Accomplishments

Dear Maverick,

I want you to know how very proud we are of you! Here are some of the things we have accomplished in your memory..

We have your picture displayed (so far) in a picture frame beside your brothers on the bookshelf in the living room. We also have a picture displayed on the side of the fridge, so it can be the last thing I see everyday before leaving the house.

I have written a 34 page hand written story of your life. I will eventually type it up and laminate it in a scrapbook. Your story is very true to my heart and I wrote it mainly so I never forget any of the details of your short but precious life!

I have also made a memory book of pictures from when I was pregnant with you, ultrasound pictures of you inside my womb, and a lot of pictures once you were born. This memory book was the first scrapbook that I have ever made. It only took me an hour and a half to make and when your dad looked at it for the first time, he started to cry. I am so in love with your dad right now! Watching him go through the pain of losing you is hard but brings us closer then we have ever been. It's amazing to experience our love for you so strongly, together. I couldn't imagine sharing this love or these emotions with anyone else..

This dresser was going to be your changing table. I removed the changing pad I had bought for you and have turned this dresser into a memory dresser. The plant is a fern your grandma Joyce gave to us, after you were born, to represent your memory. We will watch this fern grow from week to week and hopefully year to year. The memory scrapbook I made is pictured on top of the "my Stuff" box that holds all of your belongings. Inside the box will be your memory book, sympathy cards we receive from family and friends, the pack of receiving blankets we bought to wrap you in, the baby doll outfit we bought to put you in (which was way to big), the gown, hat and the knitted blanket you were wearing when your dad and I first saw you. The hospital has volunteers that make these gowns and blankets. They are beautiful and I will never wash them, because I know it is what you were wearing when we laid eyes on you for the very first time.

This is a shelf in your nursery that had a few nick knacks on it. I have dedicated it to you and when your remains arrive in the teddy bear urn we have chosen, you will also live on this shelf. The sea shell is what the holy water was in when the chaplain performed your baptism at the hospital. Your baptism was so beautiful to us! The chaplain that performed it was a very sweet man, who felt very sorry for our loss and he himself has lost a daughter. He will never be forgotten and neither will the beautiful baptism that he performed for you!

Aren't these flower beds gorgeous? They are just for you, little boy! We went to a plant nursery to get these flowers to add to these three flower beds. $300 later... your Memory is planted and will grow in our backyard forever! I am very thankful your dad has the green thumb that he does, because I barely lifted a finger! :)

As you can see, a lot of our time has been dedicated to you! In just 13 days, so much has changed and will forever be changed! I will continue to think of ideas that will make you proud to be a member of this family!

Thank you for guiding us Maverick and being the guardian angel of our family! I will day dream of the moment we get to meet again, when I can kiss and hug you forever! We love you so much sweet boy! I will write you again very soon!
Love, Mom

Twelve days and making it!

Dear Maverick,
    This is your mom, writing you to tell you about the twelve days that have passed since you were born. I have spent a huge amount of time, missing you and being the saddest woman on earth! The first two days after your passing were, by far the toughest. Losing you has forced me to be stronger then I ever imagined. I'm sure your dad would agree that he is stronger then he imagined he could be as well. I'm three days away from going back to work. I'm ready to go back, but scared to face the people that knew I was pregnant with you. I know they all care for us very much but putting myself in front of them to view and judge is going to be tough. If I could stay away from anyone who knew I was pregnant forever, I would, but I know I have to get back to reality. I have to face the pain and look the grief of losing you, dead in the face! I keep telling my close friends and family the same things..
1) I'm now a mother to two son's but one is in heaven and
2) I have to be strong for you (because I'm still your mother) although you are not here with us on earth.

We have received a lot of beautiful sympathy cards and some flower arrangements. Some of our friends and family are distancing themselves from us a little. I have read that this is to be expected because people automatically assume that we need our space to grieve. That is not the case, at all.. In fact, when people distance themselves from us right now, we feel like crap. We miss you so much, and want to talk about you and be talked to about you all of the time!

About your birthday...
I want you to know how beautiful you are to us.. In heaven, I have been told, you will be perfect! A new you will form there and you will never have any of the complications you would have had here on earth. Although those complications would have been the "real" you on earth, your dad and I LOVED them all! You were perfect to us! B-E-A-U-T-I-F-U-L!! So cute!

I miss the way you felt in my arms. I miss your sweet skin. I miss your little hands and feet. I miss the way you smelled. I missed your little pouty lips and wish I had an eternity to kiss on them. I miss your little blonde eyelashes and your full blonde eyebrows.

I wonder what your hair would have looked like? Would it be like your older brothers when he was born (at full term)? I wonder what you would have been like as a living newborn? Would you have liked a pacifier, like your brother? Would you have enjoyed nursing, like your brother? How much would you have weighed? Would you have outweighed your brother at birth? Would you have slept through the night at two months old, like your brother? All of these things and so many more, we will never know.

Although we would have loved the chance to have known you as our living son, we now have to learn to be grateful for knowing you at all..

I'm thankful for the time we got to spend with you after you were born. Although you had already passed onto heaven, I am so very grateful for those nine hours I had with you! Saying goodbye to you and watching the nurse roll you away in the hospital bassinet had to have been the hardest thing your father and I have done, EVER! We imagined in the hours close how hard it would be to actually say goodbye to you, but when it was happening we were both so incredibly sad! So sad!

We love you Maverick Jude! We will miss you forever! We will think about you everyday for the rest of our lives! We promise to tell your brother about you when he can better understand why you aren't with us here on earth. I promise to write you again very soon.

Love, Mom