Baby Therapy

February 19th, 2010 at ~6 am: Daddy holding Haley before she went in for surgery. Look how big she was! She was pretty zonked out with her binky, thinking "What are these crazy people doing up in the middle of the night?!?" I'm so glad she got to sleep through everything. She looked awfully cute in her little scrubs, as she did in everything.

Tonight I had some much needed Baby Therapy. After taking the dogs for a walk up the hill this evening I decided to run some little presents I'd gotten for Lauren Hildy out to John & Angie's house and hope that I could sneak in some baby kisses. Boy was I in luck! She had just had her bottle and a bath and was quite the happy little bright-eyed and bushy-tailed monster! I can't believe it's been 5 weeks since I've seen her, and she is so pretty, she even reminds me a bit of my Haley-bug. I got to hold her for almost 2 hours, and for the last half hour she was asleep and making all those adorable baby-sleeping-faces: smiling, frump faces, etc. I got to give her lots of smooches on the top of her head and on her chubby cheeks, and I got to rock her to sleep - something I miss doing SO much. She was even like Haley in the fact that when she got a little sleepy she wanted her binky, but then when she fell asleep she would spit it out and not want it anymore - so much better than when they insist on having it to be able to sleep! :) She is a sweet, beautiful little girl and John and Angie definitely seem like proud, happy parents (as they should be!)

I've been in need of baby therapy because we moved back into our house this Monday for the first time since Haley passed away (we've been staying with my parents, thank you so much for putting up with us for so long Mom and Dad!!) Clearly it's been a long over due move, and Chad is really happy to be home - but unfortunately I can't say the same for myself. I know I should like to be here, that I should be able to think of all the good, happy memories I have here with Haley-Cricket. To be honest it is good for Chad and I to be on our own again, but it's just not good to be here. All I can think of is how wrong it feels to be here without her. When I sit at the dining room table and eat my dinner that tastes like sawdust, all I can think about is the fact that her high chair should be there next to me. Our middle living room always had this awkward space that we didn't know what to do with until Haley came along and it was the perfect place for her pack n' play, and now there's that huge, gaping hole where she should be - filling up the living room with its awkwardness again but now it's 10 times worse. I can't bear to go upstairs where the carpet should be covered in toys, blankies, and her play-gym. And clearly her nursery is off limits, everything is just stuffed in there now, you can't even walk through there it's so full of swings, bouncy chairs, toys, etc - reminding you that once there was a baby who needed all these things, that they used to be spread all over our house. The guest bedroom next to the nursery is terrible too because it smells like all the good smelling baby stuff in the room next to it - wipes, lotions, dreft. Speaking of dreft, the laundry room is full of dreft and baby fabric softener sheets, not to mention that one of her blankies is still on top of the dryer and I can't stand to put it away. In the bathroom her whale bathtub that she loved so much looks at me every time I'm in there, looking useless and sad but if I put it away there will just be a hole in the bathroom where it belongs like there's a hole in the living room where the pack n' play should be. And when I go to sleep at night, it should be with her night light on in the living room and the bedroom door cracked - listening for contented sleeping baby peeps and squeaks and always keeping one ear open for a little baby roo who might pickle in the middle of the night to tell us she's hungry for some bottle. The silence that fills this house now is louder than any cries that it ever contained before. In fact it's so loud that I can't sleep at night and have to read till I pass out so the deafening quiet doesn't keep me awake. I love this house but I hate this house. It's time to move out. Now if only our Columbus house would sell so we could.

Yay Wisconsin!

Sorry for the delay in posting for the second week in a row, but we flew to Wisconsin yesterday and I was too excited once we got here to sit down and blog - we haven't been here to visit Chad's family in over a year! And since we are visiting, I don't have my computer with me with all of my millions of Haley-Bug pictures on it, so instead I will post a picture of our cutie-pie niece Kylee who we are visiting. :)

Here she is playing with Trip's leash, looking like the ornery little peanut she is! She is a crawling, pulling up, walking while holding onto fingers, cheerios eating, 12-hour sleeping, jibber jabbering machine! I can't believe how much she's changed in the 2.5 months since we last saw her, Melissa and John are lucky people to have such a happy, healthy baby-roo. :)

And speaking of lucky, Kylee is lucky to have healthy, happy parents who love her more than anything too. The other day I was lamenting to my Dad about how it was so frustrating for me to see all those hundreds (and I'm sure thousands) of babies at Children's Hospital who were there all by themselves, all day long, with no one to hold them or visit them. I struggle with moments of rage towards the parents of these children and think that they truly don't deserve them. Why didn't our sweet Haley-bug get to come home with us when we took the best possible care of her we could and spent every minute loving her and praying for her? But those other parents, who don't even visit their babies, just get to show up on discharge day and take home this little baby who probably never or rarely gets the special attention it most likely needs? I think I should get to take those babies home with me, tuck them in my pockets and run away with them. It's just so unfair.

But then, at the end of my tirade, my Dad wisely pointed out that wouldn't Haley rather be a baby who only lived 5.5 months but who was loved ferociously every single second of that time, and who had attention lavished on her and tons of people to love her and pray for her and take good care of her, than be one of those babies who might have gone on to live a long life but who didn't have anyone who loved them enough to even come visit them at the hospital and who probably went home to neglectful environments if not worse? Would you rather live a short but wonderful life or a long and miserable life? And I guess I knew the answer to that, and while I still don't think those people deserve those babies (and I've learned recently that most of those babies are given up for adoption because the people usually don't ever show up to pick them up from the hospital), I now realize that truly I am still luckier than they are and our Haley-Bug was certainly luckier than their sweet babies who are the ones who truly deserve better.

The Wednesday Weekly - one day late!

This video is a little bit silly, we're all trying to get Haley to wave again on video (she'd waved 4 times at 4 different people earlier that day!) but of course she had stage fright and didn't want to cooperate! But I still think it's just too cute to hear her babble away, to her Mimi she loves so much. You'll note that when it comes to me she goes totally quiet - she loved to laugh and smile for mommy, but she liked to talk to everybody else! Don't get me wrong, she'd talk to me every now and again, but usually she saved the long chats for Daddy in the evening when she needed to catch him up on her day. I guess she figured I already knew everything she'd been up to anyway. :)

Earlier this week, Tuesday I think, I was flipping through the TV channels when I came across the new Documentary channel. I thought I'd check it out for a minute, and the documentary that happened to be on was about the average life expectancy in various countries. In the 5 minutes that I watched, they interviewed a woman serving a life sentence in prison with no possibility of parole. She talked about how being in prison and having no chance of that ever changing had made her finally wake up and live every moment to the fullest. That her goal every moment was to make it as good as it could possibly be and to make every encounter she had with each person she came across as positive as possible. She said when she met someone in the hallway she would think to herself "What can I say to them to make them smile?" As the interview progressed, she compared her life sentence to that of the life of a parent who has lost a young child. (You know your life isn't too hot when people serving life sentences in prison think to themselves "What could be worse than this? Losing a child, yep, that's about it.") She claimed that as with parents who've lost children, you just have to deal with the cards your dealt and keep on living. There's nothing else you can do. And she said "I'm not miserable. I'm not happy, but I'm not miserable either." And when she said that, I realized that at that moment her comparison was true so far as I was concerned. On Tuesday, when I was watching that documentary, I may not have been happy but I was no longer miserable. And while I feel confident that I will have miserable moments again, probably even miserable days and miserable weeks, I hope that I will no longer have miserable months and months. But I also hold out hope that one day we will be happy again. That someday there will be a better description for my life than 'not miserable.' But, for now, I'll take it.

Breakfast (Never before seen on the Daily Haley, only on facebook!)

"Hmm...what should I have for breakfast this morning?"
"EWW! Not that icky formula! I like breastmilk, Mommy!"
(Well, there should be a 3rd picture of a satisfied looking Baby-roo who got her way and had a tasty breastmilk bottle instead of an icky one with formula mixed in with it, but for some reason Blogger won't let me upload it right side up - only side ways! So this is all for now. She really didn't enjoy that transition much, and I was very sad breastfeeding didn't last longer for us as well. But formula sure did help her sleep at night!)

Well, today I went back to the vet school for the first time in (I think) a year. It's incredibly difficult to think it's been that long, it sure seemed as familiar as if I'd just been there yesterday. I went back to take Farrah for her annual cardiology check-up, she has a common feline heart problem called Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy (HCM) and is in a study with one of the cardiologists up there, Dr. Schoeber. All was good on her check up, her heart disease does not seem to have progressed since last year which is always good news. Somehow today almost felt more normal than any other day has in the last 2+ months - driving someone to the cardiologist in Columbus. Until today I'd never connected the fact that Haley-bug liked Farrah best of all the pets and that Farrah liked Haley-bug best too, my two heart babies. I only wish it was Haley-bug that I'd gotten to take to the cardiologist today (no offense Farrah).

It was fun to get to catch up with some of my favorite vet school friends today while I was there - Nicole, Matt, Dr. Green, Dr. Cober, Dr. Scansen, and Dr. Schoeber. Nicole was trying to convince me to come back and do a Rad Onc (radiation oncology) residency, and I have to admit part of me was tempted. But only a very illogical part, because what use would a Radiation Oncologist be in Logan, Ohio? Very little. But still, I do love Oncology and I miss my Nicole!

On a side note, this past weekend when we were up visiting Katy & Greg for their Kentucky Derby party, I was browsing in my favorite store - Fritzy Jacobs - when I discovered this adorable plate which I just had to buy and now eat my lunch on every day! It was just another little bit of Haley, popping out in one of my favorite places (one of the few public places Haley ever got to go!) and reminding me that she is always with me. Lady Bug decor seems to be everywhere this spring, maybe it always is and I've just never been so attuned to it before, but I'm grateful for the abundance all the same.

Lately I've been avoiding telling people, who don't already know, that Haley passed away. So long as they only ask questions in the past tense, such as "Did you have a boy or a girl? What name did you pick? Isn't having a baby wonderful? Are you managing to work full time?" I just answer them with the truth, we had a beautiful baby girl, Haley, yes - having a baby is the most wonderful thing in the world, and yes I am working full time. I just don't have the energy to correct them, and I imagine eventually they'll figure it out. If they keep prying, or ask other questions like "How is she?" etc, then I will tell them, but otherwise it's just easier not to. Maybe this isn't healthy, avoidance or something, but it's just too emotionally exhausting to explain to 1 or 2 new people a day. Pity is exhausting. I know they're sympathetic, but their pitying looks just rip my heart in two. Or people who you know know but who are obviously trying not to bring it up - but they can't help but give you these awful pitying looks. Then it's just better to get it out in the open. We think about her a million times a second, so there's no need to worry about bringing something up and making us sad. I'm always thinking about her, I'm always on the cusp of sad, and I've learned that I can cry a million times a day for a second at a time and move on. But those pitying looks when people think they're avoiding the topic and making you feel better, boy is that the opposite of how it works out. I want to talk about Haley, especially about happy Haley memories. I want everyone to remember her and how wonderful she was and is. So please, feel free to talk about her, and don't mind if I cry a little bit - it happens all the time.