One Month Ago Today...

January 28, 2011...

One month ago today, my world stopped. The sun stopped shining, the earth stopped turning, and though in all actuality, it beats as well as ever, I am pretty sure my heart stopped, too.

I talk about Leila a lot, because I don't know what else to do. If talking about her makes others uncomfortable, then I am sorry. But she was my daughter, she was everything I could have ever wanted, and my time with her was so brief. I want to be able to remember every tiny little thing about her: from her teeny tiny little finger nails on her loooong skinny fingers, to her cute little nose, to her dark peach fuzz hair, to her skinny little legs and her adorable little feet.

I don't want to forget a thing.

It feels like just yesterday the doctors were starting to be more positive about Leila's fight. I remember joking with her doctor about how stubborn she would be as a teenager. I remember laughing and smiling and dreaming about her future. Can it really be true?

Has it really been one month since we said goodbye?

I am reliving those moments again and again right now. I remember walking down the hallway to her room. I remember the look on our favorite nurse, Donna's face. I remember looking at Leila's body. Knowing that something was wrong. Knowing what I didn't want to know.

That she was hurting.



Before Leila passed away I had received a link to a story about a premie baby girl. The story talked about the daughter's struggle and the parents' pain, then about how she grew into a happy and precocious little girl. One day when at a baseball game, the daughter asked her mom, "do you smell that?" The mom looked around and said "Yes, it smells like rain." The little girl said "No, mom! Do you smell that smell?" Again the mom said "Yes honey, I think we are going to get rained on soon." Finally the little girl says, "No Mommy. It smells like God, when you rest your head on His chest."

As soon as I read that story, when my Leila was still alive, I imagined that God was in her isolette with her. Holding her, breathing His healing breath on her. Comforting her. Any time her fight got rough, I told myself that God was holding her and taking away her pain. I told myself that she talked to God and He talked to her.

After she died, I found myself wondering if God was there with her. I wondered if maybe she told God she was ready to go.

If she chose.

I think I would feel better if I knew that she had told God she was ready, and that she didn't want to fight anymore.

I hate the idea that she just died. No sense to it, just death. It feels so final.

I want to believe that while she was resting her head on God's chest, she told Him she didn't want to fight anymore. That she wanted to go to Heaven and play with angels. That she loved her parents and her brother, but that even she understood that we didn't want her to suffer.

I think she gave us those last few minutes with her, to love on her and hold her for the first and last time, knowing that she was going to go home to God.

I pray with every fiber of my being that she is happy. That she will get some semblance of the childhood that was taken from her. That she will get to do all the things she never got to do down here: like run and play and laugh and cry and eat. And see.

I really hope she can see.

More than anything I wanted to see her eyes. I knew that they were still fused shut because she was so early. Because they weren't ready. I had prepared myself to raise a blind daughter. I didn't care: I would learn to read braille if I had to. I just wanted her to be healthy.

But now, now that she is in Heaven, I REALLY, really hope that she can see. I hope that she sees us and knows that we were her parents. I pray that she can see how much we loved her. And I hope that she can "see" the balloons we send up to her. I pray that she can feel the love her brother has for her. I wonder if he can see her and talk to her. Because sometimes, I swear he is talking to someone... He adores her so much.

I have so many thoughts bouncing around in my head.

So many things I can't put in to words...

So many things I have to do but don't know how to start.

For now I am going to snuggle on the couch with my sweet baby boy, and reflect on my baby girl's life.


<3 My sweet Leila. I love you so. I carry you with me in my heart everywhere I go. I pray for your peaceful rest. I love you, my sweet angel. <3

Catching Up...

For the past month I have felt like life has been soaring ahead of me and I have been stuck in place, trying desperately to keep pace with the world bustling around me. I haven't been able to move past the basic emotions of anger and sadness. I am pretty much stuck on those two most of the time.

I still smile, laugh, talk, and function seemingly normally on the outside, but to be honest: I am completely broken inside. I feel awkward, I feel too big for my body, I feel numb. I feel like I am functioning on auto pilot and the rest of me is just along for the ride.

It has been hard being trapped in this house. Every where I look I either see something of Leila's, or I see "where Leila should be"... but isn't. The funny thing is, Leila never entered this house alive, so you would think that I wouldn't have all these reminders. But that isn't true. For the five months I was pregnant all I could think about was where her pack and play would be, where her swing would go, where I would put her baby gym, how her room would be decorated. I rearranged and redecorated our house physically, and in my mind so many times that all I can see is her. She is everywhere, and yet she was never truly in this home at all.

It kills me that her whole life was spent behind a plastic wall. My heart breaks for all the other NICU mommies that I met and encountered while she was at the hospital. I saw so much sadness and so much joy pour out of those rooms. There were a few moms that I encountered that shared similar stories to ours: they offered me so much hope and strength. They seemed to have a never ending supply of positivity. I tried to be like them, even in the darkest hours.

But now, being trapped at home with the reality that my daughter is gone forever, I am finding it difficult to be positive.

And I know Landon can feel that.

And that tears me up inside.

So when my husband came home from his boat det (Navy speak for a short "deployment" to get him ready to really deploy), we packed up Landon and headed to Disneyland.

I will be honest, we had a pretty good time. There were plenty of things that reminded me of Leila or made my heart stop for a minute, but all in all, it was a pretty good time. We were able to "escape" our emotions for a few minutes. We became fixated with Landon's happiness and making everything perfect for him.

I will write more about our visit when I have time. For now I am just trying to catch up with the real world. Coming home last night was like running in to a brick wall.. We had been avoiding it for the past half week, but coming home we could no longer escape reality.

For now I will sit with my son and eat our French toast, and try to hold on to the magic of Disneyland...

Don't worry, I will post the French toast recipe later!

Coping?

Coping: the process of managing stressful circumstances.

Managing stressful circumstances. Exerting control over. Handling.

Managing.

I never thought so much about those words.

What they really mean.

What they don't mean.

They don't mean "I'm okay".

I am just "managing" the awful circumstances I am subjected to.

Not quite exerting control over, maybe handling, but definitely not ignoring.

I am not sure what I thought would happen in the weeks after Leila's death. I think, to be quite honest, I couldn't think much of anything. At least, not about the finality of her death. I truly believe there was a part of me that thought it wasn't over. Like I am still waiting for the doctors from the hospital to call with the nightly update and tell me that her blood pressure has stabilized, that her heart rate is strengthening, that she is thriving.

And then I look up from my bed, and I see this little wooden box, and my whole world caves in again.

It is a very simple little box. Nothing too intimidating. Nothing fancy or flashy.

She might have been our little diva, but none of the carved stone or flashy marble urns seemed right for her. Instead we chose this simple, shiny, light oak box. No engraving, no markers. Just... Leila.

Maybe secretly inside I chose it this way to try and hide myself from the fact that she is gone. Maybe it was just the time crunch that made me avoid any added time or expenses on the urn order. I honestly can't say. All I know is that this little box holds my heart, a piece of my soul.

A tiny, precious, 1 pound 4 ounce piece of my soul.

At least, that is what she weighed the day we welcomed her in to the world.

At 4:23pm my little girl would have been 5 weeks old. I don't even know what to say next. I don't know if her eyes would have opened by now. I don't know if she would have finally filled out and gotten her "cheeks"... face and butt cheeks, as my husband joked.

I don't know anything.

There are moments when I start to move forward: I am laughing, talking easily, smiling, enjoying myself...

Then all of a sudden this feeling comes over me like I am driving alone on a winding road in the middle of the night, and suddenly I come up on a bridge only to find that it has come completely crashing down, and I slam on the breaks and go skidding over the edge.

I can almost feel myself hit the icy water and gasp for air, but the frigid air only makes it harder to breathe, and I feel my lungs become like anchors, dragging me under. I feel like I am drowning in my sorrow.

Then as I look up, I see my son. And I fight like hell to make it back to the surface. I force myself to push through the pain and...

manage my difficult circumstance.

That's what I do.

I handle it. I manage to get through it. To the next minute, the next hour, the next day.

I am not sure if I am "coping" with my pain, my grief, my "difficult circumstance", but somehow, I am finding a way to manage it. And I am pretty sure my beautiful son is 100% to credit for that.

Greek goddess Pasta

At first I had titled the post very simply "Greek Pasta"... then I decided, being the domestic goddess that I am, to very appropriately rename this delicious Greek inspired pasta dish...

So Greek goddess Pasta it is!

And it really, truly is goddess worthy...

One of my favorite foods in the entire world is Greek salad. In fact, once when I was 12 I asked for Greek salad as my birthday meal... Pretty exotic taste for a preteen, huh?

Lately I have been having these insatiable cravings for Greek salad... constantly... I have been eating them so much that I haven't really eaten much else. And though salad is extremely healthy, yes, I have dropped about 30 pounds since I had our daughter (not baby weight, as I had already lost weight during the pregnancy and hadn't yet gained), it was time to "bulk up" my nice little Greek salad into something more of an actual meal. I added some chicken, added some pasta, added a creamy Greek inspired pasta sauce...

It was sheer perfection.

Here is how I did it. But wait, first I need a quick disclosure: I did not write down this recipe while I created it... but I think I remembered everything pretty well. This is not my best mapped out recipe ever, but I only have time to post while my toddler is napping, so this is going to have to cut it for now!!!! GOOD LUCK! ;) (oh come on, I promise you can figure it out!!!)

You will need

2 chicken breasts,cubed into 1 inch pieces
1 bottle of Greek dressing (or make your own if you wish. I used the Kraft stuff... it's yummy!)

Sun dried tomatoes (reconstituted if you use dried like me)
1 can artichoke hearts
Kalamata olives
Capers
Red onion
Garlic
Feta cheese

1 block cream cheese
1 cup grated parmesan cheese (the kind in a can)
3/4 c milk
1/2 c butter

First, a couple hours before you are going to begin cooking (or even the night before), transfer the chicken cubes to a plastic baggie and cover with some of the Greek dressing. Maybe 1 cup, but you probably won't use more than that. Seal tightly and let marinate in the fridge until you are ready to begin.

Meanwhile, reconstitute your sun dried tomatoes. You can do this one of two ways. 1) Heat a pot of water to boiling. Place tomatoes in a heat proof bowl, cover with boiling water, place a plate or lid on top to keep in heat and let soak for about 30 minutes. 2) Or if you are like me and forgot to reconstitute them until right before you need them, pop them in a saucepan, cover with water, and boil until tender. It works.

Next, line a cooking sheet with foil and spray with cooking spray. Arrange artichoke hearts on the pan, drizzle them with olive oil, and bake them at 375 for about 20-30 minutes, checking every few minutes so they don't burn. You will want to shake the pan to move them around so they get roasted all over.

Why roast, you ask?

The answer is simple: you have NEVER fully experienced an artichoke until you have tasted it roasted. Just trust me. Sometimes I just mix together red peppers and artichoke hearts and garlic and drizzle it all in olive oil and roast it... it is amazing.

Ok so back to the artichokes: you want them to be a goldeny color, but not super burnt, so keep an eye on them. Oh and let me warn (if there a nice kind of warn?) you now: they smell INCREDIBLE! You may have to contain yourself to keep from plucking them right off the baking sheet after they are done...

Okay so now that your prep work is done, heat a skillet with a bit of olive oil and add your garlic and cook until fragrant. Add the chicken and cook until done on all sides. Next add your artichokes, capers, tomatoes, olives, and about 1/4 cup of the Greek dressing. If it looks a bit dry, add more.

While you are cooking your chicken, you will also be making your sauce. It is basically a creamy alfredo sauce that you will mix in to the chicken, and it will mix with the Greek dressing, and magic will happen.

In a medium sauce pot, add the cream cheese, Parmesan, butter, and milk. Heat on medium heat until everything is melted and well blended. Stir often.

Add about half of it to the chicken mixture and stir well, continuing to cook until the chicken is done. You can add more to your taste after you add the pasta, but I ended up with about half or a little less left over, and tossed with with plain hot cooked pasta and gave it to my son as a fancy "macaroni and cheese". He devoured it.

Stir in about half a box worth of hot, cooked penne pasta, and serve, topped with feta cheese, of course.



Now I would have pictures of this deliciousness, but my husband had the camera, so I do not have pictures...

But I can tell you a secret: if you don't have time to do all the prep work, you can make this a much quicker meal if you just use some cherry tomatoes and pop them under the broiler until the burst open. You can also just pop the artichoke hearts under the broiler for a few minutes if you are in a hurry, but keep an eye on them. And last, if you forget to marinate the chicken, it isn't the end of the world. Just add a little more Greek dressing to the cooking pot.

Good luck! I hope you enjoy it!

Hanging in There.

Everyone asks me how I am...
They say I look great and comment on
"how well I am grieving".
On the outside, I smile at them.
I say "I am hanging in there".
And I am.
By a thread.
What they don't know is that
they don't know anything.
Inside I am dying.
Inside I am reliving the moment
you died, over and over
and over again.
The second your heart stopped beating
a piece of mine died.
It dies over and over.
On autopilot, like the rest of me.
There is nothing strong about me.
Nothing strong about the way I am grieving.
I am just doing what any mother would do.
I am "mothering".
Sometimes I want to scream at people,
but I don't.
Sometimes I want to crumble and break apart,
but I can't.
I have this purpose, even though you are gone,
I still have a purpose.
I am still a wife and a mother,
and that is all I know.
So while my heart is breaking over and over again,
my hands are folding laundry and fixing dinner,
my eyes are carefully watching your big brother
as he explores the world around him, running,
jumping, climbing, falling...
doing every thing you will never get to do.
my mouth is kissing "owies" and scolding "no-no"s
and singing lullabies, and saying things like
"I'm hanging in there"
my feet are moving forward, my legs carrying me
to the next destination,
but my heart is broken.
Frozen in time.
In that one moment.
Hanging on by a thread as you took your last breath.

Valentine Schmalentine...

When I was in grade school, an awkward nerdy girl at a stuffy Catholic school, Valentine's day was always torture for me. I would decorate my box and carefully fill out Valentine's for each of my classmates, praying just praying that I would receive one "genuine" Valentine in return.

One year I even wrote on a Valentine to a boy I liked asking him to go to a movie with me...

It was epic fail.

I mean, so epic fail that said Valentine was read aloud from the highest point in the playground while I was mercilessly laughed at and sent running, tears flying, to hide out under a climbing tower.

Needless to say that was a pick up attempt that was completely, 100% SHUT DOWN.

Rejection is so brutal for an 11 year old.

So anyway, all the kids are required to give each classmate a valentine... It's the rules.

I think those rules were made for kids like me, so that our box wouldn't be empty.

Thanks to the narcissism of Valentine's day and my burning desire to have my own true Valentine, the first 10 or so Valentine's of my primary educated life were just plain crummy.

When I got to about 7th grade, I started having boyfriends. I managed to always have one right around Valentine's day, I think because of my intense fear of loneliness and humiliation.

Ok so the next few Valentine's days of my life weren't so bad.... I had a couple awkward dances and a date or too. Then my senior year of high school I had a boyfriend (he last only about 2 weeks, but just so happened to exist around Valentine's day) that pretty much made up for every obligatory valentine I had ever been given... I will be honest, I don't really remember said "boyfriend" very well. But I remember 8th period on Valentine's day...

I had been called to the office to receive flowers and what not twice already that day. One was from my Mom and Dad, the other from my Nana and Ahda... So I was feeling kind of loserish by the time 8th period came around... I mean, come on, I finally had a legitimate boyfriend on Valentine's day and hadn't reaped the benefits of being publicly showered with lavish gifts.

And then the "runners" from the office came down to call me for a pick up. They had 3 slips.

3.

That is a lot.

So much in fact that the runner warned me to bring a friend or two to carry it all back.

So my friend Amber and I ran down to the office and asked where my delivery was. They pointed to an annex that had lots of deliveries left in it - flowers, a huge balloon bouquet, two GIANT boxes, and a big heart shaped pillow with a big fat box of chocolates on it...

When I asked which one was mine... the office clerk looked at me with this exasperate expression and said "All of it..."

HA!

SCORE!

So we lugged the loot back to 8th period, I passed around chocolates, and my very nosy and easily distracted teacher canceled the rest of class to watch me open my presents.

After tracking down a knife (not that hard to do in a public school, surprisingly) to open the boxes, we ripped those suckers open to reveal two GIANT sized teddy bears. Boyd's Bears, to be exact. And if you know your teddies, Boyd's is top of the line. One was a 4 foot tall teddy, the other about 2 feet or so...

It was ridiculous.

Oh and did I mentioned a bouquet of 2 dozen wired roses in a gorgeous vase...

Yeah, it pretty much made up for everything.

And like 1 week or so later that guy was gone and out of my life... And I can hardly remember his name... but he definitely rehabilitated Valentine's Day for me.

My first Valentine's Day with my husband was 2008. Our son was 2 months old and we were traveling across country in a huge moving truck with a trailer on the end of it, a cat, a dog, and a nursing newborn.

It had every ingredient necessary to cook up a big, giant disaster. (Did I mention the blizzard? Yeah, that too.)

But my amazingly romantic husband cleverly planned a stop at our home state, we stayed with his parents, and on Valentine's day he took me out for sushi at my favorite restaurant, and presented me with a gorgeous diamond necklace.

Take that Senior Year Boyfriend! You got schooled!

So this Valentine's Day my husband is gone and my Valentine is my precious son. Which I guess is in a way, a Valentine from my husband.

I don't even need flowers, chocolates, or giant stuffed teddy bears to have an amazing Valentine's day anymore.

That may sound corny, but honestly, all of that was just for show... To feel special in front of a group of people.

Which is why I can tell I have grown up.

My love for my husband isn't about spectacles or putting on a show in the middle of an 8th period classroom, or reading an embarrassing Valentine in front of everyone at school. It's just love.



Pure, unconditional, make me weak in the knees at the thought of him, LOVE.

We have those romantic moments that make other people want to throw up



We make each other laugh,





usually he makes me laugh harder...



He always knows what to say or do to cheer me up when I am down... Or to make me laugh when I am obsessing over bills, laundry, etc.



We have our serious moments where only we can be there for each other.



He looks at me in a way no one else ever has, or ever will.



He completes me... He is the yin to my yang, the peanut butter to my jelly, the freshly ground pepper to my coarse natural sea salt.

He is the best friend I ever had, no embarrassing "will you go out with me" valentine necessary.

So happy Valentine's Day to the love of my life. I miss you, I love you, and I am so thankful for you... no matter how February 14th is spent.

Anger, Meet Heartbreak.

Today we received an envelope in the mail.

This has been pretty normal lately. Leila was loved by so many people, literally in the thousands, from all over the world. She was like the world's tiniest celebrity.

At least that's how I think of her. My sweet little diva. Always fighting and kicking. Refusing to give up until she just couldn't go anymore.

We have been receiving a lot of mail lately. Probably about 3 cards or letters a day from people who were touched by Leila and wanted to share their story with us about how she changed their lives, or just to send us a card offering their prayers, and we still receive the occasional hat too, but I will explain the hats later.

Today in the mail we received three envelopes (not from bills or ads or anything, but honest to goodness mail, ya know?). One was a card from a church telling us about a contribution made in Leila's name. Another was a sympathy card from a close relative. And the third made Donovan's and my heart jump into our throats and our stomachs sink into our toes.

Sounds pretty dramatic, huh?

That's how it felt.

Like wanting something so badly but knowing that having it would bring you heartache all at the same time.

This is kind of like that.

When Leila passed away, a very nice lady came into the sterile little room they had put us in while we "grieved", and offered to take pictures of us with Leila after they had cleaned all the tape and tubes and masks off of her.

At first I liked this idea. I thought it would be great to hold her again, and I had heard about Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep and the work that they do. As Donovan and I tried to wrestle the strength to go face her lifeless body and hold her while someone we didn't know took pictures, we just snapped. It felt wrong and morbid and neither one of us could work up the courage. I guess we just weren't ready and the thought of it made it all too real. Stifling so.

Donovan said that he didn't want to ruin his last memory of her: laying on her Mommy's chest where she belonged. It was a beautiful and sacred moment to him.

I waited a long time, struggling with the decision to stay in the room with him, the room that was too quiet, but so loud. The room that was considerably roomy for two people to sit alone in, but made me feel claustrophobic. That was the room in which the doctor had told me three days earlier that she probably wouldn't make it, but that he had such high hopes for her. That was the room where we sat right before she started getting better, which was right before the very end. That room was not a place for happy news. That room was a bad omen, and it was suffocating me.

I realized that I didn't believe it. I truly couldn't accept that she was really gone. And it was probably selfish of me, but I wanted to walk back in there and see that they had hooked her back up to the machines that were keeping her alive, and that she hadn't really left me... Not yet.

So I left Donovan and walked down that hall. I had probably walked down that hall at least 50 or 60 times in the last 12 days. Maybe more than that. Every single time I walked down that hall, I stopped at the counter to drop off my coat, stopped at the sink, put a pile of soap in my hand, and scrubbed up for a full minute. Sometimes I would just barely brush against the wall when grabbing a paper towel, or forget and brush a hair off my cheek, and I would start all over again. Nothing was worth the risk.

But this time when I washed my hands it was different. I was on autopilot, but I knew that she was safe from any contamination I could possibly bring. "But the other babies aren't," I reminded myself. So I washed.

Probably longer than ever before.

Out of the 60 or more walks I had taken down that hall, 3 of them felt like "the longest walk in my life". The first one was the day when she was 9 days old and the doctor called and said to be with her for her final hour. My mom and I took that walk together and each step felt like ten more were added in front of us. It felt like it took years to make it to that door.

But we finally did.

And there she was just kicking and waving around. And the doctor said he was surprised to see her like this, but not to get our hopes up.

But we did.

We always did.

I was always so confident that she was going to make it. The doctors would be talking to me in the serious tone that they use... reminding us of how critical she was and that every minute was a miracle with her. But I told the doctors that I wasn't worried because I knew she was going to make it.

She had to make it.

And that next day even the most skeptical of her doctors admitted that she was improving more than they could have ever hoped.

Maybe too quickly.

A little body can only strain and fight so much before it can't fight anymore.

And, My God! She was a fighter!

The second "longest walk" was earlier that day. Donovan and I walked together. This one wasn't quite as long as the one on day 9. She was improving, I had thought. She is going to be waving around and kicking and flapping and doing what she always did.

I was more wrong than I had ever thought possible.

I am generally a hopeful and positive person, but I can't even put in to words how hopeful I had managed to stay despite everything the doctors said. It was all I could do.

So back to the third walk, the walk back to her while the photographer was taking her pictures. This one was an eternity. Every step I took I felt like the hallway stretch out even longer. Like in the cartoons where the door at the end of the long hall streeeeeeetches backwards until it is teeny tiny and the hallway is like a mile long.

It was like that.

I never realized how awkward I am until that moment. I didn't know how to walk... I didn't know if I should cross my arms, or put my hands in my pockets, or keep my hands spastically up by my face to wipe my tears as I walked. I felt odd in my own body, like I didn't belong there.

I didn't even know what to do when I hit the doorway. The same doorway I had probably walked in and out of hundreds of times while she stayed in the NICU. I stood at the doorway and stared helplessly at the nurses. I felt like I didn't belong there any more.

A sweet nurse who's name I don't even remember came and took my hand and led me to her.

I will never forget what she said.

"Love on her, mama. She needs you."

And that was it.

The floodgates opened back up and I poured my tears onto the bed Leila was laying on. It looked like she was sleeping.

She even had a teeny, tiny little nightgown on.

The first and last outfit she ever wore.

They told me to hold her hand. To put her little fingers around my finger. To kiss her. To put my hands around her tiny little body.

I don't really know how to describe the experience. It's like being given a brand new car, minus the engine.

Okay, horrible analogy. It's nothing like that...

It's like getting exactly what you want, and the exact opposite of that at the same time. For the past two weeks all I had wanted was to hold her and love on her and have her not be in any pain.

But the last thing I ever could have wanted was for her to be lifeless. It was my nightmare.

It still is.

So back to that envelope in the mail. We both knew exactly what it was as soon as we saw the padded envelope. The final pictures of Leilani Marie Decker had arrived. We didn't open it at first... neither one of us knew if we could handle what was on the disc. We put it off almost until the last minute, right before Donovan left for the boat today, but we decided to go ahead and view them together so we didn't have to wait until he got back.



They were simply beautiful, but they made every part of my being ache for her. Only a parent who has lost a child can even remotely fathom the ache I am describing. I can't even begin to use words to explain it, and that is saying something coming from me.

I can't necessarily say yet that they have helped with the healing process, because I am still struggling with all of that and I will be for a long time. All I can say is that I have beautiful pictures of my daughter now. No wires, no tubes, no mask. Just gorgeous little Leila. I don't care what anyone else thinks - I know she was perfect. Absolutely perfect. And my heart aches for her every second.

So yes, I am still very, very angry. But more than anything, I am just plain heartbroken.