To my baby boy

Dear Gunnar,
I can’t believe it’s already been a year since you blessed our lives and then left just as quickly. It doesn’t seem like that long ago that we found out that we were pregnant with you. When we saw that faint line, we were so excited! As the weeks moved on, I enjoyed every minute of the pregnancy and even though I was quite sick, I was just happy to be pregnant. When I hit 12 weeks, things changed. I started cramping pretty badly. When I hit my 17 week mark, I started bleeding. In between those two times, I had called the doctor, went into his office, and had two ultrasounds and every time, they told me that it was normal to experience a little cramping and that the bleeding was probably just implantation bleeding. We did, however, find out that you were a boy when we went in for the ultrasound at 17 weeks. We were both excited but I think your dad was about to fly through the roof! He was so excited to have his little boy! He had your name picked out for years! Things just progressively got worse from there. When I was about 20 weeks, I finally called and told the doctor’s office that they could call me a paranoid expectant mother all they wanted but I knew that something was wrong! The bleeding got worse and so did the cramping. They called and got me an appointment to have a thorough ultrasound done at the hospital. That was Tuesday, September 23rd. Dad was in Boise for some training so he wasn’t there but my mom decided to come with me. I guess it was mothers’ intuition and she knew that I might need her. She took off the rest of the day of work and we drove down to Logan to the hospital. They had a hard time seeing things when they did the ultrasound but I didn’t know it was a bad sign. I was excited to see you moving around. After what seemed to be forever, they finished up the ultrasound and sent me over to the doctors’ office. My doctor was out of town so I had to communicate with by phone. By the time I got to the office, the ultrasound tech had already called the doctor and informed him of what was going on. That was when my life turned upside down. When I got on the phone with the doctor, he told me that there was hardly any amniotic fluid around you and that there was quite a large tear in the placenta. He told me that at this point there was nothing we could do and that more than likely we would lose you. He sent me back over to the hospital for some blood work and told me to come back in two days, which was a Thursday. Dad and I were both crushed. He wouldn’t be home from training until really late Wednesday night/Thursday morning. By the time Dad got home, I was in so much pain and told him that I thought I was in labor. Finally by 1:30 am the pain had subsided quite a bit and I was able to get some sleep......(cont below.....)

To my baby boy, cont...

I was up by 4:30 am because I couldn’t sleep and was so scared of what we would find out at the doctors’ office. I had called my dad to see if he could come over before we left for Logan to see if he would give me a healing blessing. I was grasping at straws at this point and was hoping that in the blessing, he would tell me that everything would be okay. Instead, we were told that I would be okay and that was pretty much all we knew. I knew he couldn’t just tell us what we wanted to hear and at that point I knew what was going to happen but I was in denial. We got to the doctor’s office and the nurse put the Doppler on to hear your heartbeat. When I heard it, I broke down. The nurse stood there and cried with me. The doctor came in and checked me. He said that I was already dilated to a 2 and he could feel your foot. I guess my body was just going through the natural process of starting labor. We asked him what would happen because we knew you were still alive. There was nothing we could do. He sent us over to be admitted into the hospital and prepare for the worst day of our lives. After we got all the paperwork done and I was hooked up to all the machines, the nurses came in with some information on a group called Share Parents. They told us that if we wanted them to, they would come in and take pictures and put together a little memory box for us. We told them that we wanted them to do that. We were admitted just after 11 am and waited for hours. They didn’t want to push things and just wanted my body to take care of things. By 6:31 pm on September 25, 2008, you were born. You weighed 9.2 ounces and measured 9 ½ inches. They told us that you had passed away before you were born. My mom had come down to be with us and she was the first one to hold you. I hadn’t decided whether I wanted to hold you or not. The idea of death was so scary to me and I didn’t know if I wanted to remember you that way. Your dad didn’t want to and it wasn’t that he didn’t love you but he didn’t want to remember you that way either. He was hurting so bad. He left to get some dinner and just to get some air and try to clear his mind. During that time, the wonderful ladies from Share Parents came in and let me just see the pictures they had taken of you. They also had you there wrapped up just incase I decided to hold you. You were perfect. The ladies from Share said that it was quite obvious that you were a boy :) After seeing the pictures, I knew I had to hold you and spend some time with you. You looked so much like your daddy. I remember noticing the shape of your lips. When your cousin, Sammy, was born, he had your same lips :) The nurse was kind enough to sit in there with me while I held you. I just needed someone there with me. I didn’t want to be alone. When Dad got back from town, I kissed your cheek and wrapped you back up and let them take you. I was able to see you whenever I wanted so I knew I would get to see you again. I told your dad what you looked like and that you looked a lot like him. I think he knew that he needed closure too and needed to see you. Your dad’s a strong man and hardly ever shows emotion, but when he held you and saw you for the first time, he broke down. It was hard on both of us but he took things really hard. They gave me a sleeping pill so I could get some rest the night before we left. I guess some time during the night I was up wondering the halls. They had to take me back to my room. After a somewhat restless night in an uncomfortable hospital bed, they sent us home. I remember thinking that it was weird and very unfair to be going home without you in my arms. When we got home, we had to break the news to Rohbi. Having lost her dad a year prior, she took things really hard and asked why everyone around her died. It broke my heart. As the days dragged on, my arms ached to hold you. It’s not fair to carry a baby only to come home and have to deal with empty arms. Sweet baby boy, just know that there isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t think about you. The pain hasn’t gone away but it’s gotten a little easier to deal with. We love you so much and miss you more than you can ever imagine.

Love,

Mom

I chose not to put any actual pictures of Gunnar up just because I don't want someone I don't know looking at him. It's too personal and sacred to me. If you would like to see more pictures of him, feel free to let me know and I would be happy to email them to you.

Time to play catch up!!

Okay so I haven't been on the stick and updated my blog for a couple of months so I decided I'd better catch up! The last couple of months have been extremely crazy and busy! With school starting in August, I've had to adjust to the early mornings (I'm so not a morning person). On top of that, I started watching two kids in the mornings to help their mom out so she could go back to school to finish up her degree. They've been a lot of fun! But to be quite honest, this month has been a little rough for me. We are coming up on the one year anniversary of when we lost Gunnar so I've struggled a little bit. Anyway, here is what we have been up to the last couple of months! CAUTION: THIS POST IS VERY PICTURE HEAVY!!!

In July, Eric's family had a huge family reunion at Riverdale that lasted almost a week. One of Eric's cousins owns Riverdale so they were nice enough to host it and cater it. Since they were having the reunion there, I decided to get Rohbi into swimming lessons that week. The reunion was a ton of fun and I enjoyed meeting some more of Eric's extended family and spending time with them! Rohbi enjoyed staying in Eric's parents camper and playing with her cousins. Rohbi enjoyed her swimming lessons and come to find out, Eric's cousin was Rohbi's swimming teacher. I was very impressed with her. Rohbi has been very scared of the water and putting her face in it and by the end of lessons, her teacher had her jumping into the water over her head and she was loving it!



Eric happens to share a birthday with his sister. They are exactly a year apart. This year, their birthdays happened to fall on the last day of the reunion. His parents decided to treat them to a day at Lagoon so after all the goodbyes, we headed down to Farmington. Well...since Eric is such a party pooper, he wasn't there to enjoy the fun. We had a ton of fun and appreciate his parents inviting us to come along!

Rohbi learned a few lessons along the way. I needed to head to the post office one day for some reason so as we were headed out the door, Rohbi decided to sneak up on our cat who happens to have very sharp claws and is very jumpy and was asleep. Let's just say that it wasn't a very pretty scene! I don't know if I've ever seen that much blood all at once except for maybe on TV. I know that facial and head wounds bleed a lot more than normal wounds but it was very bloody!!! She freaked out and I about puked! Anyway, she ended up with about a 1/2 inch gash on her temple. She was so scared to go into the doctor's office because she didn't want to get stitches. Once we got in there, the doctor took a look at the scratch and said that they would just glue it. Thank goodness for modern technology!



We've had a very busy couple of months and a lot has changed with us! We started looking for a house to buy and finally found one and put in an offer. It took a little longer than we had hoped but by the middle of August we finally finalized things and became "official homeowners"! We're excited and have enjoyed the new house even though we've had a few bumps. We've got a lot of work ahead of us on this house and it needs quite a few updates. We had to do quite a bit of work just to be able to move in. Once we moved in, we made a few changes and Eric has been working himself ragged trying to keep on top of plumbing leaks and leaks from the outside of the house in. Now that those things have slowed down, we've been able to enjoy the house a little bit more! By the way, I LOVE MY KITCHEN!!!! (just had to throw that in!) Eric put in a water softener and Rohbi has had a ball playing in the box!

In the second picture, she is trying to look scary but she just looks scared! :)

On August 19th, Rohbi started her first day of 1st grade! I can't believe she's that old! She's enjoying it. It's been an adjustment for her going all day but she has progressed so much and has learned a ton! It's fun to watch all she is learning as she brings home all her work that she has done at school. She has excelled in spelling and doing very well with her reading but she is struggling a little with math and paying attention to her work. It's all a learning curve and hopefully eventually it will come for her!






Doesn't she look so big?

Anyway, sorry it has been so long but hope you enjoyed seeing what we've been up to!