Thanks and An Update

Hey everyone! Hope you are having a happy Monday! It's rainy and dreary here in Houston but I'm loving it {and so is my grass!!} because it feels so nice outside and we SOOO needed the rain!!!

I just wanted to take a moment to say thank you so much for all you kind words about my surprise. It means so much coming from all of you. Being pregnant after a loss is a struggle and it helps to have people who care and understand in your corner. Every comment, message, text, and e-mail you sent this weekend really just meant the world to me so thank you!! I appreciate every loving word and heartfelt prayer :)

I did get a few questions and I'll try to answer as much as I can here. LJ made me realize that I didn't post how far along I am in the pregnancy {thanks lady!} so the answer to that is I'm 6 months pregnant. Yes- I've kept quiet for that long :) We do know we're having a little boy {yay!!} and I'm still keeping everyone in suspense about his name- so sorry! We're expecting to meet our little rainbow in December which can't come fast enough for me!! We do have an amazing medical team working with us to get this little one here safely and a great monitoring/delivery plan in place for the remainder of the pregnancy.

I hope this helps with some of the questions. I know I didn't get to them all but I do talk about everything in detail on my private blog. I plan to make it public at some point but it will probably be after the baby is born. I still need a space that I can use to talk about everything that only those who understand my situation and who have been there supporting me have access to view.

Again if you'd like to follow me on this pregnancy journey please send an e-mail here or you can leave your e-mail address in the comments and I'll send you an invite. I have to warn you that Blogger is really weird about private blogs so once I send the invitation it's only good for a certain amount of time and after you access the blog the first time the link won't work again. In order to be able to come back again to view the blog you have to follow the bog/join the site. If anyone has any better advice on how to follow private blogs with Blogger please feel free to leave a comment! It drives me crazy how difficult they make it!

Finally I want to tell you that I put the Linky back for the Happy List Saturdays blog hop! So sorry that I accidentally took it out when I updated my post on Saturday!!! Since I messed it up AND since it's been awhile since we did a Happy List I've decided to leave it open until next Monday (9/26/11) to give everyone time to join in and share their lists. I hope you all will take a moment to share what brings joy to your life despite everything we've been through. I would love to see YOUR list!!!

Sending much love to you all!!


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Support Group

My support group at Bo's Place has been a great source of strength for me over the last 5 weeks. The 3 women who are a part of the group with me are wonderful, strong, supportive, creative, fun, and know how to give a great hug! Our facilitators have presented us with such carefully planned activities and topic discussions each week. I can't believe my time at Bo's Place is coming to an end. But I know I'm stronger because of this group and for that I give thanks. Thank you God for knowing what and who I needed at just the right time.

So I wanted to share something from my group session this week:

This little master piece is my quilt square for a quilt that will be kept at Bo's Place. Each person who goes through a grief support program at Bo's Place creates a quilt square to remember their loved one. It can be words, pictures, scribbles, what ever you like. Once they have collected enough squares Bo's Place sends them off to be made into a memorial quilt. All the people in a support group together will have their squares placed on the same quilt so they are always together.

They have some amazing ladies that work on these quilts! Every one of them is a perfect piece of art. Once the quilts are ready they are hung on various walls throughout Bo's Place. From the first day I walked into the building I was struck by how touching these quilts are. I couldn't stop reading square after square, learning about all the love shared for lost family members. There are squares made by all ages and some of the best are the simple drawings of small children who don't quite have the words to express their feelings....their pictures say it all.

I'm so glad that Aiden will always be remembered on the walls of Bo's Place because this group has truly helped me in my grieving and healing process.

On another note I wanted to share with you all a few things that I think are just great!!! First is the Jenna Journal Drive. Franchesca at Small Bird Studio is doing a journal drive for her baby girl Jenna's birthday. The Jenna Journal Drive will provide journals to parents in the NICU to record their memories and feelings during their journey, Please check out her page and donate a journal or two or three!

I know that journaling has helped me a lot in this grief journey and I think it's great to provide other baby loss mamas the same outlet to express their feelings. I'm personally going to try to collect at least 10 journals for the drive. If you want to donate with me let me know. All the journals I send will be in memory of Aiden and will include a very beautiful sticker with his name. If you want to donate on your own go to this page for all the details. I'll be sending my journals the around the middle of March so that Fran will have them in time for Jenna's birthday on May 5th. If you want to send a journal in Aiden's memory let me know soon! You can leave a comment or send me an e-mail.

Next I wanted to share Tiffany's page that offers support for those experiencing the loss of a baby because of SIDS. In His Name provides resources and survival kits for families in honor of her beautiful son Julius.

I hope you will all take a moment to stop by her page and support this project. I know that it will mean so much to the families that are dealing with this horrible loss. Also go visit Tiffany's page and enter her awesome giveaway for the month of February. It's sponsored by Franchesca which means it will be really great!!!

Finally I wanted to share some love! Mattie has arranged for herself and other bloggers to post about all about love during the month of February. This blog series is called What Love Really Means and will run from February 1st through 14th. Each day she will post which blog to visit for the day with the goal of helping other baby loss mamas feel loved- what a GREAT idea!!! Mattie is also doing some great giveaways during the month so make sure to check those out too!!! 

I think you should definitely take some time to visit these blogs each day. We could all use some love and hope and what better time to do it than February- the month of LOVE! Also it's a great chance to get to know other baby loss mamas and their precious angels.

Whew! That's it for now...this one was kinda long! I hope everyone has a great Saturday!