specialist who isn't covered by my insurance so she's going to call him and talk to him about us to see if he has any other suggestions. Right now, the plan is for progesterone and blood thinners along with more visits, more ultrasounds and much, much, much more monitoring the further along we get. She is a person we can trust with our next baby's life. I just wish I had seen her a year before.

I was going to be calling to make the appointment when I did.... but the night before I was going to call, we had a positive pregnancy test. The plan was that we wanted to be pregnant for Christmas, but not tell anyone until after Christmas. We thought that it might help us to get through Christmas without Lane and through the Baby's First Christmases that we will be a part of at my mom's and at his parents' house. We thought that having that secret might make it a little bit easier. The next morning, I took another test and it was negative. I suspected it was happening, so it wasn't a complete surprise. So, even though we were only about 3 weeks along, we still have had another miscarriage. We didn't tell anyone at first, but after my appointment with my doctor, I told his mom and mine. No one knew we had the appointment, but it went so well (and I was so disappointed that she told us to wait another three months at least) that I needed to talk to someone. Dustin was at work so I called his mom.

So, it has been a pretty disappointing time here. But, I feel very confident in this doctor. She was very "let's do this and this is why". Although we are disappointed, I feel better than I have in almost 6 months. I am with a doctor who I completely trust and who is very proactive. We have a "game plan" now and things put into place so that maybe.. hopefully... we have experienced our final loss. One is too many. Three and Lane is unthinkable. I am disappointed that we won't at least be able to be pregnant at Christmas.  But, if waiting a few months and taking some meds until then will prevent another loss, we are more than willing.

Lane's moon

Last night as I was on my way home, I happened to glance up at the moon. I had been thinking about Lane a lot yesterday. I received a ring in the mail that I ordered; it is Lane's birthstone, emerald. I also had lunch with a high school friend who is pregnant. The holidays are approaching as is the 6 month anniversary of Lane's birth. (The 6 month anniversary of us hearing the news that he had no heartbeat is on Thanksgiving, actually...)

So, as I glanced up at the moon I couldn't help but smile. One card we received from a couple who had lost a baby girl days before she was to be induced. The cover of the card had a poem. We loved the poem so much that we selected a stanza from it for the back of Lane's stone.

Glow, little star,

tucked into the heavens

cradled with care

in the curve of the moon

The moon last night was the moon in Lane's poem.

A picture

Holly emailed this to me today. THANK YOU, HOLLY!! The smallest things make my day :). Visit Holly and learn more about anencephaly here at  one of Holly's blogs.

Leaving without Lane

When it was time to leave the hospital, it was so hard knowing that we were leaving Lane behind. We had arrangements for the funeral home to come get him and take him to Salem. But we were still leaving him behind. We didn't see him again after the night before. It was so hard knowing that he was there and we were coming home empty.

The volunteer who wouldn't let me walk out of the hospital managed to hit my wheel chair on every door frame and bump along the way. She hit every curb and every sidewalk dip possible. It took me 5 minutes to get out of the wheelchair and longer than that to get myself lowered into the car. I know it is policy, but getting in and out of that wheelchair was torture. Walking would have been less painful and a whole lot easier for me.

Dustin had brought the car to the door and came back to the room to go out with me. While he was down there, he put all the baby stuff in the trunk. We both knew it was there, but at least we didn't have to see an empty car seat in the mirrors on the hour + drive home. It was supposed to be a ride filled with a crying baby. Although we talked all the way, it was such a silent ride. We had to cross 3 sets on railroad tracks in the hour drive also. Luckily, I got it figured out how to adjust in the seat for the last set.

All we wanted by that point was to be home. My mom and aunt had gone grocery shopping for us so we had all the essentials. We had everything we needed. Almost.

I am so thankful that Dustin stayed home with me. He took two weeks off. He had planned on taking the two weeks when the baby was born. I was so happy that he still took that time off. The house was silent enough; I was scared about when he was going to head back to work and leave me with a silent home alone all day.

We are so lucky to have the family and friends that we do. We had meals for days. We got at least 6 cards a day and now have gotten close to 100. I dreaded the day that the cards stopped. That meant that everyone thought it was over. That's what I thought anyway. I am so thankful that once every now and then, we still get a card. It is nice to know that we aren't the only ones who remember. I know others do. But is is still nice to have proof. The community as a whole has been amazing. We got cards from people we know and from complete strangers. We got cards from people in other states who heard through others about our experience. I am still amazed at the response that we got in those first few weeks.



I know I'm leaving things out. I just wanted to get some of this written. It seems like I took an unintentional break from telling our story and haven't really started back yet.