Category: Life, Health & Wellness

Life. It makes you think sometimes, doesn’t it?

At times, life is happy, interesting and fun. At other times, it’s sad and dreary. And at other times, it makes you angry and frustrated. But then it surprises you, and makes you feel happy and fulfilled. You just don’t know what to expect. Life can start one way and end another. It can make you think and ask yourself questions you never thought you would be asking yourself. It can give you a sign of hope and at the same time, a sign of utter disappointment. So, I ask you, what is it really all about? Are we in charge of our lives or are they pre-determined by a higher being? Do we choose our paths in life, our present and our future or is it all mapped out for us and are we just going along for the ride? Do you know? Does anyone really, honestly know?

So, what do we do about it? How do we move forward each day? Is it all worth it? Is all the sadness and disappointment, anger and frustration, is it all worth it, just for those few days of happiness?

It is. It is. It really is. Life is not always easy, as a matter of fact, it is truly harder then it is easy! But, we have life. We were given life. So, we should get the most out of it. We are lucky, so very lucky, to be here, surrounded by family and friends that love us and want to enjoy life with us. Let’s take advantage of what we were given and do our best to enjoy it. Let’s show life what we are made of. We can do it, we can do it together, one day at a time.

Today marks three months since our baby Julian left us. Here is his final resting place… a place that is so cold and lonely… a place that is surrounded with lots of other little babies and adults that have left their families behind. Driving around this place just creates uncontrollable tears and sadness.

Every day I wish he was in my arms again, so that I could cuddle him and kiss him and tell him how much I love him. I long for those days with him again, those days when I looked into his beautiful eyes and touched his soft skin. Just look at him. He’s such a beautiful, sweet little baby. Here he is in my arms during his first days after he was born. This was his favorite place. Cuddled up against my chest. A perfect place to hold him tightly against me. A perfect place to kiss his little soft forehead. It’s exactly what I wish I was doing right now.

His sister misses him. His brother misses him. His father misses him. I miss him. He was with us for so long, inside of me, listening to his brother and sister talking to him and anticipating his arrival. I protected him and now I can’t do that anymore. I feel so sad that he’s there and not here with all of us. Our family feels his empty space. We feel it at bed time. We feel it at the dinner table. We feel it when we’re all tickling each other and playing together. We will always feel that little emptiness. We will always miss our little baby Julian. We love you Julian. We are thinking about you all the time and wish more then ANYTHING in the world, that you were here with us, healthy and smiling.

Kids grow up so fast. It may sound cliche, but enjoy them every day, because soon they’ll be adults going off to college and getting married. My 7 yr old (soon to be 8 yr old) daughter grew almost 4″ since her last birthday and before you know it, will be the same height as me.

It feels like just the other day when I was taking her to preschool, crying in the car because I didn’t want her to grow up so quickly and now she’s finishing second grade and my little Lucas is going to preschool in September. I was hoping that our little baby Julian would be here to keep me occupied so I wouldn’t focus on the sadness of seeing my baby Lucas off to school already, but now I have to face it straight on!

I’ll just have to keep holding them and kissing them as much as possible, soaking them all in each and every day. After all, they ARE STILL my babies even if they are school age children now.

 

A woman, with her little girl and little boy standing beside her, along with a little baby boy curled up in her arms, walked towards her Toyota Sienna right next to mine and I couldn’t help but think to myself, “I guess I bought the wrong Sienna because I wasn’t granted that beautiful family of three children.” They were all smiling and enjoying each other. It made me so sad as I watched them and remembered the emptiness inside of me every single moment of every single day.

As they left, another woman came into the shop with her four small children, including a newborn baby, a little younger then Julian’s age, sitting in his baby car seat, smiling at his mommy. It is all around me. I can’t escape it. I wish God would at least grant me some peace from all of these situations. At least he could give me that.

I know, it may sound strange, but I have a particularly fine sense of smell…. not only when I’m pregnant, but all the time.

Right now, I am smelling the scent of the Tide soap on my shirt. I will be enjoying this scent all day long because it reminds me of Julian. This soap was given to me by the nurses, while I was at Yale New Haven Children’s Hospital with Julian. I used it to wash his little baby onesies and socks and my own laundry, there at the hospital. This scent brings me back to those days with him. I miss those days and I wish I was still there with him. They were not the best days because of his illness and all that was going on around us, but they were great days because he was here with me and I could still lay next to him and kiss him and hold his little hands. I just can’t stop smelling my shirt. Why did he have to go? What does all this mean? Why is this all happening? I am floating around without any real meaning in my life, without anything to look forward to, without my little baby who was inside my belly for nine months. The one that I waited for my entire life!

I wish that you all got to meet him. He was such a sweet, adorable little baby. I was so lucky to have him. I just wish I was luckier enough to keep him.Missing him more each day!

 

I remember those days at the hospital when I laid by Julian’s side, stroking his beautiful, soft head and holding his little hand, trying to comfort him and show him my love and dedication. I laid there by his bedside to soak up as much as I could of my little baby. That’s all that I could for him. As he lay there looking at me, all I wanted to do was to pick him up and hold him close to my chest but I couldn’t. To hold him wasn’t easy as he had so many wires and respiratory tubing. Nurses had to pick him up and put him in my arms and when they did, I held him for hours at a time, as much as they would let me. Sometimes when tears ran down his face, I would feel so sad that I couldn’t just grab him and make him all better. For that is a mother’s job and I wanted to do that for him, I wanted to do that for him so badly. So, I laid next to him in the hospital bed, I had my little pillow next to him, and I laid there talking to him, reading to him, singing to him, holding his sweet little hand and rubbing his soft head. I did it every day for three weeks, for it was all that I could for him, but at least it was more then what I have now, because now all I have is an empty hole in my heart.

From all the needle poking to cardiac arrest, he suffered so much and all I could do was stand by his side and hold his hand and tell him that I loved him. It was all out of my control and it still is. After all those days watching him endure so much pain, now I am left alone, without him, enduring my own pain. He is gone now and I find it so unfair that God allows so much pain and suffering to such a sweet and innocent little baby.

It doesn’t make any sense to me how God, the almightly powerful one, could allow such illness and death to happen. We wanted him so very much, he was part of our family. We always wanted him and now he is gone. How does he decide who can have one or two or more or none? Some are so very lucky to have as many healthy kids as they want and others are not. Having a large family was always a dream of ours and now that is gone and I just can’t understand how does he decide?

I love you Julian and I think about you every single minute of every single day! I wish that I was still there with you, holding your little soft hand and looking into your beautiful, sweet eyes. You are my baby and forever will be. You are a part of me forever and ever. I miss you my little handsome man!