A New Page

Hi All,

Just want you all to know that I made a new page on my blog for pictures of Ethan's Plaque. I have posted all the current pics I have. I will continue to post more as we continue through our first year and beyond when ever I have more I want to share. It's something I have really started to enjoy as one way to continue remembering my little Ethan. I won't ever have any other new pictures to share of my little boy so this is one way I get to create that for myself.  Hope you enjoy them.

Ami

Greatful Heart

So its been a while since I  have written.  I really don't like writing "just because I'm supposed to".  So sometimes my posts may be more sporadic than others depending on whats going on in my life and how I'm feeling. This has been overall a really good stretch of days. We have had a nice mix of baby loss activities and just "regular" life days.  As I sit and think about that statement I am even more amazed at just how many "regular life" days we have been enjoying this month. I know things will never be the same, but we are finally beginning to discover our "new normal".  The fact that we are not only able to function but are indeed beginning to actually enjoy life again is an amazing blessing from God.   Only he can bring us the true comfort and peace that we have experienced.  Now don't get me wrong (all you lovely BLMs out there) having the love and comfort of our heavenly father does not mean we haven't experienced the depths of human agony these last 4 1/2 months! I simply mean to say that I know we would not be where we are now in our journey without his love and comfort. 

I can not begin to say how thankful I am for all the wonderful friends we have in our church family,  I think about the fact that I only moved to Modesto a little over 2 years ago and how we have been blessed beyond measure with friends during these two years.  In the past when I moved (which I have done a lot of) I never was blessed with so many dear friends in such a relatively short amount of time.  I think that this was God's way of helping to prepare me for this journey that he knew I would have to travel on. He has given me the most amazing group of women to walk with me and I just simply am overwhelmed with love and gratefulness when I think about what they have done for my hubby and me and the rest of our family.  Even now,  my friends still talk about Ethan with me, still think of him, still go visit him with me. Today in fact, one of my girlfriends brought her 2 little girls with her and we went to visit Ethan. The girls have always had lots of questions for me about Ethan and it meant so much to be able to share his special place with them.  This is a picture from our visit today. 

 I know that many people would look at my life, the last 18 months and blessed is not the first word that they would use to describe it, but I am.  I am blessed beyond measure with the love of our heavenly father, my amazing husband, my parents who have truly suffered with us, and with all the wonderful women in my life who are shining examples of what Christ wants us to do, love one another. All I can say is thank you. 

October 15th Candle Lighting Event

                                                                     

                                                                       

Today, October 15th, was International Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Day. A day each year for all of our angel babies to be remembered and loved all over the world!

It was a very special evening for us. We went with our support group HAND to the cemetery and had the candle lighting graveside. It was so beautiful!  We met at 6:45 and at 7 0'clock we all lit our candles along with thousands of other hurting families all over the world.

We lit one for each of our children, our beautiful baby boy Ethan, and our little Alexis who we never got to meet. We also got to meet some new people that were not at our last meeting so I also got to share Ethan's story with them, which I love to do!

I am so thankful for the opportunity to remember Ethan and Alexis and be able to meet with others who share our grief, who truly know the pain of losing a child. I hate the circumstances that we have to meet each other in but I love the new friends and community of support we are beginning to discover!

                                                                    

Playmates in Heaven

I just wanted to share that I added a list to my blog with all the angel babies that I have come to know and love through our wonderful BLM blog community. To all the BLM mommies I follow, your angel's name are on the list as playmates in heaven with Ethan and Alexis. If I didn't list your angel's middle name it was because I couldn't find it on your blog. Please feel free to leave a comment if you are one of those mommies with your babies first and middle name so I can add it. Love and hugs to all! Hope your day is a peaceful one.

4 Months-Hills and Valleys

If you read my last post you know that my hubby and I were blessed to be able to getaway for a couple of days on the coast and it was wonderful! We had an amazing time, truly relaxed and just enjoyed one an other's company. Did not have an itinerary or agenda just did what ever we felt like. It was so nice, just to be able to "just be". We walked on the beach, watched the sunset, watched shows, cooked breakfast together, went out to eat a lot, and slept in! The place we stayed called Andril Fireplace Cottages was fantastic. Everything we could ever need or want was at our fingertips. A fireplace, a full kitchen, hot tub, flat screen, free wifi, even a ping pong table if we really wanted some laughs! And the beach was a 5 minute walk down the road. I can't say enough how much I loved our stay there!

The funny thing was, as nice as it was having a kitchen at our disposal we really didn't use it as much as I thought we would. We did make breakfast there, one morning but other than that we ate out for the rest of our meals. We just couldn't help ourselves, we love the area so much, so many good restaurants to enjoy! I am so thankful to hubby's generous co-workers for the gift certificate for our room cost so that we could indulge as much as we wanted in the yummy food department.

There was only one time during the entire 4 days that I struggled with at all, which is pretty good for me.  It was a beautiful Saturday afternoon, we were in downtown Monterey walking around enjoying the sights and sounds of cannery row and so was every other family on the planet. It felt like everywhere I turned there was another young couple or mother with her baby, all little, most of them in front carriers just like Ethan would be in right now.  Most of the time I was able to keep my distance and focus on other things but there were two different occasions where I came out of a store and they were right in front of me, one I practically ran into.  After the second time we both needed to step back so we went across the way to an area with benches farther away from the crowds so I could catch my breath. We sat there for quite a while, silent, leaning onto one another, with tears falling slowly down my face.  My hubby voiced my thoughts for me, "it should have been us".  Yes it should have been, but its not, instead we sat on the bench with empty arms wishing so badly things were different.  Holding onto the hope that someday they will be.

Today Monday October 11th Ethan would be 4 months old, I can't believe all of this time has passed already.  I went today with a dear friend to visit my precious boy and bring him a few little things.  Of course fall flowers. My friend brought him a cute little blue plastic jack-o-lantern to add to his bouquet and also a tiny blue toy train given to Ethan by her son, it was his toy that he had played with when he was little. I am so thankful for my family and friends who love me and my son so much. It makes my mommy heart so happy to know that he is loved and missed by so many.  I know that I posted this once already but I found a new video to go with the song "Precious Child" that I want to share in honor of today, my baby's 4 month "angel-versary".



Thank you for taking the time to listen and remember my little boy.

Ethan James Mishler born and died on June 11, 2010

Go Ahead and Laugh!

Okay go ahead and laugh! That is what we did when we saw this picture.  Hubby and I are on our first little getaway since Ethan was born. We are so thankful to the generous coworkers he has who helped pay for this wonderful trip.  My hubby took yesterday and today off so we could have 4 whole days together in the beautiful city of Pacific Grove, CA.  We took our time, had a leisurely morning and did a little grocery shopping before leaving town around 3:00pm.  We arrived in PG around 5:30 checked in and then headed over to Fandango, an Italian restaurant that we had a gift certificate for.  What a wonderful night it was, if you know us at all you know how much we both love our food, and this restaurant had amazing culinary delights at every course!  We started with escargot with a butter garlic sauce for an appetizer (a first for my hubby) then a spinach salad for two and finally the most fantastic scallops with fettuccine you can imagine!! Of course you can't leave this kind of restaurant without dessert so I ordered the chocolate mousse which was to die for and my hubby ordered the grand souffle.  OHHHHHHHH MY GOODNESS! SO GOOD!

To end the evening we drove over to lover's point and sat down on a bench to enjoy the beautiful view in front of us. I decided we should try to take a picture of the two of us. So we of course took out our phone and held it at arm's length for the classic shot.  Of course what I did not take into account was the ridiculously bright flash that our iPhone 4's have.  The picture you see here is the awesome result of this photo.  The minute we saw it hubby and I were in hysterics!  We could not stop laughing!  I would say it was at least a good ten minutes before either of us could speak or breathe properly.  We both laughed until we cried, literally! It was such a wonderful moment, to be together laughing so hard that our sides and stomach's actually ached.  This was the first time since Ethan's birth that we have done that and I am so thankful for it. To be together, without work, or house or animals to worry about, just us and 4 whole days of freedom. What a blessing! This is the one and only post I will be writing this weekend, but I simply couldn't resist sharing this priceless moment with you all.  Hope you enjoyed it as much as we did.

A quiet morning

I sit here on my parents couch this morning surrounded by 4 doggies. All of them vying for my attention and as we settle into the couch with a blanket, enjoying the crispness in the air I begin to think about how different this morning would be if Ethan was here. The cool quiet morning would be instead filled with the sounds of an infant, almost 4 months old. Cooing, and "talking" as little babies do. Perhaps some occasional fussiness over a wet diaper or a hungry little tummy. But mostly I imagine holding him and staring at his big chubby cheeks in awe, totally in love with this tiny little person that we created. Reality is of course so different, here I sit in this quiet room with 4 doggies on my lap instead of little Ethan...sigh what a sad and strange reality I live in.

Service of Remembrance

What a wonderful, yet sad day.  Today my husband and I along with my wonderful parents attended a Service of Remembrance which was put on by the support group we are going to, HAND. (Helping After Neonatal Death). It is for anyone who has lost a child at any time during pregnancy up to 1 year of life. We have met some wonderful people in our particular local chapter and a small group of us were able to go to this very special event. It was held in Saratoga at Skyline Park. It was about 2 hours away so not everyone in our group was able to go. I am so glad and grateful that we were able to. 

First of all the location was absolutely beautiful, I had never even heard of this park until this event, it is up in the mountains just a few miles outside San Jose. So amazing that just a short distance from a hustling city there could be such a beautiful place.  There was picnic tables set up with white table clothes, and a stage set up for speakers and poetry readings. As we arrived we were given tiny ribbons with a little rose on a pin with our child's name printed on them to wear during the service. We were also given a little memento and a candle to bring home with us. Let me remind you all that this is a completely free event run totally by volunteers, what an amazing gift to us, the grieving families!

Then the program began, with opening remarks by the HAND president and then the first music selection was played.  Throughout the program there were poems read, some written by professionals but mostly by other grieving parents who had written them in honor of their child/ren.  There were so many moments that resonated with me, its hard to pick only a few. However there are a few I must share with you particularly the musical selections. At the service they only played the songs there were no visuals but thanks to the wonderful world of YouTube I was able to find video versions for the songs. There was not a dry eye in the place during these songs so make sure you have tissue handy.

This first song is called Precious Child by Karen Taylor-Good









The other song that I really loved is called The Promise by Cindy Claussen.









Cindy is actually the writer of this song and also wrote a book for bereaved parents which is talked about at the end of the video. What is amazing is we have this book, it was given to us in the weeks after Ethan's death by a family friend and it is beautiful. I actually carried it in my purse for about a month so I could take it out and read it when I needed to.

So if these videos don't touch your heart, well then you are made of stone! Please feel free to share them within your own blog/facebook/email communities with anyone you like. Thank you to all the wonderful volunteers at HAND who helped make such a beautiful service for all of us and our babies. Love and Hugs to all the baby lost families who were there remembering with us. So sorry we had to meet this way but so grateful to have you all there with us, grieving and supporting one another. My heart is full tonight. To my little boy, Ethan and our first little angel baby Alexis, Mommy and Daddy love and miss you so much. We will fly with you someday!