Happy Easter....

Hello everyone!!! I know I am so bad at this blogging thing but I am trying. I wanted to wish everyone a Happy Easter!! I also just needed to get out how I have been feeling latrely. I have been missing Taylor something terrible lately and I think that with the March of Dimes walk coming up it is making it harder this year. Last years walk was good, it was Eric, Zach and i doing it for Taylor and I felt good about it. This year we have like 20 people doing the walk and I am so grateful that I have great friends to do this with us. I know that it is harder this year too because I am finally letting myself feel all the pain that was masked last year after we lost Taylor. But having all these great friends do this with us this year is AWESOME!!!

OMG!!!! I am so far behind!!!

I am so sorry. I keep forgetting to hit here and post and I think about it when I am not near a computer then when I am on one I forget. The mommy brain definitely kicks in. There is so much going on right now with my feelings and just life in general. I have been feeling kind of lonely lately but of course it is kind of in my mind and I really am not lonely. I just don't have a really close girlfriend that I can just call and say hey I need to talk. I have been burned by so many girlfriends that it is hard to really get close to someone and call them and true friend. I am sure about 90% of women feel the same way. But it is also my fault too. I tend to pick the people who need me or are just there for a short time. And you would think that someone who has been with her hubby since high school would be able to keep a good friend around. I guess I am defective that way. But lately I wish I had the friend to just be able to call and say "hey I need to talk and they understand that it is about how I am feeling about Taylor or just what I need to get out. It all stems back to me not wanting anyone else to feel like they have to talk or that they see me feeling upset or sad. It is hard to show sometimes on the outside because you are so afraid to lose it completely. Plus I feel like sometimes people should just know what I need and feel fine letting me talk about it. But it kind of makes people nervous because they don't know what to say. I have a guy friend I could talk to but I think he has a hard time hearing the story and I feel bad. Plus some guys don't get it really unless they have kids (he doesn't have kids yet). Ok now I am just rambling on and on with my pity party and I just know there are other women out there who feel the same and I am not the only odd duck about keeping friends. But then again I could be!!


I am nervous about Friday. I am having Carpal Tunnel Recovery surgery. I have never had any type of surgery at all and the fear of the unknown is weirding me out. Although a friend of mine on facebook also made a good point that comforted me a little is that I am lucky to have my own personal angel to watch over me Friday. Of course me being a little off emotionally lately it brought tears to my eyes to remember that as well as being dumb and forgetting I always have an angel watching me. How can I forget that!!! But she was right and I actually feel a little better about Friday now.


Well now that I have rambled on for a little bit I am taking off. I am sure I will be back on here in the next few days to check in and update everyone.


:o)

Been out of it.....

It has been a crazy couple of weeks. I have been busy at work with the transition of having a 15 month old in my room to having all babies under a year. It is crazy!!! I have been feeling out of sorts but enjoying all the new kids in my classroom.

I have been doing a lot of thinking about Taylor lately. I guess because I am the team captain for the March of Dimes walk here in Worcester. I have been trying to get everything organized and people to join me and stuff like that. Eric, Zach and I did the walk last year. We had fun and got to see a lot of people who have been through a loss or just had kids in the NICU. I am so glad that I am able to do it again. This year it means a lot more to me for some reason. I think because I have finally just allowed myself to let the grief out finally. I had it bottled up for so long that it feels good to let it out and not really care what people think. I was so afraid to show the lack of control over my emotions because I didn't want other people to know I was upset or to upset others. I have the best family and a great group of girls I work with and have put up with all my craziness as well as allowing me to talk when I need to and they ask me questions and help me more than they think. I LOVE YOU GIRLS FROM BRONX PARK BH!!! I also have a great group of guy friends. We all hung out to gether and Eric has always been close to them. They just kind of watch over me and if I feel I needto talk I know that I can. It still makes them a little uncomfortable but I know that they get through it for me. I LOVE YOU GUYS!!!! And you know who you are!!!

I have been feeling a little out of sorts and confused too lately. I don't know, I am so use to feeling like this that I don't know what normal is. But with my battle with depression and anxiety I haven't felt normal in like 10 years or so. I feel like I may never feel normal. But I am going to get through and make sure that I keep myself up and going.

Well it's now February

Wow it seems like time just keeps passing even though I really want it to stop 90% of the time. I know it has been 18 months or so but it never changes the pain. The last 2-3 days I have been really thinking about Taylor. I go through this a lot especially now that I have finally found someone to finally say to me it was time for me to think of myself and to grieve the right way. Because I have always wanted everyone, mostly my family, to know that I was ok with everything that had happened I just buried it and never really finished my grieving process. I have in the last 3 months been allowing myself to grieve the way I should have a year ago. I know I went thought the normal grief in the beginning but then just hid it. I always thought that I have to hide it and be the strong one and make sure I take care of everyone else and not myself. Well I have been taking care of myself and believe me it has been scary to go through grief that no mother or father should ever go through but I know now that yes it is scary but you do come on through it on the other side. It has been very hard but it has been the time I believe in my life to finally just let go of all the feelings that I have been burying.

I have also been connected to some of the most amazing women who have gone through something similar. Even though it is not a way you want to meet someone in this way and through a loss of a child, I am so happy that I have been connected with them. They have helped me to be more open here at home and now through my blog. I have so much to post but not enough time. Plus being on my husbands computer I don't have all my pic's and stuff to post. So I guess this week will be the week that I get all my stuff up here. I have so much to share and I am going to have to sign off soon but I have a story about why I have named my blog Dragonfly dreams and Other Stories. So goodnight and sweetdreams for now.

Hello

So I have started blogs before and then forgotten about them and I think the reason why I did this was because I had started them for a reason but wasn't really sure what I was going to talk about. I think now after a year I have figured out what I am going to talk about. This blog is going to be dedicated to my daughter Taylor. She was born sleeping on October 17, 2007 at 39.5 weeks. We did know she had passed until I had gone into labor and to the hospital. They were hooking me up to the heart monitor and that's when they said there was no heartbeat. Let me just say that that is the worst news I think any parent could ever get....."I'm sorry but we can't find the heartbeat". Even after a year I still tear up at the thought of these words.

I will go back to the beginning. We found out we were pregnant in February of 2007. We had not planned to have another baby at this point. We have a 4 almost 5 (now 6 year old today)year old son Zach who we were enjoying his last year of being just a kid because in September he was going to start Kindergarten. At first I was really upset because at the time I didn't want to be pregnant. I have been dealing with Depression and anxiety since '98 after a miscarriage (only like 2 weeks pregnant when I miscarried) and I had just gotten to a point where I felt like I was feeling more like myself. So basically I was feeling a little selfish about it. Post-partum depression runs very strong in my family. When I was pregnant with Z I was able to take my meds but it only took the edge off of it. I also had a rough time with Zach's first couple years and I always felt detached from him in some way. So this pregnancy was very much a surprise and on my part in the first few days unwanted.

We went a few months and I was getting really excited. We had just found out we were having a girl and I always knew I wanted to name her Taylor Marie. I also knew how we were going to decorate her room, we did her room with Tinkerbell. My mom was excited to help with things and especially to decorate her room. Zach was excited too. He had come with us when we found out that we were having a girl, he named her Nemo because to him it looked like a fish on the tv. We had made it through the summer and Zach had started school. We were just doing all the finishing touches on everything and getting ready to just wait for her to come.

My pregnancy was fine and normal. She was growing and moving all the time. The week before she was born my appointment was fine, heartrate and measurements all were normal. My doctor was going on vacation (she wasn't able to deliver Zach but I will share more on that later) so she wanted to see if maybe I may go sooner because I was like 2cm dialated. So she scraped my cervix and then we were just waiting. Nothing had happened and I was kind of glad that Taylor was waiting for our doctor to be back from vacation. My body on the other hand had other plans. I had gone into labor at 2 a.m. on the 17th and I knew that it was a different labor. With Zach I was ok and I went 24 hours before I delivered him. With Taylor my body started labor and proceeded to just keep going. I had gone to a contraction every 10 to 15 mins to a contraction every 2 min in like a half hour. By the time we got to the hospital I was in severe pain (worse than with Zach) and could barely walk. They were trying to get the monitor on and the nurses kept yelling at me to relax and just breathe but I was beyond that point, I was yelling at them and telling them I couldn't do it and all the stuff a woman would say while in labor and to the point of screaming at them. We were told the worst 8 words any parent would ever want to hear and then all of a sudden I had someone there to give me my epidural, thay weren't going to do it because they told me that I was too far along and the nurses as well as myself had told them it didn't matter to just give her the medicine. I was able to relax to a point and in 2 1/2 hours later Taylor was born.

She was perfect with reddish hair. She was 7 pds and 21 in long she was soo cute and looked just like her big brother. The only thing was that I wished she was breathing. They had asked me if we wanted them to try and resuscitate her and we had said no but of course when she was born through my tears I was hoping that maybe she would just take one breathe and she would be fine. But that wasn't the case. I held her for a few minutes, I wasn't able to do it for to long because I was so upset that I thought I would drop her. She was so cute and I just wanted to cuddle her, thinking back now I wish I had but with the shock of it and never have seen a person who wasn't alive upclose never mind a child and holding the child I had to give her to the nurses. Then came the hard decisions and I never want to have to make the decisions again. We had decided right away that we were going to have her cremated and that she was going to be back home with us. We couldn't see burying her we wanted her home with us. We had a memorial service for her the Saturday after she was born which was actually her due date. We only had immediate family and our closest friends there and that was how we wanted it and it was nice. Everyone had gotten flowers for the service and my mom read a really pretty poem. It was nice.

This is the story about our angel Taylor. I am sure there are going to be alot of things I am going to just add as we go on. In the days, months and year after we lost her I have some memories and then people will tell me things and I never remembered them. I have huge holes in my memory of the past 15 months. I am hoping that this is going to help me as well as anyone else that has had a similar loss. I am so glad that I have gotten in contact with some wonderful woman that have helped me alot. I am glad that we can all share our experiences and help each other. I always say that the best way to remember our angels is to talk about them. And her I am sharing my angel's story.

Taylor you are forever loved and forever missed!