I am a rainbow

I am not sure if I have ever blogged on this before...but I am a rainbow baby.  My mother gave birth to a sleeping baby boy April 5th 1980 his name was Micah Ren Gerdes.  Looking back at my childhood I had always felt a huge respect towards Micah Ren like he gave me his place.  I always felt in times of danger or need I could tell myself Micah Ren is watching over me he will protect me.  My mother came from a time where people just didn't let mother's mourn their lost babies as they do now and it's more accepted.  That breaks my heart for all of you loss mothers in the past not getting what you needed to help your long grief process.  My mother and I were always close on matter of Micah Ren and we always remembered and quietly celebrated his birthday together.  There has never been a time when I have not remembered.  Most of the time it was just us.  I have always been so intune with him.  I hope Kinley Raye has the same respect and feelings towards Delanie Faye.  I look back to the night before Delanie Faye left me.  This night kills me.  That night, the night of Micah Ren's birthday April 5th 2011 I remember my prayers.  I had asked the lord if anything should be going wrong or happen please let me go into labor or have the knowledge to go to the hospital before something worse happens.  I asked the lord please don't let her be stillborn like Micah Ren.  The next morning she was gone.  Sometime that night something happened to my sweet Delanie Faye.  I will never forget my prayers that night.  I will never know if it was something intuned in me like I knew she was leaving.  I don't know if there was anything I could have done about it, I don't know if this was a goodbye in a way.  I don't know if maybe Micah was her guardian and took her that day so I would know it. 

My heart is still broken...

Yes if your questioning a grieving mother's timeline of grief.  My heart is still broken.  I often have couple's look at my hopefully and ask the question does it ever get better?  Regretfully I have to tell them the truth.....No.  The hurt is always the same as I have written my theories of that in past posts.  Time is like pain medication.  The throb does numb some because you grow use to the pain and learn to live thru it and function daily.  We are forever chronic pain sufferers.  The pain does not change in my eyes, you my friends just grow stronger day by day and we learn to take this large amount of pain and live daily lives.  Delanie never leaves my mind.  Daily I think of her and wish life had been different for us.  I wish I could complain how tired I am and how I still have so much to do for my sweet Delanie's birthday party next week.  It's a wish and I understand the fact of life is...there is no birthday party next week.   There is only her father and I staring hopelessly into each others eye's and holding back tears at times and then at other times letting them flow freely.  There just no planner and no how to's, to plan your dead child's birthday.  Yes you see other people celebrate it or do cool things in honor of their children and say I am going to do something like that.  But the truth of the matter is you treat it as if it is something sneaking up on you almost like it's going to catch you and you know it and fear it.  Yes I am blessed I met that beautiful soul that day I loved holding her warm little face next to mine and seeing how beautiful she was.  But the fact is I can't erase the pain and hurt the day came with.  And though we want to plan something that day that would be "awesome" the grief in us just wants to run and hide in a hole and hold on tight like a tornado whipping above us and pray we survive it.  I am usually polly positive but I do have days where I feel so let down.  I went the the pain of carrying my sweet baby girl and then delivering her by c-section and yes I would do it all in a heartbeat again even with the same outcome just to let her live and be happy in my belly but the other side of it is I did the work and walked away empty handed.  People might say OH Holly but look at the beautiful baby you have now.....YES she is beautiful and I am thankful and grateful and blessed.  But look at your maybe grown children let's say you have three and they are well into childhood.  TAKE away the middle one...why not you have two more...you should be grateful.  Rainbow babies are not a replacement.  I did not replace my baby girl Delanie Faye.  Kinley I always say IS my bringer of light in the darkness.  She was my beacon of light in the storm of loss.  She brought me light and happiness when my days were rainy and dark.  Just as Dustin did as well.  But neither the first child or the third child is ever a replacement for the second.  I wish all my children were with me but I am very thankful for each and everyone of their souls and every second of time I will spend with them, in Delanie's case have spent with her.  I am grateful Delanie was with us and I gave her a warm loving place her whole life.  I guess it's just crazy each year us grief parent's almost live in a episode of ground hog day...replaying years events.  I would be this right now or that right now and looking at pictures of us this day before this or that.  Why do we always count so much?  Maybe it's because we are always searching for the time lost.  Maybe it's our way to create more or make it last.  It's all we have....

So this is the picture I took this time actually this time in 10 minutes 3 years ago.  I had just gotten in Dustin and Delanie's shirts for her day of birth.  They were perfect.  I was so happy with how they came out.  Sadly in the back of my mind I have to come to grips with is I could never picture them both wearing them and that became a fact.

The fact is I always in the back of my mind knew I would lose Delanie.  I had it blocked well.  But looking back on things I did or how I felt I think in my heart I knew she wouldn't be leaving the hospital with us. With Dustin I always knew he would come home.  He would be very sick and things looking grim but I always still knew he would come home to us.  With Kinley as well I really didn't have the fear as badly as I expected I pictured her with us.  It's really hard to explain its just a intuition type feeling.  But its one you never knew you had until it's passed and you learn over time and experience what it actually was at the time.  I feel so very old from all these life lessons and experiences.  I have had enough to last a life time and then some but they are valuable although very hard to learn.  My heart is heavy tonight and I expect will be over the next coming weeks as I relive one of the most beautiful loving times of my life and also the most raw heart wrenching brutal painful times of my life.  I miss you sweet girl I will always want you.