A long overdue update

I have needed and wanted to write another post for awhile but every time I start, I don't know what to say. How does one go about explaining the day to day life of living with the reality that you will bury a son you never got to know? With both of my miscarriages, we were able to mourn and move on or at least move on in the best way you can after that fairly quickly after we found out about them both. This is so much different. It is MONTHS of grieving. MONTHS of tears. MONTHS of dreading the inevitable just to start grieving all over again when Noah gets here. It's emotionally draining.

We have tried to keep things as normal as we can around here but normal is a relative term. So many things are just not important anymore. The everyday things still have to get done. The grocery shopping, the meal planning, the cooking and cleaning all still needs to be done. Grocery shopping is probably the hardest for me. I just want to get in and out. I don't want to see all the other women with babies and healthy pregnancies. I don't want the cashier to ask me when I'm due. I don't want anyone to ask Wyatt is he's excited to be a big brother. I just want to stay home and not venture out anywhere.

In June we went to Disney and while we had a wonderful time, I had some hard moments. I found myself crying in the middle of one of the biggest stores there. I avoided the section with baby clothes that I once had on my "souvenirs to buy list". It was hot. I was tired and ready to be home. I am glad we went but I am glad we are home too.

Today we had our first sonogram with Noah since his diagnosis. When we found out he has anencephaly, we did not get any pictures of his head or face but one of his arms and one of one of his legs. I didn't know what to expect out of today. I didn't want to sob in my doctors office yet again. My doctor is so wonderful though and so caring. I came with two recording devices today from build a bear. I asked him if we could record Noah's heartbeat to put in teddy bears later on and he let us do that first. He made sure to turn up the machine loud to get the best recording too. He knew I wanted to get some pictures of his face if we could as I had asked him at my last appointment. Noah is much like his brother already and did not want to cooperate. His head is REALLY far down. So my doctor took a long time trying to get all sorts of pictures for us. Then he tilted the table back to see if gravity would help and it did! We got the best picture of Noah's face looking right at us. He's beautiful. It made me love him more and is just even more assurance the right choice was giving him life for as long as possible. He laying transverse right now so his feet are in my right ribs and his head is down toward my left pelvic bone. This also explains why I have a rib on the right side that keeps coming out of place. Thankfully my chiropractor puts it back for me :)

The "bad" news from today (what could be worse really?) is that my fluid levels are high. A fluid level around 26-28 is considered high. My fluid level is 35! So, I now have polyhydramnios. This most certainly means we will be meeting Noah sooner than we'd like. We don't know when that will be. It could be 2 weeks early or 4 weeks early or who knows. I did ask my doctor if he thought I'd have at least two more weeks and he felt pretty confident I did. We have family out of town so, August would be better in that aspect. It's time to pack the hospital bag though.

Packing my bad isn't something I've been able to bring myself to do. It doesn't seem right but it has to be done. The funeral arrangements we have been avoiding can't be avoided any longer. We have some tough things to face in the next couple of weeks to prepare to meet our second son and we just won't ever be ready for that.

I have been amazed at how God has placed the right people in our lives through this right now. I was able to connect with a group here in Dallas of mom's who have had losses in all stages. Through that group I was introduced to a woman who is a bereavement doula. I had no idea they existed but they do. I was able to sit down and have dinner with her last week. She is helping me with a birth plan and some things to create memories with Noah. She is connecting me with a photographer who is going to do maternity photos for me and another who will do birth photos so that we can focus on spending what little time we have with Noah. It has been such a big blessing to have someone guide me through all of that and help me think of things I hadn't thought to do.

Our church family continues to support us and pray for us. I am asked constantly how we can be helped. To be honest, we don't know. The main thing right now is prayer. While we continually pray for a miracle, we also need prayer for guidance as we make decisions on where to bury our son and whether we have a funeral service or something else. There are so many little things we have to make decisions about and they aren't easy conversations to have. Also, please please please pray for Wyatt and his little heart. He has been asking me a lot of questions lately. He gets super sad when I cry. He wants Noah to come sleep in his bed and he prays for that every.single.night. I have explained to him in the best way I know how that Noah will have to go to heaven and live with Jesus because his head is missing some parts. He told me he was going to teach Noah how to be big and strong like he is. We talked a little more about Noah and why he will have to live with Jesus but man is that a hard conversation and it wasn't without tears. Wyatt just hugged me and told me he didn't want me to cry. The next morning he asked me if Grammy and Pa had to go to God too which just broke my heart. He's thinking about Noah and what we've told him and trying to make sense of it all. I've got 30 years on him and can't make sense of it all. As a parent, you want to fix things for your children if you can and this is hard for me because I can't fix it for either one of my sons. There is not a single things I can do but to pray. So, prayer is what we need.