18 today

 I stopped updating this blog for the longest time but I figure your 18th birthday deserves a post. Happy 18th birthday, sweet baby girl.  I see other people parenting teenage girls and I wonder how you would have turned out.  Would your syndrome have defined you or would you have become more of a typical teen? It's very different having just boys in the house,  sometimes I think about how it could have been having someone steal my clothes,  have boy problems, talk about girly things,  but then we don't know do we? Maybe you would have been non-verbal, non-mobile, still a baby in a teen body. Who knows how it would have been.  

So today we just celebrated that we knew you for a short while.  You introduced me to a different world,  made me a different person.  I wanted to go out to the memorial park today but it's raining cats and dogs out there.  I'll share a picture from last month if some lovely roses left by your big brother.  Well,  I would if I could figure out how on my phone.  

Eight today

Wow, eight today!  7 years and 1 month ago we lost something very precious to us.  Sometimes it just seems so inconceivable that we are in that group called bereaved parents.  Time definitely does help to heal the wounds of the heart but they rip open so very easily.  Seeing any parents losing a child, no matter the age of the child, brings back the memories of those dark days.  It is much easier to talk about Kendra now though every now and then something stabs at those wounds.

We are going out to the memorial park later so we can celebrate her birthday.  It is still hard to explain to Mitchell about his sister who he will never meet.  I must say on days when Mitchell is being particularly difficult(and boy, does he have days!) I sometimes make myself think of Kendra and be thankful that he is still with us and that Branston got to experience a normal sibling bond.  His experience with Kendra was cut short way too soon and he never really understood that she was not developing normally.

One of the things I really wish is that we can know how she would have turned out had she lived.  What would she have looked like, how much of a developmental delay would she have had?  Would she have been able to walk, to talk, to eat normally?  I guess we'll never know.

Happy birthday my little angel, miss you.

Happy birthday angel girl

Happy birthday my sweet little angel. Your mommy, daddy and brothers miss you big time. I wish I knew what you would have looked like now and how the syndrome would have affected you. Well, I hope you're having a party with the other little angels that are with you.
Lots of love
Mommy

6 years gone

Hard to believe it's been 6 years since our little angel left us.  We went to the memorial park on Sunday.  Rather sad that there are so many graves now of people we knew.  We do the rounds and leave a flower for each of them every time we go there.  It was quite busy there on Sunday, very nice weather I suppose for a visit.  I find I am not reading the blogs I used to read so much of moms who lost babies/children, I suppose it is partly me moving on and partly not wanting to relive some of those days.  I do still have my moments but definitely fewer and further between.  It is getting easier to tell people about Kendra but sometimes I still get a bit choked up, I think it depends on the reaction of the person I am telling.  I find myself withdrawing more from the support group as well, though I am still involved.  And last year when Connor died, and the previous year, Aidan, man that was hard.   All those feelings come back again because you know those parents are going through them and it just comes back again.   I have been trying to update our new blog but am really, really slack.  I spend more time reading other people's blogs than updating my own.  I must really make a plan! 

6 years old

A bit of a belated birthday this year, little angel.  This does not mean that we are forgetting, by no means.  We went away for Easter and were at your Ouma and Oupa's house on your birthday.  We bought you a cake though it was a bit rich for me, but the kids enjoyed it.  I hope you know that Mommy and Daddy and Branston were thinking about you all day and wishing that you could be here to celebrate with us.  

Then it was Daddy's birthday and then Mommy's and then another Mother's Day without you.  Daddy and Branston spoiled me and little Mitchell was entertaining but it would have been so nice to have a little girl thrown into the mix, much as I love my boys.  A six year old little girl.  No matter whether you may or may not have been walking or talking by now - nobody can say what you would have looked like or how you would have progressed.   I wish I knew what you would have looked like now - gorgeously blonde like your little brother with plenty of curls, gentle like your older brother, still as smily as ever.

Happy birthday, sweet girl. Love you.

5 years

5 years ago life as we knew it ended.

We miss you, little angel.

Say what?

This comment was left on my last post:
hey girl. i was meaning to post something really mean at first, but please, try to move on. God bless
Huh?? If you say you were going to post something really mean then don't you think that is really mean in itself? And why was 'Anonymous' going to be mean? Has he/she ever lost a child? Do they know what it is like to carry a life inside you for 9 (8 in my case) months, watch them grow for 11 months and then have them cruelly taken away from you? To tell me to move on and then to say god bless? I don't think they realise that such a comment can be hurtful even after 4,5 years when I am supposed to have moved on. And FYI, anonymous, I have a beautiful baby boy now who I am totally enjoying. If I want to come and express the occasional feelings of longing for the child I lost in this place, which is one place where I put down my feelings about my loss, as you may have noticed I don't post that often, I do not appreciate being told to move on. I use this public forum for this as there are actually people out there that it helps.
End of rant.

5 years old.

Happy birthday my angel. Tomorrow you will be 5 years old. We may not be able to bring you flowers as we are going away for the weekend but we will be taking some cake along to celebrate. We always get cake for your birthday even if you are not physically there to share it.

I miss you my baby. I miss the 5 year old little girl I never got to know. I hope they throw you a big party up in heaven.

4 years

4 years ago today my world came crashing down. It is hard to believe that 4 years have passed. Sometimes it feels really fresh in my mind, other times more bearable. Time does ease the pain but it never takes it away.

A lot of people have asked me if having another baby has helped or made things worse. There is no simple answer to that. It brings back a lot of memories which often makes one sad but sometimes it is nice to remember something that you had forgotten and may not have remembered otherwise. You cannot help but compare Kendra and Mitchell. Obviously Mitchell is already more advanced than Kendra ever was. It kind of highlights the fact that she was so delayed. Anyway, I had quite a bit I wanted to say on the topic but my mind seems to have gone blank. It seems like my blog has done it's job and helped me along the path of healing but now I just don't know how to write down my feelings anymore. Maybe I no longer need it like I did back then. Maybe my creative juices have dried up. I haven't scrapbooked in ages either.

I dreamt last night that Kendra was in a horrible cemetery and someone was telling me that we could have her removed and taken somewhere nicer. It took me a while after I woke up to remember that she was already somewhere very nice. We will go there this afternoon. Hopefully it doesn't rain.

Moving on...

My entire post was just deleted as I tried to publish it!! Thanks, Google! No wonder it has taken me this long to create a new blog! But I finally got around to it, a bit late for many pregnancy updates but anyhow...

I decided to create a new blog that was about the family and not just focussed on Kendra. Kendra's World was created to keep people up to date with my little angel's progress and then continued as a place to express my grief. But I have never felt very comfortable writing about anything non-Kendra related here. So, I kept waiting to get all my ducks in a row, ie get the right photos scanned in, find a catchy title, enough time to do it all, etc. Last week I had internet problems while setting it up and gave up. But now I decided to just do the bare minimum and get a post up, the rest can follow later (or not!). So please go to the Meiring Meanderings and check it out. I will still do the occasional update on Kendra's World so don't forget about it completely, but only now and again.

We are moving on but not forgetting, NEVER forgetting......

Happy birthday, sweet angel

Dear Kendra

Happy birthday sweet angel. Four today! Hard to believe that 3 years have gone by since you left us. So sad that the only pictures I can post are of us at the memorial park.

We took 4 pink balloons and released them to fly away up to you. Daddy thought I was crazy, but I tried to tie 4 pink roses to the balloons as well. Granny bought you the roses. The first balloon flew away nicely but the other 3 sank onto the dam, the roses were a bit heavy for them! So we took the roses off and let the balloons go off on their own. We dropped the roses into the dam but the ducks tried to eat them. I hope we didn't kill off the memorial park ducks!!

I wish I knew what you would have looked like at 4. Branston was wondering too what you would have been doing. Would you have walked? Talked? What kind of treatments would we have followed to get you to where you should be? Would we have done the eye operation to open up your little eye? At least you don't need any of that now.

We are looking forward to the arrival of your new baby brother (who, according to the last scan, is totally ok, all measurements normal, everything looking good). It is very sad that he will never know his big sister. He kicks me a lot, reminding me of you when you were in my tummy. You also kicked me a lot, unlike Branston who was fairly still.

Anyway, little Kendra, we all miss you a lot - Mommy and Daddy and Branston and everyone else. We wish you were here with us today and always.

Love

Mommy

3 years

Wow, 3 years since our little angel left us. 3 years ago at this time I was still sitting at the hospital, none the wiser about what was in store.

When Kendra went in for her op the previous year in August I carried her through to the theatre. While we were at the door putting on our gowns and slippers to go in we heard someone in an adjoining room being given what was obviously very bad news. Listening to the woman's loud and anguished cries I remember thinking 'God, I hope that never happens to me, poor woman' before the nurses rushed me into the theatre. Little did I know. It is amazing how one thinks back to that moment of being told and of being taken through to the bed where my baby was waiting, barely conscious of all the people staring as we walked past. I don't know why I go back to those days as if it would make it less painful if I relive it or might make it go away. I even feel sorry for the other occupants of the ICU at the time. It was visiting hour and can't have been very pleasant for the visitors. Now, 3 years later and some of the initial raw pain has diminished but it is still there running down my face whenever I think about it.

I have been rather stressed out at work lately which really does not help things. I was supposed to take the whole day off today, but there is just so much to do. Also why I have been slack with doing postings on the blog. Just get so sick of the computer and it is easier to read other people's stories than write down my own. I am stopping work for the day now though and am going to pop in to visit a friend on my way to the memorial park. She is due any day now and her little angel is also resting at the memorial park so she knows some of what is going on with me at the moment.

So, on to some baby news. Baby is 19 weeks along now and all is going well. We went for a foetal assessment at 13 weeks and all measurements are average. Never did average sound so good! It is a boy, much to my son's delight. We have not chosen a name yet but Branston likes Mitchell. I am still undecided. Any ideas? My blood pressure has stabilised, aside from an overnight stay in the hospital when it got a bit high. This baby is taking after his sister as far as activity goes. He is already kicking me to bits and my tummy has grown considerably. I am really not looking forward to the last few months, remembering how uncomfortable I was before. I can't believe how uncomfortable I am already. I have another scan where we check all the organs and do a bunch of measurements on 8 April. I will try and do an update afterwards. Branston is going with as it is in the school holidays. He is very excited.

It's a what????

Well, long time no post. I suppose it is a good thing that I do not have a lot to post about. I think my feeling is that I have pretty much said all there is to say about my feelings of grief at losing a child. They have not gone away, they are ever present, just not so acute. I still cry whenever I see someone on TV being told that their loved one (be it a child, spouse whatever but especially a child) has died. There was an episode on CSI the other day where the CSI agent had to tell the mother that her son had been shot dead. OMG, 'snot en trane' (snot and tears for non S. Africans)! Had to fast forward through that section.

Moving along, so what do I have to post about now, you ask? Well, if you haven't guessed by now from the pic below, then I don't know! Ok, let me give you the juicy details. I am now almost 10 weeks pregnant. And no, it was not planned. I won't go into the details but it was a bit of a slipup and miscalculation on our side.


Once we got over the initial shock of finding out I was pregnant we had to deal with another. It might be twins! I went for an early scan due to my history and it showed a definite 2 sacs though 1 was much smaller than the other. The doc said this could be due to the fact that they were conceived at different times or else the smaller one was being reabsorbed. We had to wait 2 weeks over Christmas and New year to find out that it is only one. Obviously it was the second scenario.

I have found it quite difficult to tell my friends who have been struggling to conceive about the pregnancy as I know it must be hard for them to hear of 'accidents' when they are struggling. If they, or anyone else out there in the blogosphere, feel hurt by this news then I do apologise and I do try not to go on about it.

The dominant feelings I am having at the moment about this pregnancy is that I am scared. Not only scared that something will go wrong during the pregnancy but also afterwards. I think we will be on tenterhooks for the first 11 months of this baby's life. But it is still early days and for now we just have to get through the next few weeks, then the next few and so on. Lots of mixed feelings going on about getting all the recommended tests etc.

None of this is helped by the fact that I have developed high blood pressure. At my last appointment my BP was extremely high. I have been put on medication and have been on bedrest for the last week and a half. It seems to have stabilised now, thank goodness. I was having visions of having to be admitted and terminating the pregnancy and all sorts. I have a BP monitor so can keep track of it from home now. Bad news is that the high BP is probably going to stick around after the pregnancy and I may have to take medication forever.

Other than that I have been having quite bad morning/all day sickness and my hands and feet are already starting to swell up. I also suffer from restless feet during pregnancy but usually only near the end. Well it started a few weeks ago already and I am really battling to sleep at night, getting up at all hours to put my feet under the cold tap and putting cream on etc. In other words this pregnancy is really kicking my butt!!

I am thinking of starting a new blog to keep track of pregnancy and life afterwards but think I will wait to do that until after 12 weeks.

September

Wow, I can't believe September is almost over already. Christmas is just around the corner and then it will be 2009 and heading for 3 year anniversary of Kendra's death. Time goes on and it gets easier to talk about her. I usually find though that most times it is me who brings her into a conversation. I think people are still scared of upsetting me by mentioning her. Though you do get those who either don't think about it or think we are 'over it' or feel that we can handle it now.

And they would be right in some respects. We will never ever be 'over it'. You don't ever fully recover from losing your child, whether they were stillborn or died as an older child or an adult. Different types of pain but still the same. But I do feel better able to talk about her now in casual conversation. And I want to. I need to feel that she was there and made a difference. I had 2 children and people must acknowledge that. I must say that amongst my friends if I do talk about her now, there aren't uncomfortable silences like there may have been earlier. People don't turn on their 'shame, so sorry for you' faces. It is just part of the conversation. Which is nice. Not to say that I want everyone to suddenly talk about her all the time!! Tricky, dealing with bereaved parents, isn't it? I don't even feel like I get it right with my friends who have lost little ones all the time. And I should know how they feel and what they need, right? Well, no, not necessarily. Not everyone grieves in the same way and what is right for one may not be right for another. But I think the important thing for all grieving parents is that people acknowledge their loss.

Last night I was holding little Ethan while his mommy made him a bottle. He is just over 1 and is the most beautiful little boy. I must ask his mommy if I can post a pic of him and his gorgeous brother. Anyway, he cuddled into my shoulder and that really made me miss those days. Not only with Kendra as she wasn't much of a cuddler but with Branston. Gathry, best you go for the snip quickly as I am getting a bit broody here!! I have many thoughts on having another baby but what it boils down to is that logic says we should not have another (many reasons)and we have decided not to but the heart still longs for it.

Anyway, you can tell I haven't blogged in a while from all the rambling:) What I came on here to say before September is over is that I have been thinking about little Chad and Morgan a lot in this month, their birthday and angel day anniversay month. L, M and J, I have been thinking of you all, and I know you haven't been showing it much, it must have been a hard month for you all, especially with Mike being away the whole month. I hope Chad and Morgan and Kendra and little Jack (another friend's baby) have been partying it up along with all the other little babies up in heaven.

Oh, and thank you to those who left condolences for my gran's passing. It was appreciated.