Capture Your Grief Day 13 - Book

A Silent Love by Adrienne Ryan. This is a beautiful book of other mother's experiences in loss. It was very helpful. I purchased it off of Amazon.com.

Capture Your Grief Day 12 - Article

 This was a blog I read not long after my loss. It is Bring The Rain.

It is a wonderful blog.

Capture Your Grief Day 11 - Triggers

 I had issues with Baby Showers and Baby Boys when I initially went through my loss. This one is my main trigger now.

Capture Your Grief Day 10 - Beliefs

I believe that Jesus died on the cross for our sins & will be returning one day soon to retrieve His people. 

I believe that when a small child passes, they are received in heaven. One day I will be reunited with my sweet angel baby. 

Matthew 19:14 Jesus said, Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.

Capture Your Grief Day 9 - Music

 I do believe music soothes the soul & brings joy to the heart. The lyrics speak for me perfectly that is why I chose it. Since my baby was stillborn, he never saw my face.

Capture Your Grief Day 8 - Color

Blue is the color I associate with my baby boy, Nehemiah. Blue is a masculine color & the color most associated with having a boy. The sky is clear this morning & the most beautiful color of blue.

Capture Your Grief Day 7 - You Now

This is me my rainbow baby. I know Nehemiah picked him out especially for us.

I have come a long way in my 6 years on this walk. 

I am happy and blessed, even though I know a piece of my heart is missing. 

Capture Your Grief Day 6 - Ritual

1Thessalonians 5:17-18

Since my loss I have found that I pray more than I had in my lifetime. My relationship with God is stronger and I thank Him daily for my sweet angel Nehemiah.

Capture Your Grief Day 5 - Memory

At my 12 week appointment we could not find a heartbeat, so I was sent for a sonogram. 

This is my favorite memory because he was moving around and waving at us. 
Little did we know we would only have 8 weeks left with him. 

Capture Your Grief Day 4 - Strength

Nehemiah's legacy is our strength. 

Our journey has been rough, but it has only made us stronger.

Captue Your Grief Day 3 - Myth

One of the myths I heard after our loss is "Time will heal your heart".

Once something has been broken or torn apart, it can never be completely whole again.

The bandaid represents how we hold it together, but how easy it can come apart again.

Capture Your Grief Day 2 - Identity

When I was a young teenager I was reading my bible and started reading the book of Nehemiah. He was so strong and hardworking and had a love for God. I just knew from that moment I was going to name my future son Nehemiah. I have always liked the name Christopher, so I just put the two together.

When I saw my precious son for the first time, he was absolutley perfect! He was fully developed from his head to his toes. He had beautiful lips and the cutest little ears and nose. I breaks my heart that no sound ever passed those beautiful lips and his eyes never saw my face while he was here on earth, but I know he makes beautiful sounds in heaven singing with the angels. and warms my heart that his first sight was of Jesus recieving him.

Nehemiah means: Comforted by God. How fitting that I would be drawn to this name reading my bible and picking it out for my future son. God knew I would have a stillborn baby and He lead me to this name.  

Capture Your Grief Day 1 - Sunrise

Sunrises are a reminder from God that we are alive and blessed with another day!

Blog Slacker

I am such a blog slacker! I have not written anything on here in months and lots has happened.

I just realized today that we only have 1 day left of September and then we begin October. October is a busy month for our family. 

Our local hospital will be hosting Walk to Remember on Saturday, October 5th at Memorial Park; October 15th is the World Wide Candle Light Vigil; October 18th we celebrate/remember our sweet angel, Nehemiah, for our 6th year in a row; October 21st my sweet girl, Andrea, turns 16. 

I plan on posting in my blog the Capture Your Grief Challenge that I did last year.  I had so much fun and it was actually therapeutic. "It doesn’t matter whether you are only a week into this walk or you have been walking this road for 50 years, all are welcome to join in."

Andrea had foot surgery almost 2 weeks ago to remove a cyst. However, there was nothing there when the doctor opened her foot up. Is she healed? Even the doctor does not know. We will have to wait and see.

Three weeks ago JD and I have began going to church together on Wednesday night to hear the book of Job. He is really excited about going and I pray everyday he continues in his excitement. We have tried doing things together this past year only to let Satan intervene and then we end up quitting. He says once Crispin is willing to stay in the nursery he will attend Sunday morning with the girls and I. 

Last weekend was Pure Rebellion out our church. This is the most radical event I have ever attended. I highly recommend everyone attend this if it is ever in your area. There were a few skits and one I recorded and put up on YouTube. This event is not just for youth, I was touched by the testimonies that were given that night.

I pray for blessings upon you all as I end this post this evening. 

Prayer Flag ~ 2013

There is a lovely lady name Carly Marie, who like myself, is a mom of an angel named Christian. She writes names in the sand on the beach in Australia and she also started August 19th International Day of Hope. You can read more here about the event, as well as Christian's story.

This year I decided to participate by making a prayer flag to hang up somewhere special on August 19th.

Here is a little story behind what I chose to do for my theme for my prayer flag:

When I first started telling my co-workers that I was pregnant, a dear lady I work with bought me a blue and white stripped onesie, as well as a card to indicate what she believed I was carrying. 

Unfortunately, we never got to use the onesie on our sweet baby. So, I thought what better way to honor my baby then to use the special onesie for the base for my prayer flag.

The open heart represents my heart. 

The angel inside represents Nehemiah.

 The sparrow represents freedom.

My sweet angel is free from a world of hate and destruction.

Of course I had to put his name and birth date.

The stars represent lights of hope. Hope that one day I will be with 

my sweet baby and Jesus in Heaven.

The finished product!

Next year I plan to make another one and invite my family to help or make their own. I self taught myself to hand-stitch and all of the letters, the outline of the bird and the heart are all my handy work. The "N" is an iron-on that I stitched on with the buttons. I think I did a pretty good job. :) 

 

Grief That is Everlasting

Love is Made
Pregnancy Test Taken
Positive Results
Announcements Made
Congratulations Received
Sonograms Had
Pokes & Sticks
Excitement Setting In
Due Date is Set
Gender Revealed
Name Picked Out
Nursery Painted
Bed Put Together
Baby Shower Invites
Friends to Celebrate
Gifts Opened
Oo's & Ah's
One Last Final Checkup
No Heartbeat
Tears Begin to Fall
News Begins to Spread
Delivery of a Still Soul
Funeral Plans Made
Laying Baby to Rest
Balloons Taking Flight
Sadness Sets In
A Life Has Ended
The World Keeps Turning
Grief That is Everlasting

                                           In Memory of LBS 7/02/2013




"He will swallow up death forever. The Sovereign Lord will wipe away the tears from all faces." Isaiah 25:8

Slacking, Running, and Other Things

I have seriously been slacking on the blog-front this year. And this post is almost 2 weeks late....But here goes!


We just finished up our 5th March for Babies season. It was a whopper of a go-around!

We sold 9 whole boxes of chocolates!
We made $90.00 at our Bake Sale! :(
We raised $1,526.00! :)
We had THE coolest t-shirts ever!
We had 21 walkers!

And.......my dad and I ran our first 5k in 46 minutes!

Dad and I have been training since the first week of January. Honestly, I never thought I would be ready, nor would I finish the race if I started. But I did! My "coach" dad and my good friend Crystal ran along side me, pushing me to keep going when all I wanted to do was walk...which I did do some of that. 

We had an absolute blast!

There was one down side to our walk though....the stomach bug had hit our household the week of the walk and my dear husband woke sick early in the morning the day of the walk. So, he was not there to congratulate us as the finish line; however, he always has next year.

Here are a few pictures from our day:

                                          Dad, Crystal and Myself at the End

                                                           Go Dad!

                                              Myself and Nehemiah's Bear

                              This little fellow showed up after we completed our run..
                                             Sent from Heaven Above!

 

 The Back of Our Cool Shirts!

 

My Children and Myself

                                                   The Awesome Supporters!


 

DIY - Training Pants

Training pants are so expensive. You only get 2 or 3 per package for $7.00 a pop, pull-ups are too much like diapers and are also expensive. So, I did some research and figured out I could make some myself.

I cannot keep a good thing to myself, so I am posting step-by-step instructions on making these Training Pants.

You will need:
Tri-fold Parent's Choice Cloth Diapers 6pk - found at Wal-Mart
Faded Glory Briefs, size 2T-3T 10pk - found at Wal-Mart
Sewing Machine
Sharp Sissors
Pins
Thread - I used white only

  

1. Take your tri-fold cloth diaper and fold the 

two outsides into the middle, making them overlap.

2. Fold your diaper in half

3. Turn your underwear inside-out

4. Line one end up just below the elastic and pin. 

I do this on the backside. 

 

5. Pull the daiper around to the front of the underwear.

Pin it just below the waist band. There will be extra material,

we will cut it off later.  

6. Pin the sides to help keep the diaper in place

when sewing. 

7. Turn pants right-side-out, make sure

you have an even amount of diaper

sticking out of the leg holes

 and pin the crotch. 

It should look like this.

8. Cut the material off along the leg holes.

After you sew, you may have to trim 

them up a little bit more.

 It will look like this.

 

9. Cut the extra that is sticking out

over the elastic. I use the elastic 

so it will be straight.

  Once we finish sewing it may

need to be trimmed a bit more.

10. Start sewing. I sewed as close 

the edge of the material as I could. 

The first one I made I sewed it in sections. Then realized

I could sew all the way around if I took my time and 

pulled the underwear and diaper tight. 

 11. I trimmed the edge that we cut 

a little, just below the elastic band.

Here is the finished product!

Please leave any questions in the comments section and I will get them answered. Good luck!

We Are Fireproofing

A few months ago I had put the movie Fireproof into our Insta Queue on Netflix. Thinking one night when JD and I had some free time, we would sit down and watch it.

At the time JD had no idea what the movie was even about. All I told him he was that the movie was written by the same people who did Facing the Giants, but I was unsure of the plot. I thought if he knew, he might not think he needed to watch it and then wouldn't have.

Well, on March 2nd, my parents took the girls to a fundraiser for my niece's school. JD and I made kabobs and put the movie in. There was a scene in the movie where the dad is talking to the main character and he says, "hate is the same as murder and lust is the same as adultery".

JD got a little upset with this part, was ready to quit watching it and asked me if that is what it really says. I have been telling him for a while about the importance of going to church and studying his bible is. So I took this opportunity to get my bible out so we could look together.

                              1John 3:15 "Whoever hates his brother is a murderer, 

                              and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding 

                              in him."

The first thing he says to me is that the bible is talking about brothers. I chuckled quietly to myself, not wanting to upset him, then I explained that the bible refers to everyone as "man" and "brother''. However, the bible means everyone. 

The rest of the movie went on and by the end he seemed to have actually liked the movie. 

I felt a twinge of pain when they are in the garage and Catherine says, "Something has changed in you Caleb, and I want what happened to you to happen to me". I had been praying for JD to say that to me since I had started back at church with the girls.

The next day, when I got home from the gym, JD started telling me about how he had looked up The Love Dare book. He had all the prices memorized and went on to tell me that there is a study guide that we can do it together or separate. I was speechless!

When I was able to talk, I told him that I was in if he was serious. Needless to say, we out the next day and bought the book and study guide. He picked out a journal and a new pen to go with it.

He had dug out some of his devotionals that he had either bought himself or that my older brother gave him. He was looking them over and then asked if he should do them all at once or just a few. I told him to pick one devotional, along with The Love Dare.

He picked the one he was going to do and got out his bible. After he read a little bit, he then told me he would have to start going to church so he can understand what he was reading a little better. Again, speechless!

We are on day 8 of The Love Dare, spent the whole week together since I was on vacation from work, and so far so good.

Now our only dilemma  is going to be getting Crispin to let us leave him in the nursery so we can all go to church.