Brielle’s Birthday

Countdown To Brielle Day: Day Two

~ lovingbrielle ~ 1 Comment
Can we just take a moment of silence for my horrific selfie skills (or lack thereof)? This would be my deer in the headlights look. No worries, this face is awkwardly reserved for my front facing camera.

You know, I expected this whole random acts of kindness to be nice and uplifting for David and I. Instead it feels more like a burden and something I’ve saddled myself with and I’m left thinking, “What was I thinking?!”

Tuesday was planned to be a day where David and I would go to Dave & Buster’s and attach paid game cards to the machines. For those of you who are new, Dave & Buster’s was where Brielle had her first Father’s Day. It sounded like a great idea. I was genuinely excited at the thought of blessing others on a day when most would be stressed, anxious, and nervous over the election.

But when I couldn’t find my jeans in the piles of wadded up clean clothing mixed with dirty clothing and had to put on my, I can barely move, skinny jeans I was about in hysterics. However, hysteria would require breathing and that wasn’t really possible.

This compounded with, “Do we just tape the cards to the machines? Do we hand them out? No, that’s weird. Do we print out a message with them? Would anyone read them? Does it matter? Do we write the blog address on the note? Is that like advertising? That’s weird, right? Why didn’t I plan this out sooner? What in the world is Brielle Bear going to wear?”

Dogs barking. Everyone’s hungry. Bernice doesn’t understand why we want to do things for Brielle and is confused.

I finally threw my hands in the air and said, “This was supposed to be a fun night and instead it’s a nightmare!” 

We stayed home. Bought Brielle’s birthday dress. Ate chicken noodle soup and watched the news. And for an hour I was mad at myself. I wanted to do this right. I wanted to make something good out of this whole situation.

But I had to step back and think about what was realistic and what was best for all of us today. And I had to be honest with myself, I took on more than I could handle. I took on a bunch of good things, but just because it’s a good thing or a good idea doesn’t mean I should do it.

Me, doing my best with milk and oatmeal creme pies (yes multiple). Who cares if they’re fat bombs? They’re delicious.

So I’m just going to do my best. And really be kinder to myself, for crying out loud Brielle died a year ago, and I’m running around like a chicken with it’s head cut off and then I’m feeling guilty and like I failed.

Brielle died, I don’t need to be super woman, I just need to take a chill pill. Now if someone could just smack me on the head every morning and remind me, that’d be great.

Oh, and my jeans? Found them. They were mixed in with the half clean half dirty Bernice pile, naturally.

On the bright side my hair was on point today. This is my, “I hate selfies” face.

Countdown to Brielle Day: Day One

~ lovingbrielle ~ Leave a comment

*Sorry for the late posting, I wrote this on Monday!*

wp-1476386961940.jpg
Re-posting, just in case you missed it the first time. 

I hope you are all doing well. Today we are starting our random acts of kindness stuff (really having a hard time finding the right word) with a truck full of donations to charity. I’ve been in the process of cleaning out our house and streamlining our stuff to the bare minimum. It’s been great and freeing.

I do feel a bit weird calling it a random act of kindness since I feel like I’m gaining in this situation, but we’re going to roll with it. But hey, I wanted to do good things for Brielle’s birthday…and life has been busy, not to mention kind of painful, so here’s to doing the best you can! And I do have to say it’s so nice knowing we’re starting another year since Brielle died, without the things of our past cluttering up our life. I feel like I can breathe a little easier. As if my never ending to do list has shrunk and is almost manageable.

We will be doing something different each day of the week and then Saturday we will be celebrating! I’m excited for Saturday and plan on sharing some sweet videos and pictures of Brielle Bear and filling the day with happy memories of her.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I don’t want Brielle’s life to feel sad and I don’t want her birthday to be sad either. We were given a sweet blessing, that we were able to share with the world, and Saturday is a day that can be celebrated, because I know that I got to be the mommy of the sweetest little girl there ever was! And I’m not biased at all. 

68de15b93edf06358fd015c3f0526d0b
Did you guys know that most of you wont even read my posts unless I have a picture attached to them? Doesn’t matter what kind of picture either. Maybe I’ll just post memes that make me laugh, so that you can enjoy my humor while you read about my feelings. Then I get to laugh after I’ve written a serious post. 😉

I encourage you to participate in this celebration and if we all lived near to one another I’d want to celebrate with you all personally, but we don’t, so this is my way of bringing the party to you all. I hope this week and this coming Saturday is a little bit brighter for you.

We’ve cried together, laughed together, and grown together and I look forward to coming together again this week.

Part One: The Day Brielle Was Born

~ lovingbrielle ~ 1 Comment

25818278126_1754cf99dc_b

Let’s call this Part One. There is so much to say about the day Brielle was born. So I’ll be posting quite a few posts about the day. And they’ll probably be really long, but then again when aren’t my posts long? At least I warned you all. It’s hard to write about that day, not just because it is painful, but also because so much happened. So many good things happened, and yes, bad things happened too. Really just one bad thing, she didn’t survive. It was such a crucial day in my life. One of those days that will change you for the rest of your life and I feel will continually change me for the rest of my life.

I’m not sure how to write about the part when she was born either. It really deserves a post or two all on it’s own. And I will post more about it. It’s hard to just summarize that hour and a half, so much happened. And, as David and I often say, it was the best and worst moment of our lives.

A few days before Brielle was born I began to get a sinking awful feeling. Everyone was so hopeful around me, I was hopeful too. Everyone believed the best would happen. It was encouraging. And to be honest, it was and is a much better attitude to have. What do you gain by being negative in a situation like this? It certainly wouldn’t have done Brielle any good. And it wouldn’t have done David or I any good either. But the feeling was there. I kept it to myself, I didn’t want to be the debbie downer of the group, and I didn’t want to crush David either. But somehow I just knew that things were not going to be okay for Brielle – at all. I tried to push it away, but it was always there, like a sick knot in the pit of your stomach. And I’m thankful for that awful knot. It prepared me and put me in a mindset that helped me accept what happened that day. And I fully believe it was God’s way of helping me be the best I could be for Brielle.

We were told to be at the hospital at nine Thursday morning. David and I got up at six. He took pictures of me with my belly before I got ready. We wanted to remember what 54 weeks pregnant looked like, what it looked like to carry Brielle. David was anxious and nervous. Worry was etched into his face and my own as well. He wore his “Proud New Daddy” shirt that I had bought him for the day. And we are proud, very proud of our sweet Brielle. We wouldn’t have her any other way.

My family looked anxious, happy, and worried all at the same time. David and I took pictures in front of her chalkboard that said “Happy 40th and 6 days Brielle!” Traffic was ridiculous that morning. During the drive I read David scriptures and reread my prayers to God and a lot of encouraging scriptures that helped calm me and prepare me and David for the day. I foolishly thought we’d have more time alone that we could spend spiritually preparing for the day. I’m so silly.

David and I went by ourselves to the hospital. My family and his joined a couple hours later. Lauren (the doula I talked about a couple of posts ago) joined us as we were checking in.

After we were checked in, the charge nurse, Lynda, (who was incredibly kind) brought us back to my room. They did things a bit differently for us and, while I’m not sure, I think that was because of the wonderful Jamie. I’ve mentioned Jamie quite a few times on this page. She works at the hospital and has been a crucial part in helping David and I through this. And I’d remember her name because I’m going to mention her a lot in these posts. Really, she was a key player in making our day go so well. God certainly had a hand in this day and her being there was no accident. She is a blessing to our family. And Jamie, I know you’re going to read this, I’m going to brag on you and thank you and you can’t stop me. wink emoticon You deserve loads and loads of praise.

My Mom had bought me a special gown for the delivery. It had buttons on the shoulders and up the back like a hospital gown. It’s beautiful and I’m so thankful for it. I wanted something that would look happy in Brielle’s pictures and it was. It was soft, comfortable, and lessened that clinical feeling that hospitals can have. I changed into that when we got there, Lauren gave me purple fuzzy socks with the sticky things on the bottom (don’t you love my technical terms). Those were nice, so soft and fuzzy.

And then I started meeting staff. Jamie told me the staff had been handpicked for us. I met every nurse that would be there, the anesthesiologist, and Dr. Armand (the neonatologist, who we had talked to before about Brielle’s care). I also met Jamie’s boss who was a lovely lady, very kind. Jamie had prayed over Brielle, David, and I and when her boss came in, she also prayed over us. I can’t tell you how much it means to me to have had that support. I really could go on and on about how wonderful the staff was that day. They were all kind, supportive, loving. A lot of them stayed past their shift to help out and support us too. Dekalb Medical Center is a truly amazing hospital, with amazing staff, and I am incredibly grateful to the people there.

I want to go in detail about each person that morning. So I’ll resume this tomorrow. I want everyone to pay attention to little details that happened during this day. I want you to remember everyone’s names. This is really important, because when the day is done I want you to see how so many things went right. How blessed we were. I want you to see that all of your prayers were answered. We all wanted Brielle to survive and God didn’t give us exactly what we wanted, but He still answered our prayers. I want you all to see how He was there that whole day.