Most Wonderful Time of the Year?

This used to be to me.  I absolutely LOVE Thanksgiving and Christmas.  I love the food and family of Thanksgiving and I LOVE picking out the perfect gift and wrapping and seeing someones reaction.  I love the decorating of the tree and hanging on the stockings and the warm feeling that the whole season brings.  And this year, I was especially looking forward to it because I was pregnant!  I was due on January 8th, but I had a feeling I would be having him around Christmas, or even hoping New Year's Eve since that was my grandma's birthday.  I thought I would be huge by now and I would be getting baby gifts and prepping for my baby's arrival.  Instead, I'm home from work right now because I keep thinking of holding my one pound, lifeless baby in my arms and coming home from the hospital refusing to get out of the car, crying, because I wasn't supposed to come home without him.  It wasn't right.  It still isn't right. 

Eric has two nephews and a new baby niece... I'm wondering if I'll have to go to Christmas with them and see all the little boys open their gifts and see the baby dressed up in her Christmas outfit.  While I'm without my precious baby.  I just can't imagine being in my situation right now.  This year, Christmas was supposed to be a wonderful time for me this year!  I should have been anticipating the birth of my angel, but instead, I'm mourning the loss of him. 

My manager at work is also expecting a baby soon... his wife and I were almost about the same timeline.  He's been wonderful though.  Somehow, he understands what I'm going through and told me that he will work with me for whatever time I needed off and if I just didn't feel like coming in one day, like I just couldn't do it, it was okay.  I was thankful to have someone like that, but was hoping to never take one of those "sad" days since I had taken off so much already.  That was up until today.  Today, I felt like I woke up okay and then as I was walking out the door, I just started feeling terrible.  I just kept thinking of my poor baby... and how he wasn't here and how that just wasn't right.  I miss him so much. 

On another note, I found out what happened to Cameron.   I got a call at work and saw that it was my doctor on the caller ID.  I panicked.  The last time I saw him, he had told me not to expect anymore calls from him UNLESS a test out of the 100 tests they gave me came out positive, which they didn't expect to happen.  Well, here was the call.  I nervously answered the phone and he told me that he wanted to go over some test results that he thought explained what happened to my baby.  He had something called Tricomy 21... it was Down Syndrome.  But really severe and it affected his heart, which lead to the Hydrops.  I tested normal chromosomes, so they don't expect this to happen again, but I will be high risk from now on.  Why?  How could this have happened?  I almost felt better not knowing why this happened.  Because then it was just a fluke and it just happened.  But now knowing, I feel even more helpless because there was nothing I could do or could have done.  I wish I could have some control over it... I wish it was my fault or something I did.  Is that weird? 

So, here I am at home now... when I should be at work.  But I'm here, crying by myself and writing on my blog.  This blog has actually helped me quite a bit... connecting with other mom's that have lost their babies. 

I just wish I could skip Christmas or the holiday's n general.  What reason do I have to celebrate? 

I have been toying with ideas of something to do for Cameron for Christmas.  One idea I had was to kinda of adopt a baby in need for Christmas and by the baby gifts that I would have for Cameron.  Another one that I saw some other mom had done was to have a stocking for Cameron, which I will anyway, but to have family and friends to random acts of kindness and write them on papers and put them in his stocking.  Then on Christmas, I'd be able to open those and see all the nice things that people did in Cameron's name.  Seems like a sweet way to honor Cameron...

Cameron's Parents

Eric's asked me to marry him.  He's asked me before, but I had always said no... I didn't want to marry while I was pregnant.  But going through a tragedy makes me reevaluate a lot of things.  And I realized how great of a partner Eric really is.  I actually think I am lucky to have had a partner like Eric to go through this with... he's been an awesome partner through this and has been extremely supportive.  So, I've said yes.

The ring is beautiful, sort of antique looking.  And it has a matching band.  We went out to eat at his local Italian restaurant named Little Italy to celebrate and I had told Eric that I hoped that Cameron was watching us and was happy to know that his parents were going to be devoting each other to themselves for the rest of our lives.  We ate and had a wonderful dinner and sat in the corner seat booth of the restaurant.  The waiter even gave us a slice of Italian Wedding Cake that was absolutely devine. As we got up to leave, I noticed the entire time there was a statue of a baby angel behind us the whole time!  Wow!  That spoke so much to me.  I felt like this was a small way (or maybe a big way!) of Cameron telling us that he was there to celebrate with us.  He was in the middle of our dinner the whole time without me even noticing... yet, always thinking of him.

The baby angel behind us at dinner

I started off wanting a small, intimate wedding with only my immediate family... but it's growing and growing now.  I just felt that after all this, nothing really matters to me anymore.  All the things that used to be important to me aren't anymore.  What is important to me is my family, Cameron, and my future children.  After Cameron, I wanted to try for another child as soon as possible, which I hear is pretty normal for someone that has gone through something like this.  Have a "rainbow baby," as they're called.  The rainbow after the storm.  I want my rainbow.

But I would like to be married before I have another child too.  So, there lies the dilemma.  I want to try as soon as possible for my rainbow... which per the doc, will be after six months, which is in March.  So, I'd like to get married by March so I could start trying right away... but that's so soon!  So, we were thinking next October... which I thought was fine, but I'm still stuck with the dilemma of wanting to get pregnant again by March and then I'd be unmarried... again.  I don't want to be pregnant at my wedding.  But at this point, I don't know.  I'd also like to lose weight for my wedding pictures.  So, today, Eric and I have decided to try for the end of March wedding and lose as much weight as possible until then... that's today though.  It may change!

In other news, I saw the counselor for the first time this past week.  It was good and she seemed to understand.  I talked about the insensitivity of some people and how I feel sometimes.  How I can be great throughout the day, but then suddenly feel an emptiness and sadness within myself.  How can I explain this except to know that it's because I'm missing the most precious part of myself?  

I miss my Cameron... I miss my baby and wish I could hold him.  This whole event has changed my outlook on EVERYTHING in my life... my family, friends, career goals, education, everything... more on that later...