Worth Repeating

I have so many new followers on Facebook, I am so grateful for the support!  I wanted to take a moment to highlight some of the blog for you/them.  I don't expect anyone to read the whole thing from start to end, it is rather depressing and upsetting, not to mention time consuming.  Yet, I know there are some folks who have done just that, some more than once and I am humbled by your choice to take this journey with me.  For everyone else, I thought I'd lay out some of the basics for you here real quick.

The blog came to be as an extension of my Facebook page.  I had joined Facebook just 2 months before Elise was born, so I was still very "into" it.  I, of course, had many status updates about my pregnancy and my grief, but I also shared MANY "notes" about what I was going through.  I had wanted to make a blog for Elise for a long time, but was worried I wouldn't be able to tend to it as I'd like.  I haven't and that upsets me, it's like a visual reminder of the lack of time I can purposely devote to her, but I am OK with it.  I forgive myself for it.  I started the blog just shy of 2 years after losing Elise.  As of today it has been around for almost 2 years itself.  I took all those Facebook notes and copied them over as entries on the blog.  Many are songs or poems or other "borrowed" writings that you can look through at your leisure, if you so desire.  Maybe one day I'll put the all into 1 blog post too.  I'll add it to my list of drafts.

But for now, onto the topic at hand:


Obviously it all starts with Elise's Birth Story, the day I thought I was going into labor to have my fourth child 4 weeks early...I wrote it just 2 days after delivering Elise, it is filled with raw emotion yet I attempted to stay focused on the facts.

Four days later was Elise's Memorial.

Two weeks later, I wrote about how I was feeling.

During this week I finished grad school.  I did my exit Interview and turned in my final project.  I knew I was cutting it close with Elise's due date just a week away, but I had hoped and prayed she would wait until the day after my Interview to be born...So, Now what?

Just another short week later was Elise's Due Date.

Then all of a sudden it was two months later.

This is a post I made at almost five months later.

And then I announced my pregnancy with Ella.

Before I knew it it was 6 months later.

Autumn, my 5 year old,  puts things in perspective.

As the new year (2010) approached, I asked my friends for help...

Nine months later, I almost missed it!

This year, Good Friday came before her "angelversary".

We celebrated Elise's first Angelversary by releasing butterflies with friends and family.

Here, 2 years later, I reflect on the actual day Elise died.

On her second Angelversary I shared some new media.

Emily, Mike and I went to hear Dr. Joanne Cacciatore speak courtesy of The Sweet Pea Project on April 6, that year.  It was such an amazing evening, I still haven't finished writing the blog entry about it, BUT just a few days later, we, the kids and I, released butterflies we raised for Elise near her tree.

I spent the next 6 months working almost non-stop on Elise's Event for Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Day.

Here, I reflect on the event.

Unfortunately, not much has been written on here since then.  I don't even have the post for her third angelversay, where we released lanterns, finished and published.  Boy, that really hits hard.  I spend a lot of my "Elise" time back on Facebook and the page for the blog, but I really need to get those things back over here again.  I'll put that too on my list of things to do...