You Can Never Go Back...

 This is a hard post for me to do.  I have waited a long long time to do this.  I could not bring myself to write this post and show you these pictures until today.  I do this today because a very very dear friend is living what I have been living for the past nine months.  Yes, Mackenzie would have been 9 months old today.  I needed to post these pictures so my friend would know what she may possibly receive from the hospital after...  I also "know" (online) another family who is also living with the knowledge their daughter will become an angel.  I wanted to show you this so you know about some possible options.  I don't know if every hospital offers these services, but it doesn't hurt to ask, you can never go back.  

The reason I knew of these beautiful and precious gifts is because a young mom that I worked with (whom I now call one of my dearest friends), posted her son's precious memories online a few years back.  Her willingness to share gave me the knowledge, and I was able to ask the staff and social worker about these items, I'm so glad I could...  you can never go back.

The first items you see here are from my "mommas", yes that special group of online friends.  They all got together online and had some special gifts made/had made for Mackenzie.  I will apologize to a couple friends, there are a few gifts that I missed because they are on display in my house and not in my memory box, so I missed taking their pictures.



From my Mommas

Mackenzie's Quilt

                                       

Mackenzie's Doll and Bear

(The bear I received from Thyme Maternity

when Kim and I went shopping together,

 the week before I had Mackenzie. 

We both received a teddy with our purchase. 

Kim's precious Ally now has that same teddy bear.

I've tickled Ally's cute little nose with her teddy...)

Pendant made by Ven

From the Grey Nuns Hospital, Edmonton

Certificate of Life

Coming Home Outfit

(I purchased this a couple months before my due date.)

Mackenzie's Hands

Mackenzie's Feet

Mackenzie's Hand Prints

Mackenzie's Foot Prints

(The pink blanket in the background is

the one she was wrapped in at the hospital.

I keep it in my top drawer.)

Mackenzie's Hat and Hospital Band

Mackenzie's Bassinet Card

 

What I wish I had...

is a lock of her hair...  the staff talked about that with me before she was born.  Mackenzie never had a lot of hair, but I wonder if we could have had just a little bit.  My heart aches that I don't have that.  It breaks my heart that it's to late.  You can never go back...

So if, unfortunately, you ever know someone who goes through this traumatic experience of loosing a child, you now have some knowledge to share with them about some beautiful keepsakes.  Share this knowledge with them in a gentle, loving way.  You can never go back...

Happy 9 months my little angel, Mackenzie!

I know you were peeking out from

behind some clouds today,

two of my mommas saw you.

Much love, Mommy

XOXOXO



Rockin' Anger

Well for a step in grief I wasn't really sure I was even going to get to, I'm really rockin' this anger stage.

This week it's insurance.  Specifically "Life Insurance".  I am not looking to make a buck off my family tradgedy, but looking for some knowledge, even so I can pass the information on to someone else.

My mom and I had a talk a while back about insurance benefits.  She encouraged me to check what my policy is through work.  Well, I finally did.  This is the answer I got... this is not quoting the book, but just a sum up.

Basically my insurance covers myself, "1" spouse (really they specify one!), and any dependant(s) for accidental death or dismemberment. 

The definition I found for a dependant (in relation to this topic) is:

Dependant - a person who depends on another person or organisation, etc.  for support, aid, life or sustenance...

Apparently according to insurance, Mackenzie was not my dependant.  Please explain to me how the baby I gave life to for 38 weeks was not dependant on me???  Really?  In the eyes of the "powers that be" of the insurance world, Mackenzie was not my dependant not only because she didn't breathe outside my body, but she didn't breathe outside the hospital walls. I am the only person who thinks that is absurd???  A baby has to be taken outside the hospital by his/her parents in order to be considered a dependant.  I don't even want to know what the life insurance company would say had she born alive, and passed away suddenly hours after birth...

I understand they need to draw a "line" somewhere.  But come on!!!  If Mackenzie would have been born at that 21 - 24 week (can't remember the exact week that they determine a "fetus" viable outside the womb) they would have done everything humanly possible to save her.  Yet, at 38 weeks, she gets nothing!  She is still considered a fetus.  I'm sorry, but she did breathe.  She was breathing inside of me!!!!  She was my dependant daughter.  She depended on me to breathe so she could breathe, on me to eat so she could eat.

When the nice lady I spoke to read this information to me on Tuesday I politely said, "OK, I understand."  It took me a full 48 hrs to process.  I brought this subject up at coffee today with my wonderful coworkers.  These women are moms too.  They were also disturbed by this fact.  Pointing out that if I would have wanted to terminate, she would have been considered a fetus, not a baby.  Had she born a premie, she would have been considered a baby, as early as 21 or 24 weeks gestation.  Where is the support for bereaved parents who have lost the most precious person (along side their other children) in their lives????

Why do these babies get treated like they didn't exist?  All I heard when being told this information was, "She wasn't really your daughter."  No one said that out loud, but by telling me Mackenzie was not my dependant, that is what I, the mother of a baby born to God, heard.  Seriously, there is something wrong with this whole picture.  We, parents who've suffered tragic losse,s don't need to worry about the costs of the trials and tribulations we're facing, we can barely function.  This is when "Life Insurance" is needed the most.  As one coworker pointed out, it's called "Life" insurance for a reason.  It's to help support those who are living, not the ones who are... well, dead.  Other wise it would be called "dead insurance".  I can't believe I pay for "Life Insurance", when it wasn't there for me when I lost such a precious life.  What a slap in the face.

Besides all this... the lady that I talked to asked me why I was concerned.  (I did tell her that I was just interested to see what the policy stated and that it was probably to late if there was any help to be applied for.)  I told her I just wanted to know, since we did incur expenses.  Can you imagine what she asked me?  She asked me, "Well, what do you mean that you had expenses?  Didn't the hospital provide you with options to reduce cost?"

*   *   *

Did you catch your breath?

Um Hello???  Any body home?  I felt like asking her if she had kids, and if so what expenses would she have if one of them, Lord forbid, were to pass away.

I told her that yes, the hospital did tell us about our option to have Mackenzie cremated in a mass cremation and burried in a mass grave somewhere in Edmonton.  Oh, but we would have been told where... yippee.  I also told her that was not an option!  I can understand some people are OK with that, but not us.  We couldn't even imagine her being "alone" in the cemetery 5 minutes from our house.  That's why Grandma gave us her extra plots and Mackenzie is burried right beside her Great Grandfather.

As for other costs, I said, "uh, we had to have her transported from Edmonton to Killam.  We had a funeral, and we bought her a headstone.  I would never have not done any of these things.  I was ready to spend our savings on whatever we had to, in order to honour our daughter properly.  We are fortunate to have such wonderful friends and family who stepped up and donated memorial funds that we put towards her memorial marker and amazing parents, who did incur the remaining costs for us (of course they waited until after everything was said and done to tell us).  And I didn't spare a thing.  When we met with the florist I ordered what I wanted, without considering the cost, because I needed everything to be as beautiful as Mackenzie.

There so many other costs that our families had that i didn't even mention to this woman, like:

· my dad's flight from Fort Mac to Edmonton.

· my dad's flight back to Fort Mac from Edmonton.

· all the driving back and forth (especially for my dear friend who drove me, Anna and even Jeff around)

· the lost wages for both Jeff and myself

· and the list could go on and on.

· besides all that, how do they know that we didn't have to stay in hotels, eat out, etc.???

Don't get me wrong here.  I don't want the money.  That's not what this is about.  This is about the loss of humanity and decency.  This is about the loss of "life".  The loss of rights for these little angels.

I would hate to imagine a family, much like my own, who doesn't have family near to help with these expenses when faced with a similar situation.  If we didn't have money tucked away, and had no family to help, would we have had to choose that "cost reduction" option?  Would that choice be made because there are no funds? and your Life Insurance company is not concerned with the life of a 38 week gestation baby, who is called to God before ever taking her first breath outside the womb?

Mackenzie was my daughter, my dependant from the moment she was conceived.  And no, I will not let some heartless "Life" Insurance agency deny me of that.  I just pray that none of their employees, or reps or whom ever makes those decisions at these big firms, EVER EVER has to go through what I've gone through.  I hope those decision makers don't EVER have to face a friend or family member who is dealing with the loss of their oh so dependant, baby.  Cause if they do, that's when they'll realise just how dependant the lives of these quiet, anges are. 

Mackenzie, my sweet baby girl, mommy knows just how precious you are, so precious to me, daddy, Anna,, your entire family and so many friends.  Most of all, you are a child.  You are a child of God.  God hold us all in his arms, where we can feel one anothers love.

Not even a sparrow, worth only half a penny, can fall to the ground without your Father knowing it. 

And the very hairs on your head are all numbered. 

So don't be afraid; you are more valuable to him than a whole flock of sparrows.

Matthew 10:29 - 31

Happy Valentine's Day!

I best start this post with some really cute pictures...

Playing drums

flying kite with daddy

Anna is the one and only child at our church,

so she gets to ring the bells.

baking cookies with grandma

Anna sleeping with all of her stuffed animals on the kitchen floor.

Making Valentine cupcakes with mommy and grandma.

Opening a Valentine from an April friend! 

She was so excited!!

Sleeping with Austin bear, (named after her big cousin)

and Mackenzie bear.

A family photo.  a little blurry, i think the camera

couldn't focus cause there was to much movement.

Last night Anna needed a brown heart sticker.

She put it on her chin just like Grandpa's (Jeff's dad)

facial hair!

Ok, we started with cute pictures of my "warrior princess".  What a day!  And it's only 2:45.  She screamed and cried while she was supposed to eat breakfast, so I took her to get dressed, where she continued her tantrum.  Anna ended up packing her oatmeal to go and continued the festival of screams in the car.

She was fine when I dropped her and her cute cupcakes off at daycare.  When I picked her up after work, she started right where we left off this morning.  Crying and screaming... what the heck?  We were supposed to have a play date with a friend this afternoon, and because I needed lunch, Anna and I were going to go to Subway first.  Well, I put on my mean mommy panties, and told her that if she couldn't be nice we were cancelling.  And we did!!!  I've never actually followed through with that big of a threat!  I had to call an out of town friend and explain.  She was the sweetest, and totally understood. 

When we got home, I laid with Anna in her bed for a while, another first.  I usually lay with her on the couch so she doesn't cry.  She eventually got back to sleep and I snuck out.  I'm hoping in a few days, I can skip the laying down with her part... but I need a rest too ;)

So now I have time to write about my great day because the "warrior princess" is sleeping

 and I have time for me.  I should be exercising or cleaning the stack of paperwork on my kitchen counter...

I hope you had a Happy Valentine's Day!

Yellow Skin

Sorry I haven't been around much lately.  I've been really enjoying life, and keeping busy with my family, work and exercise (got back to running/jogging).

So here's where we're at:

My mother in law has been stating to me for quite some time (over a year) that my skin is very yellow.  I kept brushing it off.  Well, I finally mentioned it to my doctor in early December, so we did some blood work.  First round everything came back normal, kidney functions, liver functions... etc.  So we did more blood work so we did another round the following week.  My wonderful doctor left me a message that my beta carotene levels were 10.6.  He stated that "normal" is between 1-5!  YIKES!  He had given me an article from a medical magazine about yellow skin and it suggested the beta carotene's could be high because of my diet.  So in his message he said to take a look at what I'm eating.  So to make a long story short, I figured out after about a week that it wasn't my diet buy a vitamin type supplement that I was taking.  I went in to see the doctor again, and he had another doctor sit in on my appointment for a consult.  They both said that it is rare to see an adult have that high of beta carotene levels and that it's usually young ones, who eat to many carrots when first starting solids, who we see with orange noses.  They were both a concerned.  I showed them the supplement I was taking and they both told me to stop taking it immediately and it was definitely part of/the cause of the problem.  Turns out each capsule has 1.8 mg of beta carotene and  I was taking 4 a day.  Seems like my body can't handle that much, and my liver and kidneys can't process it fast enough.

So I stopped taking the supplement right after that appointment.  A few weeks ago my mom called.  She told me that she had been doing some research.  She asked if I remembered that she had "hemochromatosis".  I didn't recognize that word at all.  She went on to explain that it is a type of liver disease that is "Unfortunately, Neonatal Hemochromatosis is usually deadly to the fetus (unborn baby) or if born alive, kills the baby in the first weeks or months of the baby's life due to complications of the toxic amounts of iron in the baby's body.   A liver transplant can, in some cases, save the baby's life and/or a combination of special drugs.  Occasionally, a baby will "overcome" the effects of NH and survive without a liver transplant.  It is imperative that the baby is treated by physicians familiar with the disease or physicians willing to consult with experts familiar with this disease.  A woman may have one or more healthy children in her life before having an NH baby.  A woman can have a healthy child after an NH baby, however, the risk of a woman having another NH baby after having her first NH baby is greater than 80%.  The good news is that new research has provided a treatment for such women who become pregnant again permitting them to have a healthy baby in the future.  More information on this miraculous treatment appears on this web site."  http://www.neonatalhemochromatosis.org/

Hmmm.. That's interesting isn't it?  I told mom I don't "need" a reason for the loss of my daughter, but I do need to know that it won't happen again.  The truth is, as I contemplate all these new findings, that a little insight into what may have happened is good...

Mom, was out here this past week.  I drug her to the walk in clinic to see my doctor.  I had recently had my beta carotene levels checked and wanted the results and I needed to ask him about this hemochromatosis.  We waited about 2 1/2 hours, but the staff know I'll wait to see my doctor instead of someone else.  There is just to much history to go over if I see a different doctor.  He gave me my new beta carotene level , 9.1.  So it has come down 1.5 in about 45 days.  Good??  I guess so?!  seems slow, and he said it could take a year or more.

Then I asked him what he knew about hemochromatosis.  I told him mom had it.  He looked at us in a kinda of stunned way.  This liver disease is genetic.  It can lie dormant in you and then become active, explains why mom had 3 healthy kids.  So I asked if I could be tested, and he said "Yes, you definately have to be tested."  I told him that I had googled it, and that I did read that it is fatal to babies of pregnant mommies.  And he nodded and said "yes".   Just before we left he said, "I didn't realize that your mom had this."  And I told him not to worry about it, it's not anyone's fault, cause I didn't realize it either.  Mom had told me to get tested when she was diagnonsed... but I was in college, more worried about exams and project due dates...

So I did more blood work.  I will know mid-week some results, like iron levels.  The major test gets sent to Edmonton for genetic testing, those results will a couple weeks.

Maybe I don't have this problem, maybe that's now what happened to Mackenzie.  And that's ok.  Even if I do have it, I will never really know what happened because we didn't put our little angel through any testing.  What I do know is that I was blessed by God to have such a precious, beautiful little daughter with me for 38 weeks in my womb.  I know that Mackenzie has forever changed my life, and that she is with me everyday.  For example, someone saw a rainbow at work today... if that rainbow was created in the way the kitchen aid poored stuff into a slop bucket or not, it was a rainbow.   Mackenzie has given me hope.

I know, that our Mackenzie was called by God, to watch over us in heaven, and that she has served a tremendous purpose in this world.

Wordless Wednesday

February 1, 2010

February 1, 2011

February 1, 2012

And for Fun!

(red highlight)



Grief Stage # 5 - ANGER

Anger  (this is #5, but since I just got here today, I figured I'd skip ahead)
I was told that I would go through this stage.  Actually, this is one of the first ones I was warned about.  People would comment:

"You may be angry with friends who are pregnant."
"You may be angry at the doctors for not catching things sooner."
"You may be angry when you here of others who are announcing their pregnancies."
"You may be angry when you see other women with newborns."
"You may even be angry with God."
"You may be angry at yourself..."

The book the counsellor gave me on grief, that explains these stages, suggests that I may be angry with Mackenzie died and left me alone...  well I don't feel that way, I'm not alone.  O that she caused me such horrible pain.  I don't feel that way either.  What ever happened to our angel was not her fault.

Anger is reasonable.  We are encouraged to find it, recognise it, acknowledge it, and express the anger.  It's OK to be angry, and I'm reading that I'm not supposed to feel guilty about it, which i do.  I'm trying not to let it consume me...  As the book says, I will live with it for a while, and then I'll let it go... when I'm ready. 

Thank you to a couple good friends who've really listened to my anger.  Even though I'm making excuses for it at the same time, your listening helps me express that anger.

I can't really get into the reason for my anger here, on my blog.  But let's just say, I'm angry at myself for being naive.  In what way?  a few... like taking for granted that a baby was going to arrive after 40 weeks, all healthy, and crying.  And well, there's more to it then just that...

*   *   *

On a happy note...

• today i spent the afternoon with Kimmy.  I picked up lunch and we ate at her place then went to the indoor play centre.
• I got to gab it up with a bunch of other fun mommies!  always a good time!
• I stopped at the small town thrift store "The Good as New" and found some treasures!  A .50 cent pair of Oakley sunglasses for Anna AND a $1 high chair thingy that has clamps on it so you can clamp it on a table!!!  And it's a Phil and Ted's!!  (that's a very good quality and pricey brand name of baby gear)  And this thingy matches our Phil and Ted's stroller!  so happy about that!  I love a great deal!!  As I would say to my mother in law "It's like FREE!!!!"
• I got to clean the house a bit this evening!  (believe me, this is something to be happy about!)
• Anna fell asleep on the way home, as I was coming up to the church I thought I would like to stop and pay a visit to Mackenzie.  It was nice.  It was quiet, except for the odd vehicle on the highway.  I always wonder if people who pass by when I'm there wonder why I'm here, who I'm "visiting"... 
• I choked back the tears as I sang Mackenzie's funeral song... "Away in a Manger"
• I got an email from one of my mommies that is coming out my way later this winter.  A group of us are going to meet up!!!  I'm so excited!!!  Two of the ladies I've met before, but one I haven't!!  This is a HUGE deal to me!  think of how you felt about Santa Claus when you were 4...  YAH!  that BIG!!

As I left that beautiful spot this afternoon I thought to myself how this often doesn't feel real to me.  How I feel like thishas happened to someone else.  Someone commented to me last week that she thought that this only happens to "bad" people.  You know the women who do drugs, smoke, eat terrible, our not taking care of themselves, drink, don't take their vitamins, don't go to the doctor... you know, those people, not ordinary people like me.  Sometimes I feel like I'm still watching a very sad movie.  You know those movies that you sniffle at, and hold back those tears?  And then, I go to her spot, Mackenzie's earthly resting place, and I see HER name printed on that memorial... Mackenzie Mary Erikssen... our baby's name.  I really try not to think about the little white casket, that lays under the ground, I strain to shut out the images in my mind...

Friday Night Leftovers - Playing in the Dark

What's better then taking your 2 & 1/2 year old outside to play in the dark?  We put handlamps on and the three of head out to explore our yard.  Everything is "new' a night.  We walk, pull Anna in the sleigh, watch Anna run down the driveway.  Every once in a while she "falls" cause "there is just so much snow mommy!"  yah, all 3' of it...  we also check out all the dear, coyote, and little critter tracks.

And we make...

SNOW ANGELS!!