Due Date Should Have Been 5 Months Ago

Tuesday September 25, 2012

Shelby and Dalton,

Five months ago today was my estimated due date with you.  It also marks the 4 year EDD of my MISS friend A and her twin boys S & G.  Counting from your actual birthday, you would be almost 9 months old.  I find that hard to believe.  I remember your cousin Emily was just a bit older than that last December.  We were at Cantina Laredo and somehow she wound up with an order of flan.  She devoured it, taking after your Daddy, her uncle, with his love of all things custardlike.  Frequently, I wonder what you would be doing at this age.  What would be some of your favorite foods?  Judging from the food choices you didn't rebel against during our Vegas trip, charcuterie, lobster pot pie, papparadelle with venison ragu, paella and Spanish tapas.  As I mentioned in a previous post, it would all depend on the effects of your extreme prematurity.

Time is escaping so quickly.  Your father and I are both dreading the holidays.  If we could, we would like to disappear from about Daddy's birthday in mid-November until mid-January.  Ideally, we'd go somewhere tropical, but I couldn't be without Abby and Ike that long, so we'd probably settle for a driving trip along the Pacific Coast and bring them with us.  Unfortunately, that is not possible.  There are of course the obvious financial restraints and then also the familial obligations, as we can't simply abandon everyone and pretend the holidays don't exist, as much as we'd like to.  I remember last year, I was pregnant with you when Daddy and I were putting up the Christmas tree and decorating it with all the childhood ornaments and all the ones I added to my collection over the past ten years.  It always was an activity that made me sweetly melancholy, thinking of your great grandparents and Aunt Jayne, as they gave me many of those ornaments.  I told your Daddy I'd have to buy Baby's First Christmas ornaments for you next year.  Looking back, I wonder if the stretching and bending had any impact on my body being unable to support you?  I even bought an ornament in Peru.  I feel guilty for not buying two.  Maybe that will be my ornament and I will get you your own special ornaments.  And then there's the issue of stockings.  Of course, I will want to buy them.  People may think it's weird, but I'm still your Momma, even if you're not here with us.

At the MISS meeting last week, I repeated the story of my breakdown at the Cardinals season opener, complete with my reference to RG III and Baylor.  A lady sitting 2 people away from me said she went to Baylor too, so we'd have to talk after the meeting.  Maybe you've already met S's son, W.  He was born in this summer, at 24 weeks 1 day, and lived 3 weeks.  It was very strange, it was like the 24 week club.  Besides S, there was a couple who lost triplets at 24 weeks.  Then also our friends:  J, who lost twins A & J at 24 weeks; S who lost A at 24 weeks.  I talked with the new S after the meeting, we have some things in common.  We "friended" each other on Facebook, and I've been reading her blog.  She started her blog while W was still in NICU, and poured so much detail in to her writings, it brought many memories bursting through the floodgates of our family's time in the NICU.  There were many similarities to their experience, but some differences.  When W died, they spent all day in NICU with him.  However, when you died Dalton, we were with you for a couple hours, and your grandparents said goodbye too, but then we had this overwhelming urge to flee from the building as quickly as they would discharge me.  We returned later in the day to be with Shelby.  A few days later when Shelby died, it was such a different experience than when Dalton died.  Shelby, it seemed you were immediately gone from us as soon as they stopped working on you.  Everything about your death was so different than Dalton's death.  It was almost as if a dark cloud of anger, anguish, rage and betrayal enveloped us after Shelby's death.  Maybe it was because we truly had no hope left after that moment.  Daddy didn't let Grandma Kay & Grandpa Larry come back to the hospital.  They'd been there with Daddy an hour before your death, but Daddy didn't want them coming back.  The only reason Grandpa Joe & Grandma Nancy got to say goodbye to you was because they had brought me back to the hospital after evening shift change.

My babies, I think about all the things we would have been doing together over the past few months.  You would have gone walking with the dogs and me this morning.  We probably would not be getting ready to go to Daddy's former colleague's wedding next weekend, as I wouldn't have wanted to leave you.  Maybe we would have brought you with us, although with it being an adults only reception, that would have presented some challenges.  I wouldn't have trusted any old babysitter the hotel provided.  We probably either would have skipped the wedding or been forced to bring one or the other set of your grandparents along, to watch you during the rehearsal dinner and wedding.  Your daddy had so many trips planned with you.  Again, not to seem trivial or shallow by talking about seemingly frivolous things such as football, travel and food, but those are all things about which Daddy and I are passionate and we would give anything to have been able share those passions with you for more than the 6 months you were physically present in our lives.

Signing off for today my loves,
Momma

Visiting Machu Picchu

Originally written Monday September 10, 2012

We're back from Peru.  Did you see the signs I made for you? Your Daddy and I took photos with them at Machu Picchu and Tambo del Inka and on the beach at the Doubletree in Paracas.  I hope you liked them.  I made one for your friend Chloe too.  Her momma Nikki is having an especially hard time right now.  I want to send her the pictures of Chloe's sign and the shells we found on the beach, but I'm afraid it might make her feel even more overwhelmed with grief than she already is.  As you probably saw, on the first morning we walked on the beach, we were repulsed by all the gross jellyfish washed up on shore.  I'd never seen jellyfish up close. I had no idea they came in so many colors, patterns and sizes.  But, we also found two beautiful perfect scallop shells.  I couldn't believe it, two, just perfect, one for each of you.  Saturday night, when we were walking over to the adjacent hotel for dinner, I found another scallop shell.  I wanted to pick it up for Chloe.  Daddy said to wait and get it on the way back to our hotel after dinner.  But, after taking a few steps away from the shell, I went back, picked it up, washed it off and put it in my jacket pocket.  I'm so glad I did, because the rest of our time there, I never saw another perfectly intact scallop shell.  Now, Chloe can have one too. While we were on the terrace of our hotel room at Tambo del Inka, your Daddy told me he'd been watching one of the trees waving in the breeze.  That tree split in two from the main trunk and both branches were waving in the wind.  He told me he decided it was the Shelby and Dalton tree.  Momma wanted to take your pictures out and sit with them while we were in the cathedral in Lima, but I was afraid I'd start crying and not be able to stop.  You were with us every step of the way on that trip yet the most ironic thing is that we wouldn't have even taken that trip if you'd survived.

Yesterday, we went to the Cardinals season opener with Grandpa Larry and Uncle Bill.  Grandpa Joe and Grandma Nancy work the games, so they were there too.  It may seem incredibly trivial to write about football, but football has been part of my life since shortly after I was born.  The story is on Sundays, I used to sit with your Grandpa Joe and Great-Grandpa Stanley and just take in everything about football.  Supposedly, I even uttered some version of a then-famous quarterback's name before I said Momma.  After I moved to Arizona, your Daddy told me how happy he was that I liked football so much, as he would finally have someone to go to Cardinals games with him.

So, it's the 2012 season, what should have been your first year to "watch football".  I was fine at first, even as we walked through the fan shop and I saw all the infant and children items available. We got to our seats and I was still fine.  I was being my usual obnoxious self, going off on tangents to your Daddy about many different things:  how well Robert Griffin III was doing in his professional debut,  how much I dislike the Seahawks and their coach, and how I was going to yell loudly for my favorite players, depending on if they announced offense or defense (for Larry Fitzgerald and Lyle Sendlein (UT), or Adrian Wilson, Darnell Dockett and Sam Acho (UT) ).  Well, the defense was announced, and I started yelling and doing the Hook Em Horns sign for Sam Acho, but the yell was quickly replaced by choking sobs.  I put on my sunglasses and tried to pull myself together, but the tears lasted through the national anthem.  I kept wishing Nikki was in the open seat next to me.  I don't know what came over me, but watching the player intros just broke my heart.  I guess it made me think about how y'all should have been there with us, going to your first NFL game.  I guess I was also thinking about all the dreams I had of Dalton being a long snapper.  It just killed me.  Then, there were pregnant women with big huge bellies all around, as well as several infants.  On the Jumbotron, they showed one dad with his baby, I couldn't tell if it was a boy or girl, but it looked like my baby pictures with all that dark hair and the dad had put noise cancelling earphones on the baby's head to protect his or her hearing.  There was another mother carrying a blond girl up and down the stairs in our section.  I felt like the child was just staring at me each time they passed.  And then of course, there were twins on the offensive lines for each team.  They were kinda dorky looking, each 6'7" and over 300 pounds.  Not that y'all would have been dorky looking or that big, it's just the fact that there were TWINS playing in the game.  Daddy and I took that as a sign y'all were saying hi.  And of course, Monday Night Football tonight featured the Cincinnati Bengals with their QB, Andy Dalton.  Daddy asked me if I was watching the game and hearing your name.  Of course I was.

I took Uncle Billy and Daddy to the airport this morning, uncle so he could go back home to Colorado Springs and Daddy off to business in Texas.  So it's just me and your dog siblings.  Abby seems to be recovering from her ear hematoma.  She's such a good dog, she'd have been so protective of you as your canine big sister.  Ike made an ass of himself on Saturday night when we had everyone over for lasagna.  He was crazy in the pool, nipping at Abby and trying to mount her.  Then, later on, he was barking loudly in your cousin Emily's face.  I did not like that behavior.  I don't know what is wrong with him, but we'll monitor him closely in the future.  I don't know if he was bothered by all the inconsistencies over the past two weeks with us gone, then back, then everyone over.  I think Daddy may have to really re-establish himself as the strong pack leader.

That's all for now my darlings, as I had originally started writing that 2 weeks ago tonight, and I'm afraid I forgot what else I wanted to write about then.