10 weeks and Supply Drive

First, I want to share with you a donation opportunity:

If anyone is interested in participating, I will be going up to make a donation sometime the week of May 6-11.  Right now, I've got 17 gown/diaper sets being sewn (thanks to some helpers because my machine in JACKED!) and 8 crocheted sets already made.  I am really hoping to get plenty more made before this Supply Drive because they are in such dire need of help!  While the local angel closet in Salt Lake County seems pretty well stocked for now, Weber/Davis County is still in need.  After spending the last several months making outfits out of my own pocket, I can tell you that the costs add up quickly.  Even sale flannel gets expensive when you're buying several yards at a time.  Plus $3-$6 for every skein of yarn.  Plus buttons.  Plus ribbon.  It just adds up.  And we REALLY want to be able to keep up this work as there is a HUGE need! 

Imagine for a minute going to the hospital to deliver your baby, then going home empty handed.  Imagine trying to get a few pictures of your child, like proof that s/he really did exist since no one will ever see him/her, but your baby is too small for even a preemie onesie or diaper. We make gowns because even babies that aren't alive, a mother still wants to dress warmly.  We make two diapers per gown, one for baby to wear and the other for mom to take home in memory of her angel.  Several NILMDTS photographers have said that they have observed a mother of an angel dressing her baby bring a small sense of peace to their situation.  I'm sure I've said it before, but when I picked out the clothing for the baby that we anticipated naming Isabelle, it gave me peace to know that my child would be warm and dressed.  It calmed my busy mind, if only a little.  Then, when Isabelle turned out to be Seth, I was sad that he only had a hat to fit him.  I ended up asking a nurse to bring in a regular newborn hat to wrap him in to "keep him warm" and give me the sense of him being dressed because my little naked baby with only a blanket around him seemed wrong.  It wasn't until after the pictures were done and I let the nurses take him away for good that a nurse brought me diapers for him.  I wish he could have worn one.

So, you see, this clothing is IMPORTANT.  And although it may seem that I'm the only person who ever talks about their loss, it happens ALL THE TIME!  One weekend, my photographer said there were 15 angels born, followed the next week by 1-3 more angels every other day.  20+ angels in ONE week just in HER area.  Please, consider making a donation.

If you're near me, please bring over any appropriate flannel, soft yarn, white thread, ribbon, ziploc bags, or gift cards to any of the 4 stores listed, or let me know if you'd like to trace patterns, cut fabric, sew gowns or diapers (both are fairly easy patterns)...  Or maybe if you've got time to crochet or knit some outfits, I've got patterns for that, too!  Please, PLEASE, help me fill this angel closet!  The need is there.  And what a way to extend some love, peace, and comfort to a mother who just lost her child - something we all hope never happens to us.

Oh!  I almost forgot! 
I'm 10 weeks along now, and thanks to a very dear friend who loaned me her home doppler, I have been able to find a heartbeat every time I've been worried!  I first heard it around 9 1/2 weeks, and today at 10 1/2 weeks I heard it again!!  The doppler claims it's around a 160-170 heartrate and I just love hearing it!  Hopefully I'll be able to hear it every week!!  (Photos are of MY TANGIBLE PEACE's gestational ooak dolls, made developmentally accurate)

 In both pictures, my baby's development is the one in the middle.  My little Picard/Vash is around the size of

To give some size prospective, these BabyCenter pictures should help:

That's a 10 week size of a kumquat (yeah, what is that?), 11 week size of a fig, and 12 week size of a lime.  12 weeks, that's my next goal.  Not that anything I do helps me achieve this goal, but setting small goals is better than freaking out that I have 30 weeks to go.  Instead, I have 2 weeks to go to make it to my next goal.  I can do it!

GROW, BABY, GROW!

By the way...

I also wanted to take the time to show off some of my favorites:

The rest of my family

Kiersten in her beautiful dress

My crocheted donations to Angel Babies in late March to honor the two babies not pictured above

8 week update

Thursday, I went in for my first prenatal appointment.  We had suspected that I was around 9 weeks (jacked up cycles are crazy to figure out) but ultrasound showed there to be one baby around 8 weeks with a very strong heartbeat.  It fluttered happily... just as Taylor's had (which lead me to be confused and devastated when that heartbeat was gone) and just as Seth's had.

The night before, fear and terror showed up and attempted to take me over.  But thanks to my faith and the faith of those that I called on to help me (thank you, Facebook, for quick and easy access to my friends and family in a mass communication kind of way), I fell asleep that night quickly and easily as those fears were... not lessened, not eased, but literally taken from me long enough that I could sleep the best sleep that I've had in days, weeks, months, possibly even years.  8 solid hours of sleep with no wakings, no int interruptions, just restful sleep.  By morning I was a little ashamed of the way fear had overtaken me, and especially how QUICKLY it had overtaken me!  I had been a little worried all week as Thursday was approaching.  However, it wasn't until it was getting close to bedtime that pure terror hit me like a Mac truck straight on!  Tears poured.  And thanks to some great teaching in my life, my faith poured out, too.  I prayed and prayed and prayed.  And I asked for others to pray with me.  And I felt those prayers. 

Now, when I pray for this pregnancy, I've learned little things that guide me.  I don't dare ask for any certain outcome.  If I beg for something, but it's not right for me, but He gets so tired of me begging that He finally says "FINE!" - I tend to not be as pleased as I thought I would be.  In this case, that seems like an odd thing to consider.  It's a baby and it's a blessing.  But, if keeping my baby means that someone else loses theirs, someone who can't handle it as well as I can, someone who loses faith because of it, someone who figuratively crawls into a dark cave with no intention of returning - what kind of selfish person am I to have begged for that to happen?!  This is NOT to say that if I should lose this one, that I would be indifferent, or that I would cry my eyes out for several days, or cave myself for a few days.  But because of my faith, I know that I will have another little blessing being stored up in heaven, waiting for me.  I will miss him/her just as much as I do Taylor and Seth, or would miss any of the children than I enjoy in my home right now.  I cry or get sad about T&S because I miss them.  But I know I'll see them again.  I'm not angry with God now, nor have I ever been.  I may wonder momentarily why *I* was chosen for these experiences, but I don't blame Him or get angry at Him or curse Him or anything like that.  I love Him and rely on Him to get me through it. 

So, instead, I pray for comfort and strength.  I pray that my emotions will be comforted, that I'll always remember that the best outcome will come about - no matter which direction that happens to be.  I express my hopes that things would go the way that puts another baby in my arms and in my home rather than stored in my heart and in heaven, but I ask for comfort that all will be right either way.  And I pray for strength in facing my fears - whether it be pushing my fears away as I live each day wondering the outcome, or strength in dealing with a reality of my fears, or perhaps strength in dealing with a reality of my hopes and dreams (yes, babies can wreck havoc on a mom, even if they do love and want them more than anything else in this world)! 

I wish I had video of this little Picard/Vash, but I don't.  The ultrasound in my midwife's office isn't the high tech kind that shows every little thing with amazingly cool clarity.  It's about as powerful as a doppler is all.  So while you can't see the flittering and fluttering of that sweet little heart, I got to watch it!  Here are some stills of the baby that is not yet formed into a full identifiably human body:

At least in this last one, I know that the head is on the left and the rump is on the right.  I *think* that's true with the other two also, but hey, I'm just not really that sure!

GROW, BABY, GROW!!!