Carter's Story

Thursday December 6th started like any other day. We did not wake up that day knowing that we would be forever changed. Shortly after arriving at work I began to experience pain that I quickly realized were contractions, at 20 weeks I knew that I should not have been feeling this pain. Rob picked up from work and by the time we made it to the hospital I was fully into the stages of labor and there was nothing they could do to stop the process. Our baby boy Carter was born and forever became our angel. Our lives have forever been changed and we don't yet know where the healing process will take us. Right now we are focused on Caila and helping her heal, she continues to amaze us with her understanding, but what she wants more then anything and we wish we could give her is the baby brother she always wanted and never had the chance to know.

We now Know we lost him due to Incompetent Cervix & Placental Abruption. If you have found our blog because you are now embarking on your own journey of grief and healing our hearts go out to you. May you be surrounded with love and not ever expect to much of yourself. Normal will never be the same, you will never be the same, and that's ok. My hope is that some of the resources I found to be lifesaving will help you as well.


Monday, April 28, 2008

Somedays, I just want to know why....

The emotional breakdowns at the drop of hat have subsided. In approximately a week Carter will have grown his angel wings 5months ago. Like anything in life in some days I just want to know why?!
I have mentioned in previous posts that his life just fit so perfectly into, well everything. The timing of his birth was surrounded by so many others it just fit. I had another one of those revelations last night. He, my son, would have benefited so many others, in such a subtle, maybe would never even realized it kind of way. Even though I know that his death has done the same, life just seems to have so much more meaning. We never talk about death as a society, always about the life that preceded. You never hear a group of people in a coffee shop discussing what they learned from the loss of a loved, just what they taught them from their life. So like any good human I just want to know, why us?, why him? Why Now? Why after so long when the timing was just so seemingly perfect was Carter taken from us? What is the good that is supposed to come?
Some days, I just want to know why.....

Thursday, April 24, 2008

Great Day for a Date!

One more Dr's appt. checked off the list. They usually take so long Rob and I decided to make it a date day! Sunny Skies in Pittsburgh meant something outdoors after a winter of blah! So we chose rollerblading. Many people do not know about the hidden treasures that are Pittsburgh trails. I had not spent any time on them until marathon training days and when flowers are blooming or leaves are turning they all have spectacular views. Today we chose the "Jail Trail" a.k.a Eliza Furnace Trail. Having not been on Roller Blades for awhile (something we loved when Caila was a baby) we were both hesitant when we noticed the more Expert Bladers in full gear. Not us, shorts t-shirts and blades, not a pad or helmet in site. The trail was great and the weather was awesome! We ended the day walking around the Strip District and a quick lunch (which wasn't so quick) at Rolands .
We grabbed a table upstairs to enjoy the sun and quickly seated behind us was a family with a newborn. Passerby stopped to chat with the new parents and we quickly learned the baby was 2weeks old. Rob and I quickly realized that we were bothered, quick heart twinges, but for the first time we felt OK. Be careful what you wish for..... Being the people watchers that we are it seemed that all the people around us began to have conversations about somebody somewhere with some new baby. I laughed, sending up a quick prayer OK, we are doing OK, but do we need the hailstorm? The sun is still shining, and we came home smiling, so all in all it was still a great day for a date!

Sunday, April 20, 2008

Happy should've been Birthday!!!!!!




EDD.....3 letters that you begin to plan your life around. Estimated Due Date. Today, April 20th 2008. The fact that people say "babies come when they are ready"(which for us is more like babies are born when my body thinks its ready) Does not change that fact that once you see that plus sign on the stick or the HCG levels continuing to double, that your EDD is what your life gets planned around. From the moment of triumphant joy, thoughts are different, plans are made, not just for the next 9months but for the next lifetime of your baby. We made so many, many, plans. None of them included spending Carter's should've been Birthday without him.

Carter was born on December 6th 2007 and I will always think of that as his birthday, but knowing what today could have been, I wondered how I would feel, think, act. Today started out grey, gloomy and rainy nothing that I wanted for the small memorial we planned. However, around 2pm the sun broke through the clouds and made for a beautiful day. It would have been a good day to be born, a great day for an exciting new beginning drive to the hospital. It could have been a great day to be born.....

Tuesday, April 15, 2008

Magic 8 Ball, where are you?

Monday came and went, more tests, and.......more waiting.
Reasons to be glad:

1. My Dr. ( Sanfilippo @ Magee) is very thorough and likes to have all the "ducks in a row".
2. We will have the complete picture all at once instead of little tiny puzzle pieces spread around a six month time frame....
3. Gives me time to attempt to lose some weight...(the attempt is being done in my sleep where I dream about getting up to run but really I never do!)
4......... Ya' I'm all out of glad....

Reasons to be annoyed:
1. The length of time I've been a patient there, he should know my chart backwards and forwards....whats adding a few a more test when its already the size of an encyclopedia????
2. They tried to tell me he had no open appts until June....ummmm, yeah right, I'm going next week.
Hmmm... well I guess I have one more positive then negative thats a good thing.
As I sat in the office yesterday I saw myself in so many of the women sitting there. There was me from every stage of our journey, the new patient full of hope nervously squeezing her husbands hand wondering what they would be told of new options. The women who had grown tired of the journey and given up for six months, but then had new hope grow and she was back because she knows this time will be different. The women who flew across the country for something spectacular with her records from that Dr, because now she was fixed! I watched them all, as if in a documentary, and then found myself praying : Dear Lord, please don't keep them here as long as we were, please give them answers, good or bad, just give them answers to go forward with life. Then they sat down, more smiley then most in the room, no they were giddy. I knew why instantly, almost 9months ago to the day We were them.... clutching the ultrasound picture, finally after all this time they had made it....She could not stop smiling, they could not stop holding hands, and when they left ( I heard the nurses say good luck so I know they were being joyously ushered to OB no longer needing the specialist) the secretaries and nurses hugged them and cried, Just the way they did 9 months ago for us. And I wasn't angry, or sad, I just prayed- Don't let them ever have to come back here, give them their Miracle, spare them the pain. They left and still I waited so many quiet stories in that room, and knowing there was a piece of me in all them, I wondered how many times I had sat there with a women missing a piece of her heart just like me.

Sunday, April 13, 2008

What's Next?

This is a question we ask everyday, but I have not really opened my heart to discussing here. We have since December 6Th, been asking that question between every breath. Even in our quest to learn to breathe again we have realized that we want to grow our family. One of my Dr's immediately said to not think of a biological child for 1yr. That's where the debate began, some, I've learned some have been told "be pregnant by your due date". That will not be the case for us and its best, in some ways. My incredible, wonderful, could not have made it this far without him, specialist (you thought I was going to say husband he fits in that sentence as well) told us we "need" to be pregnant sooner then a year for so many reasons. Some days I feel like yesterday wasn't soon enough and others like next year might not be soon enough. Another of my Physicians said the body is as ready 6wks post-partum as it is in one year, barring no severe health issues. Aside from the issue of getting pregnant, and add to that now staying pregnant, I'm generally healthy.
So here comes tomorrow, where I will get the final answer of yes, your body is indeed ready for a baby (I am definitely trying on optimism again) .....but then what? And what if this isn't the right door to be opening? Definitely searching tonight, so if anyone has come across the GPS system that has the directions to my life, please give it back!!!

Friday, April 11, 2008

Connections

I've been a bad blogger this week, so when I visited today and read all the wonderful comments I hadn't yet seen, I was delightfully overwhelmed.
Rob and I have both commented on how we feel this blog has created a network, community really and hearing from friends and loved ones we do not see frequently (or in some cases yrs or have never met) just knowing we are all connected gives us a sense of peace and hope. This week has been wonderful. I felt like I truly lived this week, instead of just going through the motions. We even managed to have an impromptu gathering at our house this week 5 families, 13 kids and a few dogs! Caila even yelled at me for cleaning excessively-which is not something I had really been doing much. Maybe I've gotten used to this way of breathing, taking the good days with the bad and realizing thats its just a part of our life now. Like mile 20 @ the Disney Marathon your on the beautiful boardwalk and can almost see the finish line, but @#$%, you just want to be done, and when you cross the finish line all of that pain is forgotton and I would do it all over again in a heartbeat..... I'll never forget Carter, and I don't know where the finish line will take me, but I would not change the 20wks he was with us for anything. Sometimes the pain is better then not knowing at all......

Monday, April 7, 2008

You are ALWAYS on my mind


Spring finally arrived this weekend, which was a needed distraction on top of the myriad of activities that popped up in our calendar. So much of a distraction, that days came and went so quickly, even in the midst of thinking of Carter we stopped counting. Even just for a moment. I didn't realize yesterday was the 6th, I didn't realize that yesterday was 4months. I didn't realize that I didn't' realize. Until today when I arrived at work and began to write the 7th. Even though we continue to daily have conversations about Carter, and Caila so diligently prays for him, even though things pop up to remind us of our sadness. I just stopped counting, at least for a day. Its a happy sad moment. Happy because we are beginning to live again, sad because even though I know we will never forget, for I moment I failed to remember.
~Carter, dear angel~ even in the midst of craziness if for a day we forgot to take pause, you are always on our minds and forever in our hearts.

Saturday, April 5, 2008

Saturday April 5 2008

My Great-Grandmother - had she beaten cancer nearly 16yrs ago would have been 100 today. Today, the day I had said from the moment we first saw the tiny flicker of Carters heart, today is the day I KNEW he would be born. Because I just thought that would be an amazing coincidence for one, but also I just knew. The hardest part of losing Carter for me is the seemingly perfect placement/timing/ everything part of his life just seemed to fit, from the largest to smallest detail.... and the lack of reason followed by the answer of "random chance" is just such a hard pill to swallow.
Days are coming and going now, the good and the bad whatever they may be but the hardest part of the heartache is the rearranging. You plan, and you plan, and then the reset button gets hit except when you reset something is missing. That's were the unavoidable pain creeps up on me, its everywhere I go no matter what. The dear friend, the random stranger or the completely unrelated noise, event etc. I can't explain it unless you know it, you can't understand it, and I wouldn't want you too, because it means you felt it yourself. There have been moments in the past that I have just had this crazy feeling of not being 'grown-up' that has so quickly vanished. I feel like I have been launched into this other world. The world of parents missing babies, I so often find myself looking around crowds and wondering which of you is also in this "club"....

Wednesday, April 2, 2008

NY Times

A few weeks ago the New York times published causing me great frustration, politics aside they have redeemed themselves a bit. Jane Brody wrote a very informative article titled "Seeking Answers to Stop Stillbirth", you can read the full article here. She eventually made it to her Miracle even though the journey was long. Some may say that Caila is our Miracle and while I believe that she is, I still feel we have one more waiting and that Carter will help send him/her our way.