Support

April 20, 2017

How do I do day to day life?  Support!  I have a wonderful support system. Scott and I are a dynamic duo.  He is my best friend and I could not imagine doing life with anyone other than him. I always knew we would get married.  Even in grade school.  Yes, we went to grade school together and started dating in the 5th grade. I bribed him, with scratch and sniff stickers, to be my boyfriend at a skating party. Of course, he couldn't resist weekly payments of scratch and sniff stickers!  We were destine to be together forever!

After dating on and off for years, Scott got down on one knee, in the parking lot of St. Pius, and proposed.  He arranged it to be as close to the day as possible that we would be an official couple in 8th grade.  8th grade is the year I knew I would marry him.  We got engaged our sophomore year in college.  We didn't want to be married in college so we waited till we graduated.  In 1995, we were married.

Marriage is a beautiful thing.  It is an adventure to say the least.  I am so glad that I am married to my best friend.  We have literally grown up together.  Scott and I were lucky enough to get pregnant on our honeymoon.  Some people may have thought this to be crazy, but not us.  I actually think it was perfect.  Since we had been together so long, it seemed normal.  Dan came along 9 months later. He was the sweetest cone headed baby boy to enter our life.  No one can prepare you for a baby.  You have parties and buy cute stuff but life with a baby is scary.  I remember sitting on the hospital bed crying.  The nurse said we were cleared to take Dan home.  I was like, "No".  I don't know how to take care of a baby!  First, he was a boy.  I didn't know how to take care of a boy.  Scott was there staring at me.  He was totally in control and ready to go home.  He knew what to do even though I was a mess.  I am still in awe of him.  So, out we rolled to our little apartment in Cincinnati.  I remember exhaustion setting the theme of our life at that time.  Dan wasn't a fan of sleeping by himself.  He loved to fall asleep nursing.  He nursed a lot.  I think he nursed more than normal but I didn't have anything to compare it to.  Scott was a trooper during the "nursing" stages of babyhood. Because Dan wanted to eat all the time, my boobs took a beating!  At one time, I think around week 2, I was ready to quick and change to bottle feeding.  Scott knew how important breast feeding was to me and took control.  He called a lactation specialist the hospital recommended.  I refused to talk to them but he did.  He explained what was going on and helped me continue nursing.  Scott even went to the drug store and bought this miracle stuff for my ****.  Lanolin!  Oh my goodness! This was life changing!  Scott was and is amazing!  Talk about support!  This man is the support hero of support.

Mary Kate came along a little less than 2 years later.  I remember Scott and I said, "Let's have another baby", and bam!  9 months later here came our spicy little Mary Kate! I remember the look on Scott's face when he saw that we had a little girl.  He cried when Dan was born, but the look on his face when he met MK was beautiful!  Daddy's little girl!  She was his little girl too.  Mary Kate was a good baby.  She definitely didn't eat as much as Dan and she actually liked to sleep...on her own. This was so opposite of Dan.  Another thing that was different was that she cried more when I held her and would immediately stop when Scott took her.  The excitement on her face when he walked in from work said it all!  MK is sassy and sweet.  She likes to be right all the time like me, but gets mad when we argue back that she isn't always right.  Even though Kate is daddy's little girl, Scott always backs me up.  I remember taking her out of dance class because of her sass and she would talk back to me.  I didn't care how stinking cute she was in her tutu, she was not going to sass me.  Scott supported me 100%.  Even though his heart melted when she ran to him crying because of mean mommy, he always had and continues to have my back.

Fast forward to my pregnancy with Maggie.  The third pregnancy wasn't as big as a deal as the first and even the second for me.  I was so busy with Dan (3) and Mary Kate(1) that I didn't have a lot of time to focus on enjoying my pregnancy with Mags.  I was overjoyed , don't get me wrong, I just didn't have time to sit and enjoy her growing like I was able to with Dan and Kate.  Then came week 18.  The first ultra sound.  Scott, Dan, Kate, and my mom went for the big reveal.  For me, the ultra sound was always the best.  I remember being cramped into the dark room with everyone, feeling excited to see my little baby, then hearing silence from the doctor.  My OB was amazing.  I loved the way he was with my kids and he was a Christian.  This was very important to me because he knew my beliefs.  I was ready for anything God wanted to give me.  That's easier to say than to deal with.  I remember Dr. Mike spending a lot of time around the brain/head.  He came back to it a lot.  He did the normal measuring and checking but kept coming back to brain.  Dr. Mike showed us 2 spots on Mag's brain that weren't supposed to be there.  He said they were cysts.  He also said that everything else looked "normal". He explained that the cyst typically indicated that there was a problem.  Babies with cyst could have a chromosomal disorder, like Down Syndrome or Trisomy 18.  Dr. Mike said there were test we could have done, but Scott and I were adamant that we would love this baby as is.  Mag's was made perfectly, just like God intended.  So, after the initial shock of being told that our baby could have a serious disability, Dr. Mike said that we would come back in 4 weeks to see if the cyst would dissipate.  He suggested that if they dissipated that the baby would be "normal". Without extensive testing, there was no real way to ensure this, but physically, the baby would be ok.

Scott was amazing during the grueling 4 weeks.  His stress and worry was through the roof but he kept it together for me and the kids.  The second ultra sound came and we decided that just him and I would go.  The cysts dissipated!  Yes!  We were overjoyed.  Dr. Mike went through and measured and checked stating everything was ok.  Relief.  That was the first big whammy of stress we had had as parents.  We didn't know that the punches would keep coming.

It's hard to put into words what Scott means to me.  He is so eloquent with words.  We made up a secret code word for our love when we were younger because the word"love" didn't execute how we felt about each other.  I think he smells like Hubba Bubba bubble gum.  Just typing that makes me smile.  There's nothing better than Hubba Bubba.

Sometime life just isn't fair...day to day business must go on...

April 3, 2017

 "To bad, sometimes life just isn't fair..." I have had a hard time coming up with words lately.  Literally, I feel like I can't come up with words to answer questions or ask someone for something.  I am sure it's something to do with grief.  Well, that sucks. Another sucky grief side effect.

There are no words for people who lose someone they love.  You can try to feel the way it may feel but you have no idea how they feel.  Each of us aren't even feeling the same way and personally, I don't want to burden anyone. That's sounds silly, but it's true.  I feel like the first couple weeks after Mags died, all I could do was talk.  Now...I don't want to, I can't, I am just...quiet.  I don't want to make people sad.  I don't want to make people uncomfortable.  For those who know me, I am pretty chatty.  Pretty perky.  I try to add humor to pretty much everything.  Now, I am probably a downer and that sucks.  I don't want to be a downer.

Mary Kate just turned 19.  She is the first one of us to celebrate a birthday since Mags died.  It was awesome to celebrate something happy.  I loved thinking of my time with her growing up, playing and juggling 3 kids all 2 years apart.  I was happy to celebrate my sweet MK. I was a little sad though. There would be no fight to keep Mags from destroying Kate's cake.  No keeping Maggie away from sitting on Kate as she tried to open her gifts. It was, what some may call, a "normal" birthday.  That was not a normal birthday party for us. I never said I was sad because we weren't all present.  Mary Kate actually was the one to say it out loud as a tear ran down her cheek.  I was proud that she said it.  It was her day and for her to say, "I miss Maggie", crushed my heart and made me happy at the same time.  She has words.  I love that she said what's on her mind.

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I am apart of a wonderful group of families that rally together to love on 1 specific family annually that has a child battling an life altering illness.  This is the I Run for Jonah.  Jonah lost his life on April 7, 2010 to congenital heart disease. At that time, I taught at Central and a wonderful group of teachers who organized a Run that would raise money for the Hoser family.  It was amazing.  Every year since then, Kim, Jonah's mom,  has chosen a family to raise money for and celebrate. We have had 6 families celebrated so far.  This year will be our seventh. This year, our sweet I Run kiddo, Allie, passed away this past week.  I have no words for the sadness I feel for her family. I know that Allie has no more pain.  I am overjoyed for that, but for the people she leaves behind, the battle has just begun.

 We will support Allie's family.  We will forever be connected. There may be lost words but the love, sadness, and support I give will be forever and strong. This is one reason I love the Hoser family.  For me, Kim was the first person I called when I found out that Maggie had epilepsy and was in the hospital.  She was also one of the first people I called to tell her that Maggie had passed away.  There are people in your life that you may not see on a daily basis, but you will forever be connected to.  I feel like this about my friend Kim.  I don't need to have the right words when I see her.  Sometimes I just hug her and that says everything I need to communicate.

Yesterday, I attended a celebration of donation.  The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center and Lifeline of Ohio teamed up for their annual Pinwheel Planting.  Over 8500 pinwheels were planted in honor of the transplants that have occurred at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center.  I was excited to attend and be apart of the volunteer group for Lifeline of Ohio.  As I mentioned before, Lifeline has been apart of MY Lifeline since Maggie's death. We chose for Maggie to be an organ, tissue and eye donor. One of the best decisions I have ever made. Any way, I didn't think it would be a sad event.  How could someone be sad at a pinwheel planting event?  Well, I was.  As I put the first pinwheel in, in Maggie's honor, the tears started flowing.  I couldn't stop.  I started to get mad.  I wanted my sweet Maggie to be there to help me.  Now, don't get me wrong, for those who knew Mags, would know that she would have been NO help! She would have plopped right down in the middle of that grassy planting area and started pulling those pinwheels out!   She would have been covered in mud.  I have made new friends through Lifeline that I will be connected to forever.  They are an amazing group of people and I love them like family. I feel bad because I was crying.  I felt selfish.  There are no words to say how much I miss my kid.

I do have some words to finish this up.  First, I want people to register to be an organ, donor, and eye donor.  https://lifelineofohio.org/become-a-donor/how-to-register/  It's so important to realize people have the chance to save a life. Even when you can't save the ones you love the most, you can make the decision to save someone else.  Wow!  That's powerful stuff.  I know Mag's legacy lives on through donation and research. Second, I want people to register for the I Run for Jonah race by going to https://runsignup.com/Race/OH/Pickerington/iRunforJonah . Lastly, LOVE!  Love deeply, love often, and try to love everyone.