The other day, I had a wonderful dream. It was short, and it would have been boring if it didn't mean so much to me.
I had a dream that Bill and I were just sitting on the bed, in silence, at night time. In my arms was the most perfect little infant. I remarked about how the baby was such a perfect, quiet, sweet baby, and how happy I was that we decided to go through with everything to have another. I kept saying that it was so worth it. Then Bill mentioned "she" and I said "it could be a boy, we don't know," like my brain couldn't decide. Bill replied with "no honey, we do know. It's a girl, remember?" It's interesting that even in my own dream, I'm wrong about the gender! Bill has been right, in real life, 100% of the time now.
That was is. Just laying with our sweet baby cradled in our arms, that baby being perfectly content to just stare back at us with all of it's newness. I woke up feeling so comforted and at peace, and feeling stronger in my conviction to at least try for another.
Yard sales this morning, where I found everything I ever wanted for a baby but couldn't buy, also made me feel the need to try for another. I'm so obviously not done having children. It did make me sad though, to see all the baby stuff - two stands with matching twin everything - when had things gone differently, I'd be pregnant with twins right now and buying two of everything.
So when I got home, I focused on the charity. I had an order for a set of twins last night and a baby boy angel, so I got to work. I spent a lot of time with the kids, teaching them video games, making our traditional Saturday dinner, and drinking chocolate milk. It's a lazy Saturday to just enjoy what I have...and think about what I want.
I'm enjoying my new business. So far I've sold four angels, and have about 3/4th of my start up money back. As soon as I've sold about 10 angels, I'll have enough to start up my charity. I have about $60 worth of supplies I need yet, plus repaying the start up money. While it's probably going to take most of next month to get things situated and paid back, I really enjoy what I'm doing. I'm getting to personalize these sweet sleeping babies for those who need the comfort of having something to remember their babies by. It's a really neat feeling.
Saturday, April 30, 2016
Monday, April 25, 2016
Day One of Store Opening
The store is up, running and being used! In just one full day, 4 people favorited my shop, 137 views, 28 favorites on my babies, one online sale, one pending sale on a request and one sale at Bill's work. For one day of work, I think that's pretty good!
Tomorrow will be a great day, I get my clay and my organza baggies, which means I can make my current orders and get them bagged to be sent out. Wednesday is when I get my shipping boxes. I decided to forgo the business cards until I have more money to spare, so I wrote up a page with my logo as the header, a picture of a girl,boy, and neutral baby at the bottom, and our mission statements and websites in it. I'll be printing them out and giving them with each baby, and hopefully they can be passed around and used. I plan on putting one up at Bill's work as well. Working at the biggest employment place in Berks, it should give me an exposure to thousands.
Eager to keep this going. If I can sell 10 angels, I can repay from the funds that I borrowed for the supplies I put into this and get the charity up and running. Hopefully with each angel I sell, I can get a few new people to follow if they tell their friends and family.
This is definitely an exciting adventure. Hopefully throughout the week it'll keep up and business will continue! I'm eager to start up my charity as soon as possible.
Friday, April 22, 2016
A totally new check list? Yep!
Thought that the last list of things I needed to do for the charity would be all that I needed to do, but hah, not even close! (and on second thought, maybe I SHOULD have opened that blog to journal the charity, as it's taking over quite a bit of this blog. However, it's still part of my healing with infertility and loss, and honestly there's not much to write about outside of the charity. Nothing so far has changed, except that the charity work has made me more energetic and happier than I've been since everything happened.)
The last list was my step up to start the foundation. This list is everything needed so I can actually start sending out the angels and selling them.
EDIT: It's only a few hours since I wrote up the list and now have changes!
The last list was my step up to start the foundation. This list is everything needed so I can actually start sending out the angels and selling them.
EDIT: It's only a few hours since I wrote up the list and now have changes!
I need at least 1 lb of clay. By my estimations on how many ounces it takes per angel, that should get me about 5 angels. Not much, but it's a start. 1 lb = $12. I would love to get the 3 lb for $30, but I don't even have the $12 to scrap together yet after dishing out almost $50 just for the clay molds.Bill sweetly decided to donate the $12 from his overtime check to the cause, so I ordered the 1 lb of clay to get me started!I need shipping boxes. Not the free priority kind that come from the post office, as they would cost an arm and a leg to ship these very light pieces, but small, sturdy ones from amazon. They cost $17 for 50 of them, which is the smallest quantity offered.What's clay without shipping boxes? I downgraded the size to fit the angel better and ordered 50 for $12. I also signed up for free Amazon prime to get this and the clay shipped for free. Now hopefully I'll be able to remember to sign back OFF of the prime before they charge me $100! Luckily, I had $20 I've been saving to spend on these boxes. I wanted it to be the start of my new camera fund, but first things first.I need a baggie for the angel to go into. Sure, this is mostly presentation and a voice inside of me says "hey, start SMALL," but first impressions are everything. I want everything to be perfect right from the beginning so that word of mouth will spread. Luckily, I found 50 of them in 5x7in for $2 (thank you, China!)Since I saved some money on the boxes, I went ahead and bought these too. I actually skipped getting them from China as I would have had to wait until the end of May or middle of June to get them - much too far away. I spent $6 and got 100 white organza bags, shipping from California.- I need business cards. Vistaprint is $10 per 500, so I'll probably be going with them. It may cost a little more though, as I want the back printed as well. With shipping, it'll probably be closer to $20-25. Eek
- I want to get little stickers with the charity logo. I know, again that's only for presentation and totally necessary? Probably not. But these would be from Shutterfly, which I have multiple $20 off coupons for. So I'd probably only pay overpriced shipping of $7-ish.
- I need to create Etsy listings. These are about $0.20 cents a piece. I want to make a lot of them to get them out there. Most crafters I talk to say you barely see any purchases until you have at least 50 items in your store. Well, it'll take me forever to get to 50, but I'd like to create a lot of options and list them.
- I need a bigger audience. I need to find a way to spread word about the charity to the people it matters most to. I'll probably be contacting other miscarriage/baby loss charities to ask if they'd be willing to help with this.
- I need to figure out EXACTLY what's going into the comfort packets besides the angel. I'd like to have a card that has a comforting bible verse on it for those struggling, a few business cards to be handed out, and maybe one or two other things. I'm going to look around at what others that are gone now once offered. They need to be inexpensive, but a nice added touch.
I think the rest is done. Paypal set up, two emails set up (one for main and one for donations), website finished (I even replaced all the pictures that only had logos in them with actual angel pics now), facebook page up, logo finalized, a baby for each catagory made and photographed, etsy account made, twitter done, pinterest done, pretty much every way to get the word out on the internet has an account and has been worked on.
Phew, I've been super busy in the last two weeks! This doesn't include the fact that I decided to also start writing again, and have spent every minute not already accounted for by children, cooking, housecleaning and charity stuff, on writing. I wake up at 5:30 AM, start writing around 6 AM and spend 1-2 hours on charity and writing, then work on it as I can throughout the day, then it's the last thing I do at night. Repeat, repeat, repeat. And yet I'm super energetic and excited every day now!
Thursday, April 21, 2016
First Angel Prototype
Here it is! The big step I've been so eager to make in my charity.
My very first angel!
This is just a prototype, it's not even baked hard yet. I'm still trying to figure out which positions I want the wings to be in, how big I want the wings, and where I want them to end.
The baby mold came early, it was supposed to get here today but instead arrived yesterday morning. I immediately tore it open and got to work. The kids loved watching it, and were obsessed with the little baby.
I packed the mold full of clay, then put it in the freezer for about two hours. It really wasn't very hard yet, but I was too eager to see so I did my best to pop it out. Getting the big head out of the little head section is akin to watching someone give birth! But even with it only being somewhat cold, it still finally came out.
There were a few bumps and scratches from this, but I was able to smooth out each one. Once that was done, I couldn't wait for the wings to freeze, and they were even less done than the baby. I started cutting them and placing them in all different ways, and the details got touched out by the end. When I do this professionally, I'll have to control myself and actually allow the correct times to pass on each mold.
While it's not perfect yet, and no little extra embellishments have been added, I am totally in love with this little baby. He's the absolute perfect size, he's exactly the length of my palm and looks so adorably cradled in it. It's exactly what I was dreaming of - a baby that would fit so comfortably and would have a light but noticable weight.
Most of the clay angel babies I've found being sold are half the size of this. They're so dinky. This is big and solid.
I nearly cheaped out and bought a lesser mold, one that most sellers use (only $9 instead of $30, just like the cheaper wings were only $3 but I had to get the $8.50 ones!), but I finally realized that it just wouldn't do. They were nice, but they weren't what I was envisioning. I wanted amazing, not just nice. I wanted the big size and the amazing detail.
I'm so happy with this baby. I can't wait to get more clay and start playing with designs! This is my basic angel and will probably end up being close to what my Jamie style will be. But I'm eager to try out the Elizabeth style, with little flowers and pearls and hairbands, and my Jesse style, with blue tipped wings and hats. Hopefully it won't take too much time to get enough money to buy some mohair and be able to give these babies super realistic newborn hair.
But for now, bald is obviously beautiful!
My very first angel!
This is just a prototype, it's not even baked hard yet. I'm still trying to figure out which positions I want the wings to be in, how big I want the wings, and where I want them to end.
The baby mold came early, it was supposed to get here today but instead arrived yesterday morning. I immediately tore it open and got to work. The kids loved watching it, and were obsessed with the little baby.
I packed the mold full of clay, then put it in the freezer for about two hours. It really wasn't very hard yet, but I was too eager to see so I did my best to pop it out. Getting the big head out of the little head section is akin to watching someone give birth! But even with it only being somewhat cold, it still finally came out.
There were a few bumps and scratches from this, but I was able to smooth out each one. Once that was done, I couldn't wait for the wings to freeze, and they were even less done than the baby. I started cutting them and placing them in all different ways, and the details got touched out by the end. When I do this professionally, I'll have to control myself and actually allow the correct times to pass on each mold.
While it's not perfect yet, and no little extra embellishments have been added, I am totally in love with this little baby. He's the absolute perfect size, he's exactly the length of my palm and looks so adorably cradled in it. It's exactly what I was dreaming of - a baby that would fit so comfortably and would have a light but noticable weight.
Most of the clay angel babies I've found being sold are half the size of this. They're so dinky. This is big and solid.
I nearly cheaped out and bought a lesser mold, one that most sellers use (only $9 instead of $30, just like the cheaper wings were only $3 but I had to get the $8.50 ones!), but I finally realized that it just wouldn't do. They were nice, but they weren't what I was envisioning. I wanted amazing, not just nice. I wanted the big size and the amazing detail.
I'm so happy with this baby. I can't wait to get more clay and start playing with designs! This is my basic angel and will probably end up being close to what my Jamie style will be. But I'm eager to try out the Elizabeth style, with little flowers and pearls and hairbands, and my Jesse style, with blue tipped wings and hats. Hopefully it won't take too much time to get enough money to buy some mohair and be able to give these babies super realistic newborn hair.
But for now, bald is obviously beautiful!
Monday, April 18, 2016
Weekend and Checklist continued.
This weekend was very. busy for us. It was emotionally taxing as well. I spent Friday and Saturday packing some of my best baby things, many of the clothing still had tags on them and many of the items were never used. Sunday I set up a beautiful stand at the flea market. I priced everything pretty low so that I wouldn't have to do this twice with my favorite items (I still have LOTS of baby stuff to get rid of, this was only about 1/4 of the stuff I have) and most of it I watched walk off one by one. It was like little splinters in my heart each time. I watched my Moses Basket, which I had so loved and was so thrilled to get, walk off. And the teddy bear pack and play that I have many pictures of baby Katie using, where she took her naps and played. Her little Disney Princess pony went, many of the baby outfits for the next baby and from Katie's babyhood went. The adorable pink snow suit and winter jacket set. It was very rough. Being $60 richer doesn't soothe as much as I was hoping it would. Next time comes out all of the baby clothing, the bouncers, the swings, the cosleeper, the exersaucer, etc.
However, I did find time this weekend to continue working on the charity check list.
However, I did find time this weekend to continue working on the charity check list.
$40 for the molds- $35 for the flesh clay start up
- My own examples and pictures to show (I've begun working on this! The angel wings came on Saturday, so I've been working on them with different colors. The baby mold is being shipped today, I'm so very eager for it to get here!)
A website that lets me have a page for order forms as well as a message pageA paypal for just the charityI made up a new email and started a personal paypal to begin with. I can upgrade it to a business one if needed, but for now I'd rather keep things simple.- Tax information about running a charity
A Facebook Pageand marketing itA name for the charityAn email for charity use - probably a gmail one?- Get business cards made to mail with the angels (all designed, just waiting for funds)
Decide on how many angels to list
Get a store front- I set up an Etsy store and will do a Storenvy store today, since I'm still unsure of which one I'll go with. I like Storenvy's set up and being completely free much better, but I know more people are comfortable with Etsy and there's a better reach there.ADDING TO THE LIST: Look into stickers with the logo and angel names on them to put on the flat bottom of each angel. Looking to cashing in some of the $20 free Shutterfly coupons I've gotten lately!All the stickers I can find won't fit on the bottom of an angel, but I'm still looking into it to put on the box.- Finding perfect, short bible verse to go with the charity - something about comforting
For the bible verse, these are the ones I'm narrowing down from:
When I thought 'My Foot Slips' your steadfast love, oh Lord, held me up. Psalm 94:18
The Lord is near to the broken hearted and He saves the crushed in spirit. Psalm 43:18
I have made you and I will carry you. I will sustain you and I will rescue you. Isaiah 46:4
Never will I leave you, never will I forsake you - Hebrews 13:5
When you go through deep waters, I will be with you - Isaiah 43:2
Thursday, April 14, 2016
Charity Checklist
I've been (slightly obsessively) working on my charity project over the last few days. So far, it's going quite well. I've been surveying people for ideas and names, constantly fine tuning the new website, talking to sellers of molds to decide on the best one for my needs, and creating all the online things I need. This was my list from the other post a few days ago, updated:
$40 for the moldsI FINALLY decided, after lots of talking to the seller who actually created the special baby mold to make sure it would work best and the copyright laws on it would not affect what I'm trying to do, to go with the best instead of the affordable. I also upgraded the mold for the wings to get ones that are a bit bigger and more detailed, so both molds will be here by next week. I spent money I was planning to use for Katie's party decorations (both ballet recital and birthday) but I'll have to use money I was saving for a vacation on those things. If I wait until I have extra paypal money, this charity will never launch and I need some time with the molds and clay to perfect my look.- $35 for the flesh clay start up (I found out this will get me 3 lbs of flesh colored clay, which will be about enough for one month of requests. I won't know until I see just how much the mold requires. I'll also need a little more than this for the white clay for the wings. But...all I have right now is a small amount of flesh clay and white, which will be my practice. (originally it was supposed to be for sculpting our family out of clay, but that's gonna be pushed to the back burner for now. I started sculpting for my angels, not for the cute little projects I dream up!)
- My own examples and pictures to show (should have next week)
A website that lets me have a page for order forms as well as a message page(after days of figuring out how to do an order form that doesn't require me to pay so that the order form can accept paypal links, I've FINALLY figured it out and have the website ready to publish! This was a HUGE step and was very time consuming.)- A paypal for just the charity (I made half of a business account, realized I wasn't sure if I liked it or not and stopped. Now I"m trying to figure out if I want to continue the business way that allows for more types of payments, or just make a second personal one.)
- Tax information about running a charity
A Facebook Pageand marketing it- A Wordpress blog for the charity (Deciding on how necessary this one is still! I could just do the updates on FB)
A name for the charity(after finding out that Healing Heart Angels is already a loss charity as is Angelic Comforts, I defaulted to my last two and ultimately chose the voted favorite, Angel of Mine Charity)An email for charity use - probably a gmail one?- Get business cards made to mail with the angels (disappointed to find that vistaprint no longer offers free cards! I did manage to design my own card that I really like, so hopefully I can find the funds to get them. Luckily vistaprint does have some pretty good deals.)
Decide on how many angels to listBill and I came to the decision to fully recognize Jesse's twin now that we've had time to process and talk about it, so Jamie's name will also be included in the charity.- ADDING TO THE LIST: Look into stickers with the logo and angel names on them to put on the flat bottom of each angel. Looking to cashing in some of the $20 free Shutterfly coupons I've gotten lately!
So, I'm nearly there! All the biggest stuff is out of the way already. Now it's time for the little things and then getting to PLAY with the designs and take pictures to put up.
Tuesday, April 12, 2016
Jamie?
I have found a negative aspect to the charity. Which may not be negative in the long term, but it sucks right now.
With every angel that goes out, they will be in name of our angels. We'll have business cards with the name of the charity and they're have the names of our own baby loss angels.
This means that we finally have to decide about what happened in January.
There were two babies. Jesse was the one that got most of the attention because he was endangering me. But I spoke with multiple doctors including the head of high risk, and they found a baby in my uterus, which was growing over a period of days and was measuring exactly on time. They were looking at a baby so they said the bleeding was probably not from an ectopic but instead the rupture. However with the baby measuring exactly on time, they couldn't figure out why my numbers were so, so much higher than they should be. About double the normal and constantly going up more rapidly than expected.
After visiting the high risk doctor, who told me the sac shape meant it could be an unhealthy pregnancy that my body was going to get rid of or it could fix itself and get better, I bled heavily for two days with a lot of pain. They did another ultrasound the day after the heavy bleeding stopped and the sac was gone. This was done by a very unacknowledgable ultrasound tech who, we found out later, missed seeing A LOT, and doctors who were just part of the office. These were not the heads of their departments or highly recommended. Now that the sac was gone, they said it might not have been a baby after all and dismissed it as a possible fluid sac that the good doctors read wrong. But they couldn't explain why my numbers were so high. Even with an ectopic, the numbers were very rare and much higher than an ectopic baby would produce alone. However with the threat of the now definite ectopic, whether that baby in my uterus had been a baby or not was no longer any of their concern and they never mentioned it again.
I can not be 100% certain because of that, but I have always felt in my heart that it was definitely a baby. Even when I wished it wasn't just to cause my heart less pain, I still had whispers of "you know that's your baby."
Originally, Jesse's name was Jamie. We named Jamie while looking at the ultrasound picture of the baby in my uterus. Two weeks later when they took the baby out of my tube, it didn't feel like a Jamie so we went with Jesse. But now I know that Jesse didn't feel like a Jamie because he wasn't Jamie. He was a separate baby from his twin.
The problem with this is having to acknowledge yet another loss. That when we lost our baby and my fertility, we lost more than that - we lost twins. We lost Jesse and Jamie. It's something that weighed heavily on me, whether to acknowledge the baby we lost while waiting to lose another, when the many doctors who only saw me at random parts of my stays couldn't completely agree or just didn't care. Do we ignore our other baby just in case one or two doctors were wrong? Or do we go with the Heads of their departments, who saw me from beginning and middle, who claimed that baby for what it was?
If I'm doing acts of service and acknowledging all of our angels in the process, I want to come to a decision once and for all. I don't think I can ever silence the whispers inside that talk of Jamie by name, that remember that ultrasound picture and that time with the high risk doctor telling me about the baby for a half hour.
I'm leaving it up to Bill about whether to call our loss just by Jesse's name or not. He wasn't there during the high risk doctor appointment, but he heard all about it. He has a good sense for these things. I'm curious to see what his feelings and thoughts are, and how to approach this and exactly what we'll do from here in other aspects outside of the charity. It's a lot to think about, and none of it feels good. It hurts to think we lost two babies at once, twins that are all I want now. But it's just as hard to not think about a baby that we may be ignoring.
With every angel that goes out, they will be in name of our angels. We'll have business cards with the name of the charity and they're have the names of our own baby loss angels.
This means that we finally have to decide about what happened in January.
There were two babies. Jesse was the one that got most of the attention because he was endangering me. But I spoke with multiple doctors including the head of high risk, and they found a baby in my uterus, which was growing over a period of days and was measuring exactly on time. They were looking at a baby so they said the bleeding was probably not from an ectopic but instead the rupture. However with the baby measuring exactly on time, they couldn't figure out why my numbers were so, so much higher than they should be. About double the normal and constantly going up more rapidly than expected.
After visiting the high risk doctor, who told me the sac shape meant it could be an unhealthy pregnancy that my body was going to get rid of or it could fix itself and get better, I bled heavily for two days with a lot of pain. They did another ultrasound the day after the heavy bleeding stopped and the sac was gone. This was done by a very unacknowledgable ultrasound tech who, we found out later, missed seeing A LOT, and doctors who were just part of the office. These were not the heads of their departments or highly recommended. Now that the sac was gone, they said it might not have been a baby after all and dismissed it as a possible fluid sac that the good doctors read wrong. But they couldn't explain why my numbers were so high. Even with an ectopic, the numbers were very rare and much higher than an ectopic baby would produce alone. However with the threat of the now definite ectopic, whether that baby in my uterus had been a baby or not was no longer any of their concern and they never mentioned it again.
I can not be 100% certain because of that, but I have always felt in my heart that it was definitely a baby. Even when I wished it wasn't just to cause my heart less pain, I still had whispers of "you know that's your baby."
Originally, Jesse's name was Jamie. We named Jamie while looking at the ultrasound picture of the baby in my uterus. Two weeks later when they took the baby out of my tube, it didn't feel like a Jamie so we went with Jesse. But now I know that Jesse didn't feel like a Jamie because he wasn't Jamie. He was a separate baby from his twin.
The problem with this is having to acknowledge yet another loss. That when we lost our baby and my fertility, we lost more than that - we lost twins. We lost Jesse and Jamie. It's something that weighed heavily on me, whether to acknowledge the baby we lost while waiting to lose another, when the many doctors who only saw me at random parts of my stays couldn't completely agree or just didn't care. Do we ignore our other baby just in case one or two doctors were wrong? Or do we go with the Heads of their departments, who saw me from beginning and middle, who claimed that baby for what it was?
If I'm doing acts of service and acknowledging all of our angels in the process, I want to come to a decision once and for all. I don't think I can ever silence the whispers inside that talk of Jamie by name, that remember that ultrasound picture and that time with the high risk doctor telling me about the baby for a half hour.
I'm leaving it up to Bill about whether to call our loss just by Jesse's name or not. He wasn't there during the high risk doctor appointment, but he heard all about it. He has a good sense for these things. I'm curious to see what his feelings and thoughts are, and how to approach this and exactly what we'll do from here in other aspects outside of the charity. It's a lot to think about, and none of it feels good. It hurts to think we lost two babies at once, twins that are all I want now. But it's just as hard to not think about a baby that we may be ignoring.
Monday, April 11, 2016
April 6th differences
April 6th kinda sucked this year.
Other years, it was something to celebrate. The year we lost Elizabeth, April 6th was when we were surprised with our rainbow.
This year, it was a reminder that a rainbow isn't coming this time. It was a reminder that there is no baby to save us from our sorrows of loss. There's no happiness of a new beginning of life to focus on. It was a rocky day for me.
So once again, I look upon my blessings to get me through, especially the ones that pertain to this.
I'm blessed with someone who is completely like minded in how to handle this situation. Every step, every plan, every thought matches up. Every sorrow, every fear, every pain is the same as well. It's nice to know that there's someone right there, holding your hand, feeling the same pain and hopes for the future as you.
I'm blessed to have children already. I'm blessed that I had four brand new lives that were all ours that once lived in me, no matter for how long. I'm blessed to have a husband that tenderly kisses my belly or rests his hand over it and whispers that this is where his miracle children came from and how wonderful it is.
I'm blessed with two perfect and healthy kids. I have a lot of anxiety about them and their health, but so far it's all for naught. They are wonderful and healthy and growing wonderfully.
I'm blessed to know that my journey isn't over unless I choose it to be. Yes, it'll be harder to make another miracle happen. We'll need the help of outside sources, medicines, and doctors to make it happen. But it CAN happen. We CAN produce more children, I can have more pregnancies, we can have hope. That's a lot more than some women can say post cancer, post ectopics and miscarriages, and who are infertile. Our journey is over when we say it is. And yes, we may not get to do it because of finances, but there is still hope that we can find ways around that too. Hope is anything but dead.
Post miscarriage and fertility, we've been blessed with plans. Some plans have already shut their doors on us, but others have opened. There will need to be sacrifices, but we have chances to see dreams fulfilled that we never thought we would. We have options to take our lives in ways that didn't seem possible before. It's like a whole new world was revealed to us this year, and we're slowly getting courage to look at the window at it, to open the door and take a step or two out. There's so much to take in, we don't know which way to walk down first. We're a little overwhelmed with figuring out which direction is the right one and which one will lead us to what's most important. There's so many details, so many things we want, and it's a little hard to prioritize, especially when the things that are most important are the most unreachable and and the furthest away. What will get us there faster and smarter? What do we want to do before others are achieved?
Currently, a few of our plans are these:
Officially get my license. Not just driving with a permit. Get a license, and then work on getting a second car.
Both of us graduate college. Bill may get his for free, but he has a least two years to get his bachelors. I won't get mine for free, but I should only need one semester. However, that semester includes in person training for 6 months and most of our babysitters are moving away from us.
We want Bill to get a job that he can stay in. Right now he's been bouncing around from job to job in the same company. None of them are right, none of them fit. There have been jobs where he made really good money, but they were terrible on his body. He would come home with terrible burns, heat blisters, his elbows and back in pain, his fingers crushed and nearly taken off, cuts and scars and soaked in lead. He now has a safe job, but it barely pays the bills. There's no chance in us ever getting ahead. We have no emergency fund, no savings. We'll never be able to fulfill our dreams. And all the jobs in between were just more of the same. The only way, it seems, to get him a job he can make good money and isn't unsafe is with a bachelor's degree.
We want to move. We want out of this area, out of this state. But I have no idea where this fits in. It won't be this year. We originally wanted next year, but now we may stay in the area until he can get his degree and maybe for IVF if we're able to do that.
We obviously want to try IVF. But that's a long term, down the road thing. Obviously a few things have to happen first - we have to either be able to afford it, or have another job that covers it. We need to know where we're going to live during that time, if we'll still be in this area or if we want to move before then. There's a lot of stuff that has to happen that may lead up to this...or it may not. We have no idea yet if IVF will become available to us or not. It's part of the reason why we're taking steps, but we're taking them slowly. We want to move in the direction of IVF, but it's not something we can see yet, so we're unsure of which direction it's in. We're going off of hope, faith and feeling.
Other years, it was something to celebrate. The year we lost Elizabeth, April 6th was when we were surprised with our rainbow.
This year, it was a reminder that a rainbow isn't coming this time. It was a reminder that there is no baby to save us from our sorrows of loss. There's no happiness of a new beginning of life to focus on. It was a rocky day for me.
So once again, I look upon my blessings to get me through, especially the ones that pertain to this.
I'm blessed with someone who is completely like minded in how to handle this situation. Every step, every plan, every thought matches up. Every sorrow, every fear, every pain is the same as well. It's nice to know that there's someone right there, holding your hand, feeling the same pain and hopes for the future as you.
I'm blessed to have children already. I'm blessed that I had four brand new lives that were all ours that once lived in me, no matter for how long. I'm blessed to have a husband that tenderly kisses my belly or rests his hand over it and whispers that this is where his miracle children came from and how wonderful it is.
I'm blessed with two perfect and healthy kids. I have a lot of anxiety about them and their health, but so far it's all for naught. They are wonderful and healthy and growing wonderfully.
I'm blessed to know that my journey isn't over unless I choose it to be. Yes, it'll be harder to make another miracle happen. We'll need the help of outside sources, medicines, and doctors to make it happen. But it CAN happen. We CAN produce more children, I can have more pregnancies, we can have hope. That's a lot more than some women can say post cancer, post ectopics and miscarriages, and who are infertile. Our journey is over when we say it is. And yes, we may not get to do it because of finances, but there is still hope that we can find ways around that too. Hope is anything but dead.
Post miscarriage and fertility, we've been blessed with plans. Some plans have already shut their doors on us, but others have opened. There will need to be sacrifices, but we have chances to see dreams fulfilled that we never thought we would. We have options to take our lives in ways that didn't seem possible before. It's like a whole new world was revealed to us this year, and we're slowly getting courage to look at the window at it, to open the door and take a step or two out. There's so much to take in, we don't know which way to walk down first. We're a little overwhelmed with figuring out which direction is the right one and which one will lead us to what's most important. There's so many details, so many things we want, and it's a little hard to prioritize, especially when the things that are most important are the most unreachable and and the furthest away. What will get us there faster and smarter? What do we want to do before others are achieved?
Currently, a few of our plans are these:
Officially get my license. Not just driving with a permit. Get a license, and then work on getting a second car.
Both of us graduate college. Bill may get his for free, but he has a least two years to get his bachelors. I won't get mine for free, but I should only need one semester. However, that semester includes in person training for 6 months and most of our babysitters are moving away from us.
We want Bill to get a job that he can stay in. Right now he's been bouncing around from job to job in the same company. None of them are right, none of them fit. There have been jobs where he made really good money, but they were terrible on his body. He would come home with terrible burns, heat blisters, his elbows and back in pain, his fingers crushed and nearly taken off, cuts and scars and soaked in lead. He now has a safe job, but it barely pays the bills. There's no chance in us ever getting ahead. We have no emergency fund, no savings. We'll never be able to fulfill our dreams. And all the jobs in between were just more of the same. The only way, it seems, to get him a job he can make good money and isn't unsafe is with a bachelor's degree.
We want to move. We want out of this area, out of this state. But I have no idea where this fits in. It won't be this year. We originally wanted next year, but now we may stay in the area until he can get his degree and maybe for IVF if we're able to do that.
We obviously want to try IVF. But that's a long term, down the road thing. Obviously a few things have to happen first - we have to either be able to afford it, or have another job that covers it. We need to know where we're going to live during that time, if we'll still be in this area or if we want to move before then. There's a lot of stuff that has to happen that may lead up to this...or it may not. We have no idea yet if IVF will become available to us or not. It's part of the reason why we're taking steps, but we're taking them slowly. We want to move in the direction of IVF, but it's not something we can see yet, so we're unsure of which direction it's in. We're going off of hope, faith and feeling.
Thursday, April 7, 2016
God Exists
We named our baby Jesse because we could both see it as a gender neutral name (except in spelling!). We eventually felt like Jesse was a boy, because we constantly called him he when we were trying to keep neutral. Before we lost the baby, Bill said he felt like it was probably a boy.
We named him Jesse while lost in grief. I never looked up information on the name like I usually do. I remember the day I realized that Elizabeth meant God's Daughter. I found out right after we lost her. She truly belonged to God.
Today I looked up Jesse's name. Jesse means God Exists.
How interesting. Through the last few months, we've struggled, we've cried, we've been in anguish and agony. We've doubted our religion, but we've never doubted God. We prayed together and we prayed alone, seeking out God and His answers. I still don't know His answers. As the days go by, they become even more confusing. As doors we thought were wide open close, I get a little more lost. I've felt lost a lot lately.
But God Exists. The baby we lost, the reason we're going through this hell, left so little behind. But the name, the only name we could instantly agree on, says so much.
He exists. He's there, on the other end of our prayers. He has a plan for us and a way to make this better. He will see us through this.
That's something I can hold onto.
We named him Jesse while lost in grief. I never looked up information on the name like I usually do. I remember the day I realized that Elizabeth meant God's Daughter. I found out right after we lost her. She truly belonged to God.
Today I looked up Jesse's name. Jesse means God Exists.
How interesting. Through the last few months, we've struggled, we've cried, we've been in anguish and agony. We've doubted our religion, but we've never doubted God. We prayed together and we prayed alone, seeking out God and His answers. I still don't know His answers. As the days go by, they become even more confusing. As doors we thought were wide open close, I get a little more lost. I've felt lost a lot lately.
But God Exists. The baby we lost, the reason we're going through this hell, left so little behind. But the name, the only name we could instantly agree on, says so much.
He exists. He's there, on the other end of our prayers. He has a plan for us and a way to make this better. He will see us through this.
That's something I can hold onto.
Charity
I'm thinking of opening a charity.
Well, this is something I've been thinking about for the last 3 years, but now I'm seriously getting close to opening one.
I found what I want to do, something relatively low in cost, small and light to ship, and something that won't take a lot of time to make. I'm looking into opening a FB page, website and blog for it. I have no idea what the name will be yet, but I'm working on it.
I'll be making little clay baked angels that look like something like this:
I'm guessing each 4 inch angel will take about one 2 oz block of clay, which costs about $3. I'm guessing shipping materials and cost will be about $4. Right now, the only baby loss charity that has survived for more than one year is a charity that asks for each person to pay their own shipping. Since I have no money to give hundreds of angels away and I can't count on donations, I'll probably ask $6 for each order, which I think is a low and fair price, one that I won't make any money from and will just go towards the cost.
Each angel will be made from a baby mold and a wing mold, then further sculpted, dressed, and put together. Each one shouldn't take much more than one hour. The successful charity I'm modeling my own charity off of takes 50 orders a month and gets all those orders in within 4 hours of opening the forms. They have a team of 3-4 working on them. 50 hours over the span of a whole month shouldn't be too rough for just me doing it. I could test run my first month at 25.
In order to get this together, I need:
Well, this is something I've been thinking about for the last 3 years, but now I'm seriously getting close to opening one.
I found what I want to do, something relatively low in cost, small and light to ship, and something that won't take a lot of time to make. I'm looking into opening a FB page, website and blog for it. I have no idea what the name will be yet, but I'm working on it.
I'll be making little clay baked angels that look like something like this:
I'm guessing each 4 inch angel will take about one 2 oz block of clay, which costs about $3. I'm guessing shipping materials and cost will be about $4. Right now, the only baby loss charity that has survived for more than one year is a charity that asks for each person to pay their own shipping. Since I have no money to give hundreds of angels away and I can't count on donations, I'll probably ask $6 for each order, which I think is a low and fair price, one that I won't make any money from and will just go towards the cost.
Each angel will be made from a baby mold and a wing mold, then further sculpted, dressed, and put together. Each one shouldn't take much more than one hour. The successful charity I'm modeling my own charity off of takes 50 orders a month and gets all those orders in within 4 hours of opening the forms. They have a team of 3-4 working on them. 50 hours over the span of a whole month shouldn't be too rough for just me doing it. I could test run my first month at 25.
In order to get this together, I need:
- $40 for the molds
- $30 for the flesh clay start up
- My own examples and pictures to show
- A website that lets me have a page for order forms as well as a message page
- A paypal for just the charity
- Tax information about running a charity
- A Facebook Page and marketing it
- A Wordpress blog for the charity
- A name for the charity
- An email for charity use - probably a gmail one?
- Get business cards made to mail with the angels
I'm not sure how long it'll take to get all of this finished. I'd like to launch it by Jesse's due date, which was September 17th. I feel like that is quite doable, so September is my goal. Until then, I'll be trying to gather the money, making samples, and setting up everything. That leaves me with about three months to get the work done and one month to spread the word to launch in the month of September. The money will definitely be the only hitch, I have no start up funds at the moment, but hopefully with selling some of the baby stuff, I'll get a few dollars together. Right now everything I made has gone towards funding Katie's ballet and her birthday as our budget is cut so thin right now that it can't come out of the bank. Trying to open a charity when we've fallen a bit into a charity case ourselves this year! I'm sure I'll be able to find a way for a worthy cause.
Friday, April 1, 2016
17 weeks....or not.
My posts are fewer lately, as I try to focus on other things. I do my best to not think about IVF, or if my future holds our Vincent or not. We talk about it weekly, but there's no answers to be found right now. The only thing we know is if it becomes possible and available to us, we'll at least try. But it might not become available, and we may be done having children. Two may be our number chosen for us.
Still, there's some things that are possible to get away from. Sometimes I look down at my flat belly and know it would be getting pretty huge by now. Today, I'd turn 17 weeks. We'd almost be reaching the halfway point. We'd be able to find out the gender soon, if I folded and couldn't wait until birth.
Instead, I've sold my favorite, expensive strollers and all of my maternity clothing. I've been sorting through and trying to sell the totes after giant totes full to the brim of baby clothing for every season. I put up for sale my co-sleeper, the one thing I didn't think I could get rid of, because it seems like a silly thing to hold onto with a future so unclear. Sure, there will be a few things I can't get rid of. The white lamb that's so cuddly and was supposed to be for the next baby. The little pirate bear sweater that I bought because it fit Vincent's theme so well. The little purple and pink fuzzy dinosaur sleeper I couldn't wait to cuddle a baby in. I'll keep a small box full of my hopes and dreams, but there's an overwhelming amount to get rid of yet.
It's hard to look at my belly and know how round it would be, how I'd be rubbing it and excited to be feeling all those kicks and hiccups. How my husband would be laying his head against it, talking to our new baby. These are the things that hurt the most. Knowing that none of those things may ever happen again. I enjoyed every moment of them...never knowing that I wouldn't get it again, that things would change so much.
Still, there's some things that are possible to get away from. Sometimes I look down at my flat belly and know it would be getting pretty huge by now. Today, I'd turn 17 weeks. We'd almost be reaching the halfway point. We'd be able to find out the gender soon, if I folded and couldn't wait until birth.
Instead, I've sold my favorite, expensive strollers and all of my maternity clothing. I've been sorting through and trying to sell the totes after giant totes full to the brim of baby clothing for every season. I put up for sale my co-sleeper, the one thing I didn't think I could get rid of, because it seems like a silly thing to hold onto with a future so unclear. Sure, there will be a few things I can't get rid of. The white lamb that's so cuddly and was supposed to be for the next baby. The little pirate bear sweater that I bought because it fit Vincent's theme so well. The little purple and pink fuzzy dinosaur sleeper I couldn't wait to cuddle a baby in. I'll keep a small box full of my hopes and dreams, but there's an overwhelming amount to get rid of yet.
It's hard to look at my belly and know how round it would be, how I'd be rubbing it and excited to be feeling all those kicks and hiccups. How my husband would be laying his head against it, talking to our new baby. These are the things that hurt the most. Knowing that none of those things may ever happen again. I enjoyed every moment of them...never knowing that I wouldn't get it again, that things would change so much.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)