Unknown

Dear Baby Maverick,

I'm writing to let you know that not much has changed down here on earth. Your father and I have been waiting for the results from your autopsy. It is assumed that the cause of your problems is due to an unknown syndrome. An unknown cause leads me to be more confused at this point. We are sad because we will never know what caused your problems. We should be happy because this conclusion leads the doctors to believe this will not happen again to another baby. I'm confused mainly on how to move on at this point. Our waiting is over. Your due date is fast approaching. We will be celebrating your brother's third birthday the day before your due date. Those two days will be bitter sweet! When we received your autopsy results today, I became extremely nervous. I couldn't get the envelope open fast enough! Although all of the medical wording made it hard to read, we understood it perfectly. Now I need to bring a copy to two different doctors offices that are interested in the conclusion. You have stumped all of the doctors, Maverick and your mom and dad too! I can't seem to get you out of my head, sweet boy. I keep picturing your sweet face. I will write you again on your due date... I love you!

Love Always, Mom

Almost a month

Dear Maverick,

It's been four weeks and one day since you were born and we said "goodbye" to you. On your birthday, I looked ahead to today and thought about how far away it seemed. Today is your cousin Delia's first birthday, she is now a toddler and is almost ready to play "hard" with your brother and your cousins! I think almost everyone we come in contact with from time to time has heard about your passing. We have either told them or they have heard by word of mouth.

This past week at work was interesting. I was busy! I had planned on calling all of my clients to tell them that I wasn't pregnant anymore, before they had a chance to see my non existent belly. I forgot to warn a few people and letting them know face to face wasn't nearly as hard as I thought. People truly are sad and have told me numerous times how strong I am! I am strong! I am much stronger then my "old" self and am proud of it! Your dad and I are the first parents we know of, that have lost a baby due to complications. We are and have been living a life full of tragedy and I wouldn't change a thing about it! Life after losing you is surprisingly, sweet! I have told you before that life is sad for us, and it can be, but lately I feel it is better described as sweet.

Before writing you today, I browsed your pictures and shared them with your dad. I haven't looked at your pictures in a while and my first thoughts were that you were so cute! Then I noticed when I zoomed in, that you had a good amount of hair. It was fuzzy and light brown. I noticed in a full body picture how short your little arms were. To be measuring only a week behind on the ultrasounds, they looked dramatically short. Your hands landed to almost the bottom of your belly. The shortness of your arms and your clubbed feet are the most obvious complications that are noticeable to us in pictures. When you were born, the doctors showed us all of your complications. It is hard to notice some of them in your pictures, and if others were to look at them, they wouldn't notice them.

I feel that because you had complications and would have struggled so hard on this earth, it is easier to let you go. I know in the future I will write you less because I have to move on. In writing you, I am keeping your memory alive. Your memory will always be kept "wildly" alive in my heart! I will remember your sweet face until the day that I die! I will continue to write to you, but it will be less and less. I hope you are okay with me taking some time for myself and your family. I know you are at peace and playing with your "Me- Maw" and "Aunt Kay" in heaven.

Here are a couple of the flowers we planted for you. They are blooming beautifully!

Rest in peace, little baby boy!

Love, Mom

Father's Day

Dear Maverick,

Today is Father's Day. Your family will spend the day doing what ever your dad wishes to do. We have had a busy week at work and trying to get your brother accustomed to preschool. Yesterday we spent the day at the beach with your aunts, uncles and cousins and then had some friend's over for a cookout. Today is Sunday and the first chance I have had to sit down and write you all week.

I knew being back at work would make me too busy to think about you as much as I had the first two weeks after your birthday. I did think about you often, but was distracted and didn't have time to dwell on your passing. It has been over three weeks since your birthday and the time is flying by. I know your due date will be here sooner then if I was still carrying you in my womb. I'm honestly becoming okay with all of this. It's sad but nice that I don't cry over losing you hardly at all anymore. Sometimes, I sit and read about loss and then look at your pictures just to have a good cry, but I can't cry. I can't get the tears to surface, so I give up. I'm still sad when I think of you, but for some reason I can't seem to cry.

I guess to sum up how I feel about you is happy. I'm happy to have met you. I'm happy to be your mom. I'm happy of my success in overcoming the extreme emotions of your loss. I'm happy with my life, even now after losing you. I feel blessed to be your mom. I feel blessed to have your dad and brother in my life. I feel blessed to have the salon and all of my wonderful clients. I have some amazing friends and family. I have a huge support system and I guess I'm ready to move on with life, after you! I love you so much and love you more and more each day. I'm truly happy!

I know you are having so much fun in heaven, little angel baby.

I love you,
Mom

For the rest of my life!

Dear Maverick,

I'm so excited, my necklace arrived today!
I can now show both of my angel's off with this beautiful representation of love!
Introducing the necklace that I will have for the rest of my life! If we are blessed with more children, I will add to this masterpiece! Isn't it beautiful?!
I hope you like it, Maverick Jude! Sorry this picture cut off your birthday, your date stamp says, "5-27-11."

Love, Mom

My Angel on Earth

Dear Maverick,

I wish so badly that you could have been here to experience today with your family! Your brother attended his preschool program for the very first time! We are so proud of him! No tears and a successful fun filled day for your brother.

 

Here is your mom and brother before his school day started.

Your brother is very excited!

Here he is with his classmates eating the morning snack.

I sure wish you were here to experience this happy time with us! We miss you!

Love, Mom

My Angel

Dear Maverick,

I'm missing you very much. I went back to work today, which felt especially nice, but I feel like I am betraying you somehow. I can see with being back at work I may become too busy to think about you all day, every day. I am okay with not thinking about you all of the time, but I fear that once I get accustomed to thinking of you less, that it will be less and less... You get the idea and that idea just stinks!

At work, a lot of people asked me how I was. There are two truths to answering that question. The first truth and most common response from me is that I am doing very well and a lot better as the days pass. That is not a lie and is becoming shockingly true. The second truth is that I am still so saddened by losing you! I choose not to respond with the second truth because I know people want to hear that I am recovering and I AM recovering. I still, just miss you so badly! I showed a few people at work your picture today and they each commented on how perfect you were. Seeing your picture brought a few people to tears, which in fact makes me feel better! I love to see that people have true emotions over your death! I have so much emotion over losing you and to see how your death affects the people who care about your dad and I, just makes everything a little easier to cope with.

I ordered some books about a week ago and they arrived in the mail today. I ordered four books for myself and one for your brother. I am spending most of my free time, reading about how to handle losing you. I have found some very inspirational blogs written by women who have lost a baby.  It seems that most women recover extremely slow from the loss of a child and it is surprising that I am doing as well as I am. I feel like because we knew you were going to have problems for a month before losing you that it gave me some time to accept losing you before we were actually faced with it. A lot of women weren't given any knowledge on their babies having complications and a lot of their babies had no complications at all. I feel like their situations came as a complete shock and can really change the way a mother of a deceased child will cope with their loss.

I just wish I could have you back! I wish you could have formed perfect and grew to be a perfect, strong and healthy boy! I'm going to read your brother his new book, it will help him understand why you are an angel now and not a living baby. I can imagine your brother is extremely confused right now. He misses you too, Maverick. We all miss you so much! I love you!

Love, Mom

Teddy Urn

Teddy Bear Urn!

Baby Maverick,

It's been exactly two weeks since your birthday. I truly feel at peace knowing that your soul lives in heaven and your body lives right here where it belongs. I kissed you and hugged you before bed last night, which felt so perfect to me. I feel like such a blessed mama! I love you little boy!

Love, Mom

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