GIVEAWAY!!!

You still have one more day to enter :)

http://mackenziesmama.blogspot.com/2010/03/giveaway-for-march-of-dimes-team.html

GIVEAWAY!!!

We've raised $30 through this giveaway so far!! Thanks to those who have participated! You still have until Friday to enter. Remember, it only takes $1 to enter for one chance to win. The more you donate the more chances you have :)

http://mackenziesmama.blogspot.com/2010/03/giveaway-for-march-of-dimes-team.html

GIVEAWAY!!! Don't forget My giveaway closes on Friday! http://mackenziesmama.blogspot.com/2010/03/giveaway-for-march-of-dimes-team.html

Trying Again

Well, it's been almost 3 months since we lost Skyler through my ectopic pregnancy and that's the amount of time we were told to wait before trying again. I intended to take that 3 months and lose some weight, but I really haven't lost much. Oh well. I'd much rather have a living child than be skinny anyways. So, we will start trying in a couple weeks (when I anticipate I will be ovulating) and I'm kind of nervous. My last pregnancy was ectopic and due to those complications I lost one of my fallopian tubes. Now, not only am I scared that we won't be able to get pregnant because I'm down one tube...I'm even more scared of having ANOTHER ectopic pregnancy and losing my only remaining tube. I seem to have terrible luck, and I don't put it past this universe to pull something like that. I do have hope for getting pregnant again and bringing a baby home someday, but of course that hope is heavily clouded with all the negative thoughts. I pray that we can get pregnant within the next two months because that would mean having a baby before the end of this year. When I was pregnant with Skyler I was SO EXCITED because it meant I would have a baby before most of the holidays. I would have dressed him/her up for Halloween, would have had him/her to show off at Thanksgiving, and I'd have a baby to take to the mall to have his/her picture taken with Santa. I only had that excitement for 2 weeks before those dreams were shattered again. At this point, I just want a live baby at home...but it would be nice to have one before Christmas at least. Could I be so lucky? Well, I'm not sure luck is on my side anymore but I will pray. I could use all the good vibes and prayers you can spare, also!

Speaking of holidays...Easter is coming up and I anticipate that will be another hard one. I'm debating on whether or not to go to church. I'm not sure I can handle my friends with their babies all dressed up in their little Easter dresses. It's going to be hard enough to do the standard Easter egg hunt with my husbands kids. I should be helping Mackenzie find her first Easter eggs this year :'(

I'm still not comfortable around babies and pregnant women or people talking about babies & pregnant women. We were at breakfast today and Mike was leading me to a table right behind a couple with a stroller and I told him of course I don't want to sit right behind a baby! So we sat somewhere else, but it really didn't matter because another customer in the restaurant began talking to the couple (loudly, might I add) and he was going on and on about when his daughter was pregnant and as he was saying "yeah and she was having her baby..." and I blurted out sarcastically "and her baby died???? No...probably not." Of course I only said it loud enough for my husband to hear but you can tell I'm still bitter. How fantastic for this guy to be able to gush about his daughters pregnancy with this couple (who turned out to be the grandparents). Freaking fantastic. Well guess what, sir? We don't get to go on and on about Mackenize or Skyler because no one wants to hear about dead babies. People only want to hear about happy endings. In fact, mention a dead baby and the conversation ends quite abruptly and awkwardly. If it makes it any better, I'm not just bitter for me...I'm bitter for my parents, too. They should be those grandparents out to breakfast with their little grandbaby and giving me & Mike a break. I'm sick of being on a break...I want to be up all night with a newborn baby.

PS - check out my previous post for my GIVEAWAY!!!!

GIVEAWAY for March of Dimes ~ Team Mackenzie Noelle

I know I am shamelessly copying Nolan's mommy, but it was a brilliant idea! :) Hope you don't mind, Ashley!

This giveaway is in effort to raise money for the March of Dimes. I am the team captain of Team Mackenzie Noelle and we will be walking in Mackenzie's memory on April 24th here in Texas. This is our first year to get involved, and although Mackenzie was in no way premature (overdue in fact), I still feel compelled to support this cause because a loss is a loss. Not only that, I know so many of you amazing women in blog land lost your precious little ones due to premature birth and that makes this cause even closer to my heart. Since this is my first year, I only set the team goal at $500.00. Of course if we could raise more, that would be fantastic! I'm the team captain and yet one of my team members is totally kicking my butt in the donations department, so this is my way of boosting team morale and doing my part :)

I will be giving away a $30.00 gift certificate to my favorite Etsy shop, Mama Mia Custom Handstamped Jewelry. You can use the gift certificate towards anything in her shop and she does amazing work customized to suit your personality. I actually won Tina's giveaway to her shop last week and she made me the most beautiful necklace for Mackenzie!

$1 will earn you one entry into the drawing, but the more you donate the more chances you have to win. I will get an e-mail with each donation, but please also comment here so I can make sure I count your donation. I will also give one additional entry for anyone who posts the giveaway to their blog, Facebook, or Twitter. Just comment and tell me where you posted it.

I will keep this giveaway open until midnight on Friday (March 19th) and will announce the winner on Saturday.

Follow the link below to see my personal page and click Donate Now. If you're donating less than $10.00 just click "Other Amount" and type in your amount in the box.

http://www.marchforbabies.org/teammackenzienoelle

Thank you in advance for any and all donations!!! <3

Very Disturbing Dreams :(

These past few nights I have been having really disturbing dreams. If the following description of my dreams is going to give you nightmares or upset you then just stop reading now. For real. They are sick and horrifying to think about...but this is MY blog where I get to let out what I need to say. I'm warning you. I just feel like I need to write them down somewhere and get them out of my head before they make me crazy. I wake up in the mornings and recall the dreams and they really eat at me and mess with my head. They make me sad and sick and basically just ruin the start of the day.

The first dream, well...I can't remember how it started, but basically my family had Mackenzie's body wrapped up in a sheet. We unwrapped her and it was obvious she'd been dead a while because her skin was just falling off all over. We were trying to clean her up and we washed away the skin with a water hose (we were outside). Then my mom was trying to get a piece of grass or something off of her face but ended up peeling a piece of the skin off of her face, too. My mom started to get really upset but I was calm. I told her it was ok...let's just keep cleaning her up. There was a bin of clothes and I decided to pick out an outfit for her to be buried in and while looking in the bin I remembered the closet of hers...full of clothes...and I decided I wanted to go look there. I wanted everyone who saw her to think she looked beautiful. Then my mom reminded me that we already had her funeral quite a while ago...and that no one would be there this time when we buried her. I just really wanted people to be there. I really wanted to make her look beautiful for everyone to see. And that's all I remember...

Last night I dreamed I was pregnant with our second baby (the one we lost due to the recent ectopic pregnancy...who I secretly call Skyler and refer to as a boy b/c that's what I think it was) and that, like Mackenzie, Skyler had died and I had to give birth to him anyways. Only it was obvious that I wasn't very pregnant. It was just like my ectopic pregnancy only instead of surgery I had to deliver him naturally. I delivered him at my house and he looked like a little tiny tiny tiny baby...but definitely a baby. Not just a little round thing like in the pictures I have. I held him and he was very white, not discolored like Mackenzie had been. I thought he looked perfect and I just held him and admired him. I wanted to show him off to my mom but she wasn't coming quickly enough so I went to get here and left Skyler there. Before I found my mom I had some paramedics check me to see if the placenta came out too and it hadn't so they delivered that real quick. Then I went back to find my mom. When I found her I told her to come see him and that he was so beautiful. I also told her I wanted to dress him up in an outfit with a hat and socks, too since I didn't get to dress Mackenzie. She told me she'd hidden all the clothes when Mackenzie died so I wouldn't see them and be sad and that she'd have to get them out but that it would take a while. I was so annoyed and I told her that by that time he wouldn't look this way anymore and that he would be purple and discolored from being dead so long. It still took her forever to get the clothes out, but then I picked out the outfit, hat, socks, and diaper and took them to where I had left him. It was only then that I realized that all of these things were infinitely too big for him. He was like the size of a Barbie doll...this wasn't going to work but I was going to try anyways. When I went to where he was I couldn't find him and my husband told me they'd already buried him. I was pissed. I didn't get to dress Mackenzie and I didn't get to see her before they buried her so I was not going to let them take that from me with Skyler so I had them dig up his coffin. Not only did they dig up his, but they dug up Mackenzie's too. They opened the lid to her coffin and I was surprised at how much better she looked than I'd excepted only they had put a wig on her that was ridiculous and I was really confused at why they would have done that. I was going to go ahead and put a hat on her as well, but I decided to just leave her as she was. I tried putting the clothes on Skyler but of course they were outrageously too big so I just wrapped them around him. Instead of having them bury Skyler and Mackenzie separately again, I had them place Skyler in the coffin with Mackenzie because I thought they'd like that. When they went to situate them together Mackenzie's legs were moving and it was just freaky. I knew even then that she wasn't alive but it was weird that she was moving anyways. And that's pretty much all I remember of that dream...

So they're sick, right??? WHY am I having these dreams??? The dreams do have truth to them. Mackenzie did have a circle of skin missing from her right cheek when she was born. It was like that when they handed her to me though. It's not like we did that to her or anything. I did not dress Mackenzie while I had her in my arms. She was wrapped in the hospital blanket but I never dressed her because in my shock it did not occur to me to do so. I also did not see her in her coffin because my parents told me they thought I should remember her the way she looked in the hospital and that she looked really different and not like herself and I agreed (in the shock I was in at the time). I'm so sick of having these dreams. I live my daily life knowing she's dead and that she's buried...why do I need to face it in my dreams, too??? Especially in the morbid way of seeing her body in that condition...in and out of a coffin??? Can I not have the luxury of dreaming of her alive or at the very least not dream of her at all? When I'm awake I can control my thoughts and not let my mind wander to those sorts of things. When I'm asleep my mind is out of control. I don't even know why I'm having these dreams all of the sudden. Nothing has happened to spark this kind of insanity. Am I the only lunatic having these horrible dreams about their precious children?

:::sigh:::

Just a Thought

I was thinking the other day about my friends that are pregnant right now and how I like that I can still give my input and advice to them (only when they ask of course) because I have been pregnant and I already know what they are going through. I went all the way. I went a week past all the way. I know "pregnant." After that though, once they have their babies...I'm out. I'm out of the loop. I have no idea what it's like to have a baby to raise. I don't know what age babies do what. I don't know what's "normal" at all the stages in their lives. I'm useless after pregnant.

But then something else hit me. Hard. The thought that...these girls probably don't even want my advice, do they?? Why would they want advice from someone who got it wrong? Someone who did NOT bring a live baby home. Someone who buried her child. Someone who lost the next pregnancy after that even. These girls probably take what I say and do the exact opposite! They probably laugh behind my back at all the things I did or didn't do with Mackenzie because they obviously did not work. She's not here. All of my avoiding lunch meat, tuna, diet soda, artificial sweetners, fetta cheese, baths (I took showers), etc. Well, as careful as I thought I was being she died anyways. I guess if these girls are thinking this about me then I can't blame them. Who would take advice from someone who didn't get the outcome everyone wants? Would you take driving lessons from someone who totaled their last two vehicles? Yeah, me neither.

So that just fucking sucks. I don't know pregnant either. I know what it was like when I was pregnant and I can share my stories but what good are my opinions and facts and advice since they failed me??? I'm useless.