It's been a long time

It's been a long time since I have posted something.  I haven't been very active on the site for many reasons.  One is because I needed to step away and try to get my head together.  As I approached the 1 year mark of losing Lydia I realized that I just felt stuck.  Every day was different and some were good and others bad.  I needed to get to a point where I could accept that.  Now here I am 6 months from my last post and I have so much to tell. 

I'll start with the biggest! I'm currently 32 weeks pregnant! I have been avoiding posting about it because I felt like it was a jinx.  If I said it out loud something terrible was bound to happen.  But lately as I approach the last weeks I find myself getting increasingly more excited.  We found out that he is a HE which was a big thing on it's own.  Once I got over the initial shock that I wouldn't be raising a girl this time around and would be raising a boy everything sort of fell into place.  He has a name, a personality, a bedroom, and everyone is eagerly awaiting his arrival.  I can't help but feel afraid that something will happen but I am trying my hardest to just be happy and enjoy growing him in my belly.  The most difficult thing has been the guilt I feel about being excited.  It's hard to not feel guilty doing all of the things we missed with Lydia.  Then I feel guilty when I make Lydia to much apart of things like it is undermining him in some way.  The worst is the times I think about the fact that he probably wouldn't be here if Lydia was.  Will he grow up and feel that way? I hope not.  I hope that I walk the line of remembering Lydia and not making him live in her shadow.  I feel as though it helps because he is a HE and she was a SHE.  I feel like that helps give them their seperation.  I guess only time will tell. 

I hope that this post does not look like I am not excited about Colin (that's his name) I am very excited about him.  More than I can really express.  But, truth is I'm so very afraid.  Every little pain, every time he doesn't move quite as much, every time he moves to much, If I know I haven't drank enough, If I haven't eaten, During every ultrasound.  The list goes on.  It's so hard to trust your body when it has betrayed you.  It's hard not to await the rug to be pulled out from under you.  I am trying not to let the fear consume me.  So for the next 2 months I'll waitl, hope, and try to prepare for EVERYTHING.

Next I guess I'll go back to what I have been doing since my last post.  Truth is: PRETTY MUCH NOTHING! I was watching my friends daughter until June.  Then for the month of July I got the house in order.  Now here we are in august and my old company has asked me to come back as a contractor for a month to help out with some things.  I think I have realized that working is good for me.  I am not very good at staying home wallowing in my own thoughts.  We'll see if that changes after the little one is born. 

Well that's enough for today.  I'm sure I'll be updating more frequently as I'll be infront of a computer for 9 hours a day. 

Day 3: Daily Rituals

This is a hard one.  I can't really think of any rituals really.  I guess more like schedule? So, I wake up, take my thyroid pill (perscribed to me by my new doctor) I wait for Kevin to talk the dog as I pack his lunch for work. Depending on weather or not he is going to drive into work or not, I drive him to the commuter rail.  On the way home I get a coffee and come home to watch Kelly and Michael or whatever show I had on DVR the night before.  Then I shower and get ready for the day.  I have to admit that since I have stopped my regular 9-5 job I dont have much of a schedule or a ritual so this post is probably pretty boring.

Day 2:20 facts about me

1. I never finished college and worked my way up into project  management for Facilities and Real Estate
2.  I've had the same friends since I was a kid which now makes them more like family
3. My sister raised me since I was 12 when mother died of cancer
4. I never wanted to get married until I met Kevin
5. I'm athiest and have been for as long as I remember
6. My current favorite TV show is the Big Bang Theroy
7. I love anything 90's.  TV shows, movies and especially music
8.  My all time favorite movie is Billy Maddison.  Fowllowed closely by untamed heart, Scream, and The Craft
9.  When I was a teenager I wanted to be a witch.  Until I realized I watched to much tv
10. When I was a kid I was a tom boy and had a purple hockey stick because my mother refused to buy me a boy one.
11. My best friend is male and has been since I was kid.  Until this day I am very picky about the women I hang out with because I get along better with men.
12.  I only knew I wanted kids after the first time I held my nephew CJ.  He is now 5.  I never felt that instinct before him. \
13. Im a shopoholic and should probably go to meetings
14. I run on the prize system.  When I believe I did something good, I buy myself a prize. SEE #13
15.Kevin and I bet eachother things like movie pics.  We bet on things like who will win the voice or chopped
16. Kevin and I say goldbugs instead of goodnight due to an autocorrect mistake when we first started dating
17. Im petrified of mice, fire, knives and also rabbits.  Everyone teases me around easter.
18. Whipped cream and marshmellow make me gag.  I cant even touch it.
19. I'm lactose intollerant
20.I had the gastric bypass surgery 10 years ago and lost 140 lbs.

Back to blogging

It's been a long time since I have felt like blogging.  I still keep up with everyone else blogs but I have little to write about myself.  The other day I came across my blogger friend Sweeping up the Broken Pieces blog and she is challenging herself with the 31 day blog challenge.  I have decided this would be a good opportunity to get back into writing.  So, for the next 31 days I'll be writing about the following topics.

Day 1: Introduction and recent photo

My name is Jen I'm 31 from Somerville MA but currently live in Dedham MA.  My husband Kevin and I have been married for a year and half but have been together for 5 years.  We live a quiet sort of life filled with dinners together, good friendships, lots of movies and he plays way to much playstation.  We have a 14 year old Black lab named Annie.  She doesn't know shes old and often keeps us on our toes.  On Halloween 2014 we found out that we were pregnant with our first child.  We weren't trying and it was a complete shock.  It took a few weeks to get used to the idea but we were very excited.  During the entire pregnancy I had it in my head that something was going to go wrong.  I told my husband that something was wrong every day but I was proven wrong every time we went to the doctors.  We were having a perfectly healthy baby girl.  On March 13, 2014 I had severe stomach problems and went to the hospital.  They sent me home and told me it was the flu.  Long story short, they were very wrong.  My appendix was rupturing and leaking poisonous fluid into my body.  I went into emergency surgery and everything was going well.  On March 15, 2014 I went to the bathroom and delivered our daughter at 1lb 7oz.  She had been born too early and sat in poison for to long.  She lived for 20mins.

I only did a very brief summary of what we went through but if you would like to read more feel free to read my first blog titled Our Story

Since the loss of Lydia Mae I've had my bad days and good days.  I quit my job that I was at for 8 years and now I feel that it was the best decision I made.  Losing a baby has been the most tramatic experience of my life. I am a different form of who I used to be but I continue to try to except the new me and I work every day to heal my heart and not live each day sad and depressed.  This blog has helped me during some of my darkest days.

Here I am with my husband Kevin at Foxwoods Casino a month ago

Change isnt easy

Quitting your job and changing your life isn't as easy as it sounds.  If you look back at a posts from a few months ago you will see I didn't always feel this way.  You will see that I once believed that my problems were once blamed on not having enough time and being forced to go back to work before I was ready.  Well, today is a new day.  I no longer see that as my problem.  And I know truly know the meaning of the grass is always greener on the other side.  For me, that is now true.

I'm not as good at this "house wife" thing as I thought Iwould be.  I thought that cooking and cleaning wouldnt be to bad.  Little did I know is that there is always SOMETHING in the house to do. It seems lately I have less motivation to do house hold chores.  Then, the less I do the more of a failure I feel like.  Lately I feel like I can't do anything right.  I can't find a new job because I get intimidated by going back on interviews,  I cant always clean the house because I feel like I should do more, Then theres the underlining problem of some day I just cant get out of bed.  I hate doing it all.  I just want to be alone.

When feelings like this hit I feel more like a failure.  Kevin does so much.  He works hard for us and suffers through all of the pain I'm sure he feels.  He doesn't have an option of saying "I'm not getting out of bed today"  And I know how unfair it is.

I hope this feeling passes.  I hope that I gain the ability to find my nitch, weather back at work or finding out how to make this "semi house wife" thing work.

First post of 2015

Hello blogger friends, its been a while.  Anyone that has been following has probably noticed that I am writing a lot less posts recently.  Just haven't been in the writing mood.  2015 hasn't really done anything for me as of yet.  I walked into the new year with hope that this year will be happier than last but, this past week I've been really down.  I think about Lydia alot.  Mainly at night when I should be sleeping.  The current recurring thought is about the date of her one year anniversary approaching.  I think about things that Kevin and I can do to honor and keep her memory alive.  We thought about having a cake for her and releasing balloons with messages attached.  Then I end up thinking that maybe thats not the smartest idea.  Do I really want people to be around on that day? What if it's one of those days that I can't get out of bed?  Then, theres the fact that Lydia day is also 4 days before kevins birthday.  I know if we invite people over for Lydia's day it will also end up being the day we have a cake for Kevin.  I don't want his birthday to be over shadowed with sadness.  I know this year will be hard but I hope for Kevins sake, the his birthday isnt always such a horrible time.  But, Im pretty sure it will be and for that I feel awful.  I hate that my body took so much from us.  It took Lydia, our innocense and Kevins birthday.

Another thing we have been talking about is doing a random act of kindness on the day of Lydia's anniversary.  Making cards with her picture on it, with her story, then taking a certain amount of money and paying for a random person's dinner, coffee, groceries, something! Then telling them to do something to pay it forward in Lydia's name.  Maybe adding facts about pregnancy and infant loss on the card to bring more awareness.  I dont know.  I have been looking up idea's for the past few days.

well it feels good to have blogged again.  I hope I didnt ramble to much.

Merry Christmas and Bahhh Humbug

well here we are, Christmas day.  I sit here on my new laptop that my husband got me (for the sole purpose of blogging) thinking about how different today was supposed to be.  Right about now in a parralell universe I was supposed to be dressing my baby girl in her very first Christmas party dress.  Grandparents, aunts, and uncles should be calling to check on her in anticipation of spending her first christmas with her.  She would be smiling by now.  Giggling even.  We would have spent last night with her at Gigi's house (my mother in law) singing christmas songs as Nani sang her German version of silent night  for the very first time.  We would have left Gigi's house in order to be home for bed time, in hope of keeping Lydia on her schedule.  She would be in her first pair of traditional christmas pajama's. Before bed we would have watched a holiday cartoon and read her the night before christmas.  Kevin and I would be exhausted and we would wind down from the day with a glass of wine and a beer before exchanging our presents to eachother.  We probably would have been too tired to make it to our usual time of exchanging presents at midnight.  We would have settled for 10 before calling it a night and heading to bed.  This morning we would have been woking up by our crying baby girl asking for breakfast.  After feeding her she would get the few presents we got her.  It wouldnt have been a lot this year because she would still be little.  At that point I would have looked at my husband and my baby girl and known that I'm truly lucky.

But, life doesnt always work out like that.  I got most of the things I mentioned above but had one major part missing.  Lydia.  There was no giggling baby at Gigi's, Theres no set schedule, no Christmas Pj's or Christmas party dress.  What is left is superficial.  It's a laptop and a food processor for me and a TV and snow boots for Kevin.  When I look around today I see an urn that sits beside an angel.

I woke up in this mood today.  Kevin is in a good mood today and in attempt to keeping it that way I write this as he's in the shower.  I've decided to make the best of today for my husband that tries so very hard.  All he wants is a good day with his family so I'll sit there with a fake smile and repeat in my head BAHHHH HUMBUG