From Riches to Rags, and the Glory I Found There

Changes.....sometimes changes can be completely wonderful things. It seems though, like a lot of things, changes after losing a child can be pretty terrible. But they are inevitable, we go through changes throughout our life and we cannot stop them any more than we can stop the seasons from changing.  We worked extremely hard on the nursery for our first child. And it was so beautiful, and fun...and full of  love. Some days I would just sit in the nursery rocking in the rocking chair holding the little stuffed fox John had picked out especially for the baby. I would rub my stomach and just dream of how wonderful our life was going to be in just a few short weeks.   In some ways it was easier that the nursery was set up for a baby girl and we had a baby boy. Not every part of the nursery reminded me of Kimber, but that didn't take the pain away, for 4 1/2 months after we lost Kimber the nursery just sat there. All the baby items were stored in there, evicted from their places of hon

Fairly often, particularly on my rough days, I find myself missing all the things that Kimber never got to experience. Regret is a slippery slope...I do not want to fall into bitterness over "what if"s and "should have"s. So, today is a "Blessing Blog" - of sorts. Let me share with you some of the places that we went with Kimber and some of the experiences we were able to have as a family. Words could not express our pure joy over Kimber. When we announced him to the world their joy was overwhelming. Friends and family cried happily for us, men gave John heavy slaps on the back and hugs. So many people rubbed my belly over the months, greeting him and talking with him from the moment they knew he existed. He brought so much joy, so much happiness, so much love. My sweet Kimber experienced the snow...so much wonderful snow in the few winter months he was here for. I'm sure he knew how much his parents love the snow (especially his Mommy!). We play

Hello to whoever happens upon this blog post...stay and read a bit...learn something new, or at least something different. We've officially welcomed a new member to our family, an adorable little Labradoodle who we've named Franklin (to go along with the Peanuts theme all our animals have: Schroeder, Belle, Lucy,  Linus). We were on the fence about bringing him home so, thankfully, our friend let us bring him home for a week trial (during which he completely won over my husband, who was against him too begin with!). I, of course, loved him from the very start!  At the end of our week we went away for a weekend and we had a very serious conversation about keeping Franklin. It seems that, after losing a child, even getting a dog is a very difficult thing to do. I definitely struggled with that fact that if we kept Franklin it really closed the door on what our life "should have been". We would never have gotten a puppy if we had a newborn but the harsh reality