Tired Arms....

I must say that I had the best Mother's Day ever. Paul let me sleep in, then I was awakened by Paul and the kids with breakfast in bed and it wasn't cereal. Then we got ready for church. Afterward we went to both our mothers to visit. In the meantime Paul had let me pick out a new dress to wear (which Tegan spit up on), gave me money and Rylee picked me out a pretty photo album all by herself. She also managed to make me 9 mothers day cards. She was so excited and all in to loving on me and making me feel so special. It was great. I didn't get a whole lot of pictures though, I just didn't think much about it.
Last year mothers day for me was bittersweet. I wanted to celebrate with Rylee but yet it was not only my first mothers day since losing Cohen but I was also only 23 weeks pregnant and had already been on bed rest and had a cerclage. I still had so many fears that I wasn't going to have my sweet boy with me this year. Needless to say it was a challenging day last year. No one can ever prepare you for what you feel after losing a baby. Somehow every day and especially every holiday becomes so much harder. Saturday evening we went up to the cemetery to place a new flower on Cohen's grave. For me it is difficult that the only time all of my children are together is at a cemetery. Paul made the statement at some point yesterday that I had 2 children in 5 years and I corrected him by saying that I had 3 children in five years and he said he meant living children. See to me the fact that Cohen died at birth does not make him any less of a child to me. He is still my child and I was still physically and emotionally connected to him. I sometimes stop and look at Tegan and know that had I had Cohen and everything been fine then I would have not had Tegan. Sometimes I get confused and consider Tegan as Cohen that was given back to me. It's all so difficult to separate and process.
But yesterday was not nearly as difficult as it could have been had I buried two babies. I still remember that feeling after losing Cohen...They told me to get an epidural right away b/c it makes it easier if you don't feel the pain, whoever said that had no idea what they were talking about. The days that followed brought along my aching arms and I craved him, my heart hurt so bad I could feel it physically, my body produced milk as if it desperately wanted to feed a baby, and the most cruel part there was so much movement still in my stomach the following week that it actually felt like a baby moving and kicking. Yesterday my arms ached for a different reason. They grew tired but I didn't care....as I sat during church holding Tegan he went off to sleep. I was scared to move him at all b/c I didn't want to wake him up so for 25 minutes I held a 22 1/2 lb boy cradled in my right arm with nothing to prop my arm on. Most of the day he was clingy as was Rylee therefore there was never a moment without one of them in my arms or snuggling up next to me. Last night as I laid in the bed and said my prayers I could feel my arm beginning to get sore from holding Tegan in that same position at church and all I could think about was praising God for TIRED ARMS. I would take tired arms over empty arms any day. Some days are a challenge with a clingy baby but I welcome those challenges and know that I couldn't have lived had I lost Tegan. I will never be the same since losing Cohen but now I will never be the same in a good way since having Tegan...just as I was with Rylee. So today I find myself being thankful for not only what I do have but for what has slipped away just for the fact that Cohen was a part of my life, no matter how short that was!
Enjoy the pictures....this is all I got all day long.





Me and my babies!

Me and my man.

Paul and Rylee flying a kite.

Tegan's first time in the grass. He didn't like it.