| The Spohrs Are Multiplying… |

July 3, 2009 | in: Family, the famous Madeline

Maddie has two older boy cousins and a younger girl cousin arriving in September. She ADORED her cousins. She thought they hung the moon.

Spencer is three years older than her, old enough to know Maddie and appreciate her. I hope with all my heart that he remembers her. Danny, on the other hand, was less than a year older than Madeline, so I don’t think he’ll have any memories of her. Luckily, we have videos of them playing together.

Back in March I made an ill-fated attempt to make Maddie shriek (long story) and my little point and shoot camera fell in a fountain. I was pretty pissed because it was totally my fault. I put the camera aside to dry off, hoping that it might eventually work again. I forgot about it until yesterday. It suddenly hit me that there were dozens of videos on the memory card, videos I hadn’t gotten around to uploading. So I grabbed the memory card, put it in my card reader, and held my breath…and it worked. Over eighty videos, many I hadn’t seen since the day they were taken.

This will be one of the first videos I show Danny when he’s older. It was taken on Christmas morning, after all the presents were opened and the toys assembled. So of course, Danny and Maddie wanted nothing to do with the toys. They were more content to play with the packaging and talk to each other in their special language.

if you can’t see the video above, click here

Who knew cardboard could be so fun?

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July 1, 2009 | in: Heather, Mike, the famous Madeline

Maddie used to LOVE bath time.

In her baby bath

In her bath seat in the bath tub

Then, one day, she HATED the bath. It was like a switch was flipped. Everyone told me it was fairly common for kids to suddenly hate baths, so we powered through it. I tried mixing things up. Sometimes I’d take her into the shower with me, so she could have the closeness and skin to skin contact. She didn’t really dig that, either, but she definitely liked it more than the bathtub.

She LOVED swimming though. Last summer Mike and I took her swimming in my parents’ pool.

Maddie and I last went swimming when we were in Arizona in March. I was so excited to put her in her new bikini, and she was obviously pretty excited to wear it.

Off to the pool

We had so much fun in the pool, splashing and clinging to each other.

There were big plans for this summer. Swimming lessons were on the docket. And the fashion!

Please, the lighting here is just not up to par!

sporty

I’m so glad I took pictures of her in the suits. With the exception of the yellow suit, it was the only time she wore them.

She would have knocked the water wings off of everyone at the pool.

174 Comments

July 1, 2009 | in: Friends, Heather

Anyone who has a blog that is open to the world (meaning, one that isn’t password protected), has to make decisions every day about what to share and what to keep offline. A lot of things aren’t shared simply because they’re dull. No one really wants to read about how many bowls of cereal were consumed in my house today (five). So that little factoid doesn’t get shared, but it’s funny – no one leaves comments insisting that we eat.

Then there are the things I don’t write about because I (we) am not ready to share them. I don’t talk about the three doctors whose care I am under, two of whom I see weekly. One of my doctors reads my blog every day. One of the doctor’s assistants calls once a week to check in. ALL my doctors know exactly how I am feeling, because they ask and I tell them. I trust them. They are medical professionals who know my entire history. Who actually DO know how many bowls of cereal were consumed in my house today, because it’s important that they know EVERYTHING.

Besides my doctors and my husband, there isn’t anyone else that needs to know everything.

I write about my feelings on my blog because it is my outlet. I keep my blog public because I think it’s important for people to see that grief is messy. It doesn’t fit in a little box. It doesn’t follow rules or steps. I know grief is hard to read about, but I’m not required reading. I KNOW that writing about what I’m feeling and going through helps people, because they tell me it does. And I know it helps me.

There may be a small few who think they have a complete insight into my life because I post 350 words five days a week. They are welcome to make assumptions, but so far they’ve all been wrong. Then there is the large majority who read my posts, have concerns, and instead of drawing conclusions, they reach out. They ask questions, voice their thoughts, and they do it with love and friendship. Those are the people that I hope always read my blog. They not only help me, but they help the hundreds of other grieving parents that gather here. So to them, I say, “thank you.”

To the others? You’re not worth my time.

316 Comments

June 30, 2009 | in: Heather, the famous Madeline

I’m turning into a hermit. Not in the traditional sense, exactly. I leave my house almost every day. But I hate leaving. When I leave, I can’t wait to get back. I can’t wait to put on the same clothes I’ve worn for twelve weeks, even though they stink and have stains on them. I long to lay on my couch and stare blankly at the TV.

I’m not finding comfort in anything anymore. Flipping around on the internet, my surefire way to escape, now makes me tired. I have thousands of unopened emails, dozens of unread text messages. I want to look at them but I just don’t have the stamina.

The only things I seem to have engery for? Envy and crying.

When I was on bed rest with Madeline, the only time I was allowed to leave my house was to go to the doctor. I remember sitting in my OB’s office, seeing happy pregnant ladies with their growing bellies, and being overcome with jealousy. Or when Maddie was in the NICU, I would constantly see happy parents going home with their new babies, and my body would become hot with anger.

This is so much worse.

Everything sets me off now. Seeing a child walking down the street with a parent, or a man buying diapers, or a plastic toy in the grass turns me into an ugly, hateful shell of my former self. I say that I wouldn’t wish this on anyone, but that’s not entirely true. If it meant I could have my little girl back? If a magical genie said, “OK, pick another family and they’ll lose their child instead,” there isn’t a single person in the world that would be safe. Even the people I know.

I felt guilty about this at first, but I realized that everyone who knows me or reads this would feel the same way. And everyone who knows me or reads this has already had a similar thought. “Man, that sucks, but better them than us.” Who WOULDN’T think that way? I know that, before Maddie passed, when I heard about a family that lost a child I would be so relieved it wasn’t MY baby that was gone. It wasn’t MY family whose worst nightmare came true.

So I’m slowly becoming a hermit, because I’m afraid soon I won’t be able to keep it in. So that the next person that says something well-intentioned won’t get me screaming in their face. So that the next person who rightfully complains online about their cranky child won’t get an expletive-filled email or comment. So that the innocent man buying diapers won’t have to see me glaring at him with my swollen blood-shot eyes.

Am I protecting others, or myself? I don’t really know.

339 Comments