A year ago today – Day 2

 

A year ago today I was laying in a hospital bed confused, scared, sad, mad, heartbroken and pretty much any other emotion you can imagine. Its something that really can’t be described adequately with words.. its something that you have to experience to really get it. And I hope you never have to experience it.

We arrived early at the hospital, our check in time was 7 A.M., Johnny and I walked up to the nurses station, the same nurses station that only 14 months before I had checked in about to be induced with our beautiful baby girl, only this time it was different, it was with a very heavy heart. The nurses were getting ready to change shifts as we showed up, the first nurse I saw I told her that my name was Heather Clear and I was here and they were supposed to have a room ready for me, instantly she knew who I was and walked me to our room, I was already crying, I stood in the middle of the delivery room feeling so lost and scared and she cried along with me. Her name was Amy, she was the nurse that would deliver Logan. Amy got both Johnny and I settled in the room, helped hook me up to monitors and left for the day. My parents arrived after taking Lexi to daycare and my dear friend Jen dropped everything to be at our side during this difficult day, we really are blessed to have so many people that love us. My doctor came in around 8:30 and explained that they would be inducing me with a pill that would be inserted vaginally, in very small doses and this would help put my body in delivery mode. It was at that point that I wasn’t so sure that I was ready to go through with this, I was so scared and no one had answers to the questions that I didn’t even know how to form into words. Dr. Langaker was so sweet and caring and really tried to explain everything she could in the most gentle terms but at the same time being very honest, it helped me along in ways that I wouldn’t understand until later. I asked her how long I could be waiting for Logan to be delivered and she said that it could take a really long time, it just depends on how my body reacted to the pills, but at 24 hours we could reevaluate other options,Thankfully we didn’t have to go down that road.

The day pretty much progressed with no progress. We were introduced to Coco McAtee, one of the social workers at Overland Park Regional, she helped guide us through some of the most difficult decisions we would have to make thus far. She was sweet, but you could tell that she was at a loss for words, I guess even when you deal with families who lose children everyday it doesn’t make it easier to know what to say. There were some insensitive people who were careless and didn’t pay attention to the sign the hospital had put on my door letting them know that there was a child who had died. The guy who came and took my blood for instance asked me if this was my first child and what our son’s name was, he said that Logan was a strong name and as he left he said good luck… as soon as he left the room I broke down in tears, he didn’t know, he couldn’t have known. Later that night the anesthesiologist did the same thing, he said that all the pain was worth it,  and in the end I’d get to take a beautiful baby home… again, he didn’t know. This time our nurse Heather was there, she came over and held my hand while the anesthesiologist talked about how wonderful babies were, she really helped me through that… it was hard to not say something, but it was even harder to say something.

I got to take a break from the pills and I got to eat dinner and visit with friends and Lexi was brought to the hospital for us to see. That really helped to raise my spirits in an otherwise heart wrenching day, to see my beautiful baby girl smile and laugh and ‘help’ me eat my vegetable soup, it was the only time that day I genuinely smiled.

Nurses changed shifts again and Amy came back into the room, the other nurse that was helping her was Heather, these two nurses were so great, in such a horrible circumstance they held my hand, they gave me hugs, they loved on me like they had known me for years.. they allowed me to grieve the way that I needed to, I only wish that more nurses could be that way.

We started back with the pills and doubled my dose at 8, I hadn’t really dilated and I wasn’t moving very fast, which I was thankful for… that meant that Logan was still with me for a little while longer. Finally the contractions started, I was asked so many times if I wanted to get an epidural… I refused for so long, finally I said the words that had been in my head and my heart the entire day… “why should I have relief from pain if it hurt Logan when he died?” Still, today I only hope that it didn’t hurt when he died, I only hope that something I did didn’t cause him to die (remember, at this point the reason for his death is unknown) I’m finally talked into getting an epidural and that is when I met the inconsiderate anesthesiologist.

Finally I drift off to sleep with tears in my eyes for what I know is going to come, my baby is going to be born, but he’s not going to cry, he’s not going to move, he has died.

A year ago today – Day 1

Sounds like the beginning of a novel.. right?? Honestly it feels like in the past year I’ve been living a novel… sure it has its sad moments… it starts out horrible and almost unbearable, but it has it’s happy moments, renewing moments, and, in the end I think it will be an ending that we can all learn from and appreciate, eventually.

Last year November 30th was a Tuesday. It was a day that changed my life forever. It changed a lot of lives forever. It was the day we found out that our Logan’s heart had stopped beating. I’ll never forget that day or the days leading to it, or for that matter the days that followed. Logan hadn’t been moving very much and so I made a very scared phone call to my doctors office. I had an appointment at 10:30, I was told that Logan had probably just turned around and so I couldn’t feel him kick. The nurse told me to lie down, drink some soda and focus on him moving. How was that going to happen? I was at work? So I go back to my desk and concentrate as hard as I can and try to make him move.. nothing.

As soon as we get to Dr. Langaker’s office we are taken back to a room where two nurses try to start a non stress test, finding a heartbeat and then determining the heartbeat was mine, those 15 minutes were some of the most intense, scary moments in my life, or at least I thought. Then, Jenny, the nurse midwife came in and tried to find his heartbeat, again nothing.. after another 5 minutes they all leave the room so we can get a sonogram to figure out what was going on.. both Johnny and I already knew… he was gone. We go to the sono room with the very same sono tech that told us that Logan was a boy… She squeezed the jelly on my stomach, put the wand up to my stomach and there he was, still. She tried to find a heartbeat, but nothing. I remember laying there and seeing out of the corner of my eye the tech look and Jenny and slowly shake her head. Then, Jenny comes over, gently touches my leg and says, I’m sorry there is no heartbeat, He’s gone. Those are words that will forever be in my head and in my heart.

How can my baby be gone? Why? When? Where do I go from here?

We are sent back to an exam room where we call my parents and sit and talk and cry. Dr Langaker comes in to explain that we can induce labor right now, tomorrow, whenever, or we can wait for my body to naturally go into labor. Johnny and I choose to Induce labor the next day.

So, one year ago today, I was sitting my on living room floor, talking and crying with my parents, hearing my dad say that if he could take Logan’s place he would and how he just doesn’t understand. I fall asleep crying and asking God to please make it a mistake and to Please please please have Logan start moving again…

One year ago today I started my journey, learning to live a life with a child in Heaven, a piece of my heart permanently missing.

to be continued…

Birthday party and a walk

This weekend we had an incredibly full, busy weekend. The weekend was also full of LOVE!

On Saturday we celebrated Lexi’s birthday. she turned 2 on Sunday. My friend Jen made her these adorable cupcakes and a larger bouquet.. They were awesome!.

If you like what you see and you want Jen to do some cakes for you visit her website here.

Here are a few pictures of the birthday girl

 

After Lexi’s party on Saturday. We put on A Walk to Remember on Saturday. It was an AMAZING day! So many new friends, so many lives touched. I’ve had so many people email me, request me on facebook. It was the first annual… next years walk will be bigger and better. We have already started planning with more idea. Here are a couple pictures from the day.

till next time folks

Scary and exciting

Hi all! Some of you know that and friend ( a HUGE shout out to Jen) and I are putting together a walk. A Walk to Remember. It’s on Sunday. I am so excited about this walk. I am also so nervous about this walk. It’s a little hard to explain why I am so nervous. I am giving a speech, but that isn’t the thing I am most nervous about. I think the thing that gets me is that there are other people who have invested money, who have set aside at least four hours to spend time doing something that I envisioned. It feels like these people have agreed with me that this is an important event. This the babyloss community needs awareness, needs support and needs something out there for others to take part in. There are 67 people who have registered for this walk. A majority of these people I don’t know. I’ve never met them, I’ve never spoken with them, but we are all connected. We all understand the pain, the grief, the emptiness. There are people who have registered that will have to drive an hour just to get to the walk. I had another lady ask me about the walk who would have had to drive over an hour and a half to come and participate. And to think that we didn’t do a lot of advertising besides of facebook and Overland Park Regional.

I originally wanted to do this as a way to do something with my feelings… I felt that God had chosen me, us, to take the loss and make something beautiful out of it. The Logan Clear Foundation might be several years away, but this walk was something that we could put together and do right now. In planning this walk it showed me that there is such a need for the support that TLCF would give. I’ve sent several emails to different attorneys around the metro asking if they could help me complete and file the paperwork to start the process to become a non profit and sadly I’ve only gotten, no, sorry, I’m no the right kind of attorney or the last one was, our plate is really full right now, but good luck.. really? You can’t even point me in the right direction? How difficult would that be??? But you know… God is going to provide this to me. I have such a feeling in my heart that this foundation needs to happen. No is not an option for me. It will happen.

Okay, I mentioned that I was going to give a speech. I’ll give you a sneak preview. Please be kind… these words are coming from my heart and reaching out to those who have suffered a loss whether directly or indirectly the pain is still there:

"If ever there is tomorrow when we're not together...there is something you must always remember. You are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think, but the most important thing is, even if we're apart...I'll always be with you."

-Winnie the Pooh

Thank you all for coming today to walk, to remember, to share. I know it takes courage to come out and speak about your loss, or losses. Some of you I know, some of you I don’t, but the one thing that we all share is that we have been affected by the loss of a child. We have all joined a club, a club that none of us ever wanted to join. A club that we never thought about until that day we were initiated. It’s not a club that I wish for anyone else in this entire world to join, but sadly, there are more and more members everyday. My name is Heather Clear and I became part of our ‘club’ on December 2^nd, 2010.

When Johnny and I lost Logan we were in complete shock, disbelief and angry. We were so confused as to how this could happen to us; my pregnancy had gone perfect, no issues, no signs, no warnings of what was to come. Logan was supposed to round out our family and make us a family of four. We have Lexi, beautiful and full of spunk a live wire, Logan was, in our minds, going to be the cool, calm and collective one, he was going to make our family complete! Never did I think that I would be a mom to an Angel baby.

It’s interesting how one can be going down the road of life, thinking that they’ve got some control... Life is happening the way they’ve planned, they must be doing something right! I was on that road… So happy because we were expecting another child, looking forward to all the memories that were going to be made, planning for the future; taking the him home, staying up at night and happily complaining because it feels like I haven’t had sleep in years, planning birthday parties, sleepovers, the first day of school, first loves, first heartbreaks, making plans on how we were going to be there to support and guide our child through, when in fact those are the memories that we will grieve over, they will never happen. The road of life often looks different when you look back on where you’ve been than it did when you first started your journey.

I thought this walk would be an important part of my journey, figuring out how to live life after losing Logan. It has been very therapeutic and also so much more rewarding than I ever thought it could be. I’ve made connections with other families who have experienced loss. I’ve found that I can offer support. I can be there for other people. I’ve discovered that I am still Heather, I’m just a different Heather.. I am still a positive person. I still smile, I still laugh, I still think that people are inherently good. But I also get sad when I see a baby boy that is about 8 months old, I get a little sad when I hear a baby cry, I get a little sad when I see little blue socks. I have a piece of my heart that is missing; no matter what we are celebrating or where ever we are there is a piece of our family that isn’t here. My life has more bittersweet moments than it did before and I believe that it always will. But I’ve also discovered some wonderful things, I love deeper than I did before, I have more compassion for others and I allow myself to be who I am.

I have had so many wonderful things happen to me in my life. And I know that there are many more wonderful things yet to happen. I believe that meeting all of you and sharing with all of you is one of those wonderful things. Thank you for welcoming me into this club with open arms full of understanding and full of hope. Thank you for joining me on my journey and allowing me to be a part of yours. I hope that you can look back on this day and remember it as a good day. A day that you might have cried a little, a day that you might have smiled a little, a day that you hopefully made a connection with another person who understands your grief, a day you found support you had been lacking, a day that you remembered.

 

I'll post pics of the walk on Monday.

Love to all!

Growing up

Our Big Girl

This past weekend I took Lexi for a little walk around our town. I took some pictures of her, like a mini photoshoot for an almost two year old. I can't believe she is almost two. It really seems like yesterday Johnny and I were bringing her home from the hospital. She is so full of life. She is so full of attitude. You can tell that she loves life. I don't worry about her being pushed around by anyone. She knows what she wants and she is determined to get it.

 

 

 

^{(so I totally had to put this pic in here... she has such a little sassy attitude, I'm pretty sure this look is trying to say, ummm mom, take the picture already, I feel stupid standing in front of this tree!)}

Lexi really helped Johnny and I work through losing Logan. She continues to do so, daily. She always makes us laugh. She shows us the joys of having a child. She gives us hope that one day we will feel we are ready to try to add another child into our family. But, she also shows us what it means to have patience, to have a parents heart when all you really want to do is run away because she know exactly which buttons to push and how hard to push them!!!

Love you Alexandria Rae Clear. You are the sunshine in our worlds.

Communication - huh?

Why is it so hard to communicate? Why does it take so much effort to clearly say the words you want to say? Especially to the ones that are closest to you?


Johnny and I have had some real eye opening experiences, not just recently, but really our entire life together as a couple. We learned early that we have to stick together in hard times, but that in itself is tough. When we lost Logan, right when it was happening, we were really good about talking to each other, about nothing and everything, our beliefs, where we thought this situation put us on our road of life, but that communication has wavered. I don't think that we are really all that different from most married couples. I honestly believe that everyone has periods in their life that they just can't put the correct words together and get them out of their mouths. Or you think the correct words are coming out of your mouth and it goes terribly wrong, you hurt each others feelings and feel even more flabbergasted than you did before.

I read a book once (don't remember the name of it) but it reminded us that men and women are completely different. Men look at life through blue shaded glasses and hear life through their blue shaded hearing aids, while women have pink glasses and hearing aids and since the opposite sexes are constantly seeing and hearing things differently the messages being sent are constantly being encoded and decoded wrong. That was a huge eye opener for me.

Although it is next to impossible to know how someone may take something you say, you have to have faith that you have encoded it with enough of the other color that it is taken right. You have to have faith that God will show you the words to say and have faith that God will show the other person how to read the signals you've sent.

Johnny and I do not have a perfect marriage, at all, but I do think that we are working on one of the most important parts of a marriage, how to communicate. It's a hard road and yes, feelings have been hurt. But in the end, we'll be able to look back and be thankful that we took to this road. Not just for our marriage, but for Lexi and our future children.

The take away from today's post... remember that everyone deciphers things differently. Be mindful of what you say, be mindful of how you say. Be respectful of each other and know that communication is hard and if at first you don't succeed, try, try again.

Happy Monday!

My husband and his daughter

I was looking through my phone today at all the pictures that have been taken... A majority them have been of my beautiful daughter.. and she really is beautiful.. its not just the mommy in me coming out.. we get stopped constantly to be told how beautiful she is... I hope that she will know how beautiful she is when she's grown.... Anyway other pics are if Mr Clear and Lexi. He loves his daughter... Completely and totally smitten with her might be a better description of his feelings toward her... And she thinks that no one is better than her daddy...  And when the two if them are our playing around their love for each other absolutely radiates!!

It reminds me how blessed I am to be marries to a man who puts his family first.

Right nor Mr Clear is down helping my parents remodel a home for my grandparents to move into. He took off from work to be able to help my parents. It just reminds me how much I love that man...