Happy Birthday

I promised I would post some pictures of how we celebrated Faith's birthday. Despite the sadness, yes - we celebrate her birthday. When we received the diagnosis of Trisomy 18, we did not know if Faith would even be born alive, so getting three days felt like a miracle to us.

My parents offered to be here for her actual birthday, but Jamie and I did not know how we wanted to handle that day, so we asked them to come the following weekend and remember Faith with us then. We spent that morning with our family and close friends having brunch at our house. I have to share the peach pie that my mother-in-law made for the day.

I do love my mother-in-law. She has been truly amazing through all of this...if she doesn't know what to do or say, she simply says, "I don't know what to do, but I love you both." I cannot tell you how refreshing that is. Sometimes in-laws get a bad rap, but I have to say I've been pretty lucky. The peach pie is evidence of this, as far as I'm concerned.

We had so many people that remembered Faith's birthday...again, I was touched by so many of you. We got phone calls and text messages and cards from everyone that truly mattered. It made my heart sing to know that we were not the only ones who remembered her on that day. To have our friends and family show up to celebrate her with us meant a great deal to us - more than I can say.

We left our house and went to the Angel Statue, where there is a brick laid in Faith's memory (you can see it on the side of the page.) Our friends bought it for us when I got back to work last fall...again, we have amazing people in our life. The Angel Statue is there for bereaved parents who have lost a child...there are over 100 in the country in various parks. In each, you can have a brick laid in memory of your child. We can see her name in print there, we can feel close to her there. So, that is where we went with our closest family and friends. As is the tradition, we laid white flowers on the angel statue. Then we did a balloon release...kinda. It was incredibly hot and even though the balloons were filled with helium, they needed some "encouragement" to fly away. Most eventually made it out of the park, but it took a little effort. We have some different ideas for years in the future that may prove more successful. Nonetheless, everyone let a balloon go in memory of Faith - and some of my favorite pictures are below:

The thing I enjoyed the most from the day was watching our nieces and nephews and our friend's children chase down the balloons that were stuck. Most of them are so young, that we simply tell them that Faith is in heaven and they are sending her a balloon to Heaven. I watch them now and sincerely hope that Faith is someone that they know in their life, even if all they know is her spirit.

So, happy birthday to my dear girl...may your birthdays in Heaven be glorious and filled with joy.

Erica

Summer

Summer is half over - which is very hard to believe. I've done virtually nothing to get ready for the school year - which isn't so hard to believe. I know that the time will come to do that, but right now, I'm enjoying the time off. In fact, I've decided that if we win the lottery, I could definitely enjoy that life. I would, of course, have to find some way to be a little more productive, but I would manage.

July has been a bit difficult. It is the month when everything changed last year - the beginning of the roller coaster that our life has become. Last year, on July 7 (our anniversary), we went in for a follow-up ultrasound, knowing some things were wrong. I had sensed from the beginning of the pregnancy that something was "off," but I was a first-time mom and had nothing to compare it to, so I just wrote it off as that. So, we sat with the perinatologist as we looked at our baby on the screen and he said, "I see a hole in the baby's heart. I want you to see a pediatric cardiologist to confirm it." I laid on the ultrasound table and proceeded to burst into tears. We were shuffled to the cardiologist's office, who confirmed that our baby had a ventricular septal defect (VSD) and went through all it could mean. Then we shuffled back to talk to a genetic counselor who recommended an amnio, which we set up for the next day. We went home and cried and prayed our baby didn't have Down's Syndrome, the likely problem all the doctors thought we could be dealing with. We decided that July 7, 2009 will be the worst anniversary we ever have.

July 8 we had an amnio. Jamie sat and held my hand and the doctor told us, "If you come back positive for a chromosomal abnormality, you will be the first I've ever seen that has that and had normal bloodwork." We left that day with a little bit of hope. I'm pretty sure that we're written up in some medical journal somewhere.

July 9 is my birthday, and last year I went to work and had a normal day trying to wait out the longest days of my life.

July 10 I went to work again. I came home from work and had barely walked in the house when our phone rang. Jamie was working at a friend's house about 40 minutes away. The genetic counselor said, "It's postivie for Trisomy 18." I literally fell to my couch as she asked if we knew anything about it. I told her, "We've been told babies with it don't survive." She said, "Yes. That is usually the case. I am so sorry." I fell apart and I think I hung up on her. Then I paced my living room, hysterically trying to figure out what to do next. I called Jamie and simply told him I needed him to come home - right now. Which, of course, he did - knowing something was wrong. And then I called my poor parents, who live six hours away in Ohio. I didn't want to tell anyone before I told Jamie, so I called them. Catatonic, hysterical, barely able to speak, my dad answered the phone, got my mom - he called my best friend, Sarah, that lives a few miles away. She swooped up their 2-year old and was in my house in a matter of moments. Together, we cried and cried and she simply held me in her lap until Jamie got home. And then I told him.

We made a few phone calls - to Jamie's parents and older sister, all of whom arrived to spend the evening with us. My parents dropped everything and drove into town, where they stayed for the next week. Mom went to the doctor with us the next time to discuss what happened next.

July was not a fun month for us last year. This year, our anniversary was better. We spent it floating the Jacks Fork river in southern Missouri with family and actually enjoyed ourselves. My thoughts this week have been filled with reliving moments, as I'm sure the next month or so will be. It is not easy to do, but it is what life is about.