October

It’s here again. October.

A month that was my favorite month for a long time. It was an exciting month. It was typically my busiest month. College football season in full swing. I always feel most inspired by fall cooking and decorating. It's a month full of events that I either attend or manage through work. It had become the new wedding season. There were costume parties for Halloween. The weather would become the perfect kind of perfect. 

And then 2015 rolled around. That year I had became a statistic and the month of October took on a new meaning. One that made that particular October dark and difficult. That year, I was one in four women to experience pregnancy and infant loss. I was 1% of women whose pregnancy resulted in stillbirth. I was 5% of that 1% (that’s a thing? yes, it is a thing.) whose baby died because of an umbilical cord accident. October is an awareness month for many things, Pregnancy and Infant Loss included. 

In October of 2016, we gave birth to our daughter, our blessing after loss, a baby that the Pregnancy and Infant Loss community term a "rainbow baby." My grief that followed Hudson's death was very much a storm. It was tumultuous and scathing. In the throes of it, it was like a hurricane-tornado-tsunami super storm all in one. To be clear, Hudson was never the storm, but the aftermath of his passing very much was for me - more so than anything I had ever experienced in my life. The hope of new life through our pregnancy with Hadley was that light needed, the faith needed, the redeeming love from loss needed. To me, the term rainbow baby is very indicative and symbolic for her and one I use.

So now October takes on a new meaning again. It is a month where my grief and my joy live together intertwined. See, she wasn't just born in October, she was born on the International day of remembrance for Pregnancy and Infant Loss, October 15. Last year in the hospital, it was such a bittersweet, beautiful testament. We were completely exhausted, emotional, and relieved to have a living, breathing baby in our arms. This year, as we celebrated her birthday, it was a little difficult. I wanted to honor him, but it was her day. I don't want her to grow up in the shadow of the brother who came before her but who didn't get to stay. There is his memory that we honor, but she is her own little person. While he is and will continue to be ingrained in our family through special ways of acknowledgment, I struggled with how that will look on her day that shared a meaning in the pregnancy and infant loss world that we were apart of. I struggled with the guilt of if I didn't acknowledge it and that of if I did.

The Wave of Light is an International movement that takes place across every time zone on October 15 at 7 pm. Throughout the day, I didn't think about it, the focus was all on her. Then her bedtime rolled around and that happened to be 7 pm. All day we had fun with her and made special first birthday memories. In the 7:00 evening hour, she was in bed, the house was quiet. With her day drawn to an end, it was time I could allocate to my firstborn. In my mind, I feel like that's the way it would have been if he were here. Little sister to bed first, a little more time with him before his own bedtime. In 2015, my coworkers at the time had made special candles and gave them out to people on the team, surprising me with it as a way to recognize Hudson together. One by one I saw their photos pop up that night on social media, or received texts of a photo with their candle lit. That candle inspired us to create special One Wing Foundation versions made by our Hudder Putter Classic volunteers for our Care Boxes for parents to personalize to their child. I keep that original candle close and with his hospital blanket bunny, lit it in a quiet space in the house. We had finally experienced the first birthday we had so longed for, and there was a lot of emotion attached to that on this particular evening. We had completed a year full of firsts and reflecting on that was really difficult to do because it was a reminder of everything we didn't get to have with him, while still radiating in the thankfulness that we did get to have it with her.

Parenting after loss has been full of a lot of moments like that. Experiencing something together as a family, or with Hadley that we'd been looking forward to doing, or didn't realize how much we had missed doing by not having him here. It's meeting people who have kids that would be in his class and thinking how our lives would have already intersected by now. It's doing family activities and attending events we never did previously because they were family-centric and now we have a little one to take to things, or one that will garner the invitation. It's in the life celebrations, now adapted because of a baby/child in the family. It's all the wonderful ways our lives have been enriched because of her. It's all the little things she does, how she learns, and develops, all the little milestones we experience with her. As we experienced those things, it was so exciting, but there was the thought - every single time - that I missed the chance to see him do it. Some of those light bulb moments are harder to swallow than others. Those times as parents that have been more challenging, my mind says this shouldn't have been the first time you are experiencing this and learning how to handle. Then people say, you are a first time parent, you'll figure it out and the next one will be a breeze. I hate being categorized as a first time parent - though okay, yes it is our first time to experience this - but to a Parent of Loss, most of us feel like we shouldn't be, this should be our second time around.

I have struggled to find my writing voice since early this year because I know that my writing is strongest when it comes from a place of pain. The pain that I had drawn from previously hasn't been as prevalent. Sure it has been there, but I have wanted to stay in the happy because we had this baby that had been so incredibly yearned for. I didn't want to seem ungrateful. Unappreciative. Like I was dwelling in the pain. That I couldn't enjoy the now. However, there is a truth to this side of it and it's okay to shine a little light on it. Especially for others who are walking this path and know they aren't alone in those moments that make them catch their breath a little bit, the things that can trigger the broken heart of loss, or the times grief could take hold for no reason other than because that love will always exist for the one who isn't here, too.

October represents a lot. For me, it is now my month where I can celebrate how hope was restored from the ultimate pain of loss, through the most beautiful gift of our daughter.

Two Years

Hudson,

Baby boy, today is your birthday. Somehow two years have come and gone. I sat with a friend the other day who asked me - doesn't it feel like it's been ten years and only five seconds all in one? I thought I'd be better this time around. I thought I'd have more peace. I thought having lived this loss after one full year and now a second would have given my heart more resolve on this day.

I thought wrong.

I've avoided my emotions for a while now. I've felt them building, the anxiety that can come with it, but I wanted to stay in the happy and not go to the place where the pain that you're not here is too overwhelming to bear sometimes. In this second year, I've talked about you more freely. I have smiled through the pain when I say I have one in Heaven and one at home. I can speak about loss now without tears every single time. I can smile when I say your name. But when I'm alone with my thoughts, or look long enough at your sister in my arms, the emotions I've tried to shut out begin to catch up to me. The life we didn't get to live and the memories we didn't get to create consume me.

Up until October 15, 2016, I only imagined all the things in life we've missed without you here. But starting at 5:08 am when Hadley was born and every minute since, I have learned just how much of the ordinary, everyday life we lost without you here.  I didn't know just how fulfilling the exhaustion of parenting was, just how much love can be felt from a neck nuzzle or smile, and just how much the little hugs or tugs of the finger can mean. I knew what we didn't have but I didn't know the depth of how much it hurt not to have it, until I did have it. I look at her and if I look long enough, it rips at my heart that I never got to look into your eyes. She loves to stare at us before breaking into a smile and it is adorable. Sometimes as she stares, I can't help but wonder what is going through her mind as she looks back at me, and then I think about how you never got to see me, your Mommy. You heard me, as you grew in my belly but you never saw me. I watch your Daddy with her and I get choked up often because he's just so good at it. He's an amazing Daddy and he should have had his son to be that to as well.

I avoided it for a long period of time because there was only so much my heart could endure, but I have allowed myself to see little ones around your age. We see them often now, especially as your sister has started daycare and we see kids of all ages. Whenever I pass a little one in the 2's class, it gives me pause every time. I wonder who you'd look like. Your sister is your Daddy's carbon copy, and you looked like me when you were born, but would you still? How would you and Hadley interact right now? What would you love to play with? I received my first pieces of art work from Hadley and decided to hang it along the new staircase and grow it into the playroom. I wonder how many pictures you would have drawn for us, how many Hudson originals I'd have already hung.

Every night before Hadley goes to bed, I sit with all my loves in my lap - Hadley, Georgie and the Hudson bunny. We rock together, we read stories, we snuggle. Sometimes Mommy cries. I wish you were here with us to make our family whole. I wish our lives had been able to experience your smile and laughter these two years. I want it all back, everything that was stolen from us two years ago when your heart stopped. All of it, I want it, I miss it. My mother's heart will never stop yearning for that life with you here too.

Today I don't want to get out of bed. Today I want to shut everything out. I want to cry until I can't cry anymore - which there are always more tears, I've learned. Yesterday I honored you in a special way. Next week we continue to honor you by furthering your legacy at your memorial golf tournament. But right now? Right now I just want you. I hear them playing in the other room and would give anything to walk in there to see Daddy, Georgie, and both our babies - my two year old and my 7 month old, with a birthday breakfast and balloons. We'd be starting our Hudson Day, your second birthday. I imagine you and see you with brown curls that maybe we'd have let grow out a little bit. I see you with my blue eyes but your Daddy's smile, that matches your sister's. Hadley smiles at you and you make her laugh. You make noises at each other and I raise an eyebrow thinking it's started, your own little language you keep from us. If only I could have five minutes of that on this day. Instead I'll close my eyes, cry the tears and live that scene in my mind. Over and over. I'll allow the warmth it creates in my heart to carry me through today when all I have are the memories of holding you when you were born, then twelve hours later, kissing you goodbye and watching as you were taken in a strangers arms until the door closed and you were gone.

We made you a birthday card and will tie it to a birthday balloon to send you in heaven. We'll have a cake for you that a special friend made for us to have in your honor. We will visit you at the church, and go on a walk trying to enjoy the outdoors where the sunbeams are like your smile, and the breeze in the air is like you playing all around us. I'll hold Hadley a little closer, I'll snuggle Georgie a little longer, I'll love your Daddy a little harder.

My heart breaks all over again on tough days like today, but it beats on. Happy Hudson Day, baby boy.

I love you with everything I have, always.

Mommy

This Side of Heaven

Two years ago today started like any other, but it was unknowingly the first day of our new life as bereaved parents. It has been 731 days since life as we knew it for 30 years was altered and we were shaken to our core upon hearing the words that our baby at 32 weeks and 6 days didn't have a heartbeat. It was the day we learned that our precious Hudson had already left us and would not be born into this world for us to love him, raise him and parent him in our arms. The way it should have been and is for most. Instead, we would give birth to his silence, to the sound of our cries, and say a goodbye that no parent ever should. Instead of the life we dreamed of as a family, we carry him in our hearts as we live on without him and only the idea of what should have been.

Loss parents have different milestone days that resonate, we may call them different things. I call today, the day we learned he had passed, Hudson's Heaven Day, and tomorrow, the day we gave birth, his Birthday. I honestly don't know which day is more difficult.

Two years ago I entered this hospital completely unsuspecting that I'd be leaving 24 hours later without our baby. Though I've been back here again many times since, it was a different kind of experience to walk through those same doors again, just like I did two years ago. While my answer to these hard milestones has been to escape, to be "vacation us" instead of loom in the "everyday us" where he is noticeably absent the most, this time on his Heaven Day we get to see his legacy in action. Today we did the official celebration and Cuddle Cot dedication to Baylor University Medical Center, the place that holds our only memories of the time spent with our son in our arms and where we brought his sister, a representation of so much joy and hope, into the world as well.

While we never want this Cuddle Cot to be used, the sad reality is that it will be. During this month, I've been introduced to or made aware of six families of stillbirth that have occurred in May alone. Six babies gone to soon. Six parents whose lives will never be the same. In addition to this Cuddle Cot, the funds given to Baylor University Medical Center at Dallas by the One Wing Foundation have gone to provide aid for families who cannot afford proper burial arrangements for their stillborn baby or NICU infant, and to create a renovated private space in Labor and Delivery for families giving birth but will either never hear their babies cry, or they will have a short time together before that baby takes its last breath.

Guys, this just isn't the way life is meant to go, but sometimes it does. There is not a rhyme or reason. Not a divine plan when someone's child dies. It is not the natural circle of life.You may feel differently, I did before this happened to me. Now, I believe that sometimes the terrible-awful happens. It just does. While we can't change it, we can provide for it. We can be the community that catches those parents in loving arms, without platitudes, when they have faced the most difficult obstacle of burying their baby. It is a wound that may reopen from time to time, and one that doesn't ever really heal. Because that's child loss.

I know it's ugly and unflattering sometimes. I know it's not what people want to see because it's sad. I know that every time I post about it, someone cringes. But he's my child, just like Hadley is. He will be recognized too. I may not have cute pictures of him covered in food, smiling in the bathtub or grabbing his toes - because those were robbed from me when his heart stopped. This is what I have for him. This is how I parent him - my son who should be turning two tomorrow.

Waking up two years ago on May 26, it was any other day until it wasn't, and our path changed for good. As difficult as this road has been, can be, and will continue to be at times, I take solace in continuing to parent my son in any way that I can, and One Wing Foundation is that way. I felt him in my heart, the love and support in the room through the incredible Baylor staff, I see him in her eyes sometimes - the eyes I never got to look into.

Happy Heaven Day sweet boy. You got there before us and we know we will see you again on the other side.

Hudder Putter Classic is Open for Registration!

I've been a little quiet on here lately and that's because I've been channeling most of my energy into the One Wing Foundation. Today, I'm excited to share that tournament registration for both the Hudder Putter Classic and the Olivia Aldredge Silent Auction & Benefit Concert is now available online! 

Click here for Tournament details and registration information. 

Click here for Auction Party details and ticket sales. 

Additionally, we have a number of sponsorship and underwriting opportunities available for both events! Please contact me at onewingfoundation at gmail dot com if you are interested in doing that on a personal or corporate level, or if you have an auction item or tournament prize you are interested in contributing as a donation.

We have our first fundraiser and awareness event coming up next week on March 9. The generous gentlemen, Cody and Ken, of the Bishop Art's Home on Bishop, Dwell on Davis, and Bishop Ranch are opening the doors of their stores to us. The One Wing Foundation will receive 15% of sales from 5:00 - 7:00 p.m. that evening and we will provide you with wine and heavy appetizers compliments of Cretia's Eatery and Bake Shoppe. 

Please see below for invitation and click here to RSVP on our Facebook invitation page. We hope to see you there! If you are a parent of loss that would like to channel your grief in a way that is meaningful to you, we'd love to have you join us at the Gloria's in Bishop Arts following this event at 7:30 p.m. on March 9 for an informational meeting and support gathering. We will go over the various Leadership Council opportunities that are available for the One Wing Foundation, in addition to how to hold your own fundraiser in honor of your angel baby.