butterfly mommies: support for mothers of loss...

What forms of support helped you the most during your time of loss and even now? How would you recommend other people support grieving mothers? (As we know, many times people who love us often don't know what to say or how to act)

in the beginning i read books and journaled. then i began blogging and met other babylost mamas online. i also attend a support group that meets once a month.

i think the best way to support a grieving mother is to help with all of the day to day things so that she doesn't have to deal with them (cooking meals, driving the other children places, making sure she has time to spend alone with her husband, etc.). talking about the baby, using the baby's name. hearing your baby's name is so amazing because it validates that there was a baby and somebody else remembers. i've found pictures or artwork that other's have made with xavier's name to be very healing. give a grieving mother lots of cards, not just one right after the baby dies, but every so often when you are thinking of her send her a card snail mail or jot her a quick e-mail. mention the baby by name, i know i already said this, but it is so important (she probably wants to talk about her baby)!

i hope this is helpful to someone. *HUGS*

xavier's photo...

i have posted pictures of xavier all over facebook. i have an album with his photos on my page, but i have also posted his pictures on pages i have joined. every now and then somebody will post a comment on his picture on one of those pages i have put his picture on. sometimes the picture is one i have not looked at in a while. sometimes it is a picture that i see more often. i don't look at his pictures everyday anymore, but i carry them with me still.

today i miss xavier. today i am looking at his pictures. today changes nothing...i'm still me living in this life i never imagined. before andy and i got married we had all sorts of discussions...however none of them went anything like this, the way our lives have turned out. we love each other, but i'm not sure if love is enough. love will never bring back xavier or take back hurtful things andy said to me last year after finding out we were pregnant. love doesn't give us more money or teach us how to manage our money better. love isn't enough, it just isn't.

i still haven't told xavier's story on this blog, but i'm not quite ready...soon, but not today. today i leave you with a picture of xavier...one of my favorite pictures of xavier.

journal...

i bought a new journal yesterday. it is spiral bound and has pretty pink pages. the journal i've been writing in since we lost xavier is nearly full. the old journal had boring white pages and a multi-striped cover...it was not spiral bound. i want to start using the new journal, but the old one is not quite full yet.

i continue to miss xavier every single day. i'm giving myself permission to feel whatever it is i need to feel; mostly sad. i'm giving myself permission to grieve the loss of my son. i'm giving myself permission to talk about xavier ian freely...even if it makes somebody uncomfortable. i still struggle to talk with my husband about xavier though.

somebody at parents sharing hope said that grief is like waves in the ocean. she's right. that's a wonderfully beautiful way to explain grief. i went for a couple of months doing so well, then i crashed again. i like the picture of grief being a wave in the ocean.

last night i cried myself to sleep. luckily i fell asleep quickly. this morning i'm still sad. i feel as though i'm the only adult in this house that wanted xavier. if anyone else is sad about losing xavier they are hiding it better than i am. i was reading somebody's blog and they said that grieving or mourning shows strength...when we hide our feelings we are not strong, just in denial. i must have incredible strength. i haven't cried myself to sleep in a long while. today is another sad day.

xavier's name on the sidewalk...

ETERNAL NAMES BY THE SEA...XAVIER

...work in progress; please keep sending me pix of xavier's name...

xavier ian's name request...

alright...so sometimes i steal ideas, but this one is really good. if you would like, please take a picture of xavier ian's name and send it to me via e-mail. i will compile the pictures and post them on both of my blogs for all to see.

xavier's valentine...

it's a work in progress, but enough was complete to go ahead and post pix...

i don't compartmentalize...

life doesn't fit into neatly labeled boxes. i've been trying to fit my life into boxes labeled grief for xavier, failure with finances, stress with work, disagreements with husband, frustration when kids don't listen, etc.news flash: everything i feel is connected!
really, i already knew this, but i had forgotten or thought i could change that. turns out, i can't. my life is like a moving van and the movers haven't been too careful packing the van & all my neatly labeled boxes have been dented & ripped open & are spilling out into the back of the moving van.



















my life is a moving van with busted up neatly labeled boxes rolling all over the back. everything is mixing together and that's just how it goes. i guess i'll have to continue to deal with everything as best i can in my mess of a moving van that i call my life.

nine months...

i am alive. i will survive.

i have survived thus far.
i didn't know it was possible to hurt this bad, for so long...i know it won't be like this forever, but right now i can't see past this day, let alone this moment.

i have survived by the grace of God. He has held me up and carried me so many days over the past nine months and my relationship with Him is stronger, deeper, than it has been in a while. i keep thinking, how sad that i had to lose xavier ian to become passionate about prayer and my God again.

i still think about him everyday. i still talk about him nearly everyday. i love him & i miss him and i still wonder how it is possible to love & miss somebody so much that i never even really got to know. nine months sounds like such a long time, but it doesn't feel like a long time...it feels like just last week.
today is a sad day. i have tears in my eyes and a long day ahead of me (i hope i can make it through my long day on way too little sleep). i am nearly done with xavier's valentine. so, i will possibly finish it tonight and post pictures tomorrow or next week. i'm very pleased with it. i hope i can honor xavier's memory today and keep it together tonight at work; the devotions we do with the kids sometimes speak to me more than them i think and i get emotional (meaning i get teary eyed and have to hold back tears).
i love you xavier ian.

waterfall angels...

thank you lisa & jonathan at waterfall angels!

february meeting of meet you at the sunset...

Some people say men and women grieve differently. Others say that we as a human race grieve differently to each other. Some people believe that we all grieve the same just at different stages of time.
If you have a partner how has this grieving process been for you both. Do you differ much in how you live with grief? Has it torn you apart or brought you closer together? Have you learned anything about your partner that you did not know beforehand? Share what you feel comfortable with.

i am grieving; hard. it has been nearly nine months since xavier ian was stillborn and it just hit me hard again last week. in the beginning i cried a lot; i slept a lot; i didn't eat much; i journaled a lot. now i cry some; i isolate; i blog. i also do expressive artwork and write poetry. i am an open book and i try to talk about xavier when i can, but it's not safe to talk about him in the house i live...at least that's how i feel.

my husband isn't grieving. in the beginning he was silent, but he would hold me while i cried. he shared with me a couple of times how he was feeling, but he went back to work just a couple of days after we lost xavier and kept himself busy.

we have struggled to connect since losing xavier. i believe a good part of why we are having trouble connecting comes from the fact that he did not want a third child. he made it very clear before we got pregnant with xavier that he did not want a third child and did not know if he could even love xavier like he loves our other two children. in fact he had just started to accept the pregnancy when it was over (18 weeks) and he felt relieved that there would not be a third child. that may sound harsh, but it is the truth.

my husband and i still struggle to connect, and there are many more factors than just the loss of xavier that play into this. i still struggle to accept that my husband never wanted a third child and there will be no more babies. i am heartbroken on so many levels and have so much healing to do amidst the grieving for xavier. i am overwhelmed at times; most of the time. i don't know that i learned anything about my husband that i didn't already know, but this whole experience has brought to light how very much he has changed since college.