Happy Easter

My darling Donna Rose,

Happy, happy Easter, my precious little girl. I hope you're enjoying the Easter Celebrations up there in Heaven. Mommy had so many plans for your first Easter. I wish I had been able to make you an Easter basket and an Easter bonnet this year. I would have put you in a pretty dress and all the ladies at church would have cooed over you. I know you're enjoying the festivities up there in Heaven. Jesus is taking special care of you and your angel baby friends, I am sure. I miss you more than I can say, my dear. Daddy misses you too.

Love,

Mommy

Normally, when I write in my blog, I am upset about something. I come to write because I'm marking a day of significance in Donna Rose's short life or because something I saw made me angry because my daughter isn't here or because I'm feeling her loss keenly. Today, I felt I should write about the way I have been feeling lately.

I will never forget my daughter. I will never wish that she wasn't here with me now. Right now I'm in a place of acceptance. The pain is like a tide at ebb. I know my daughter is gone. I miss her, but I am learning to live around her absence. I am functioning for the other things that have meaning in my life.

More pressing in my thoughts are my school, my students, and my husband (not necessarily in that order.) I'm also thinking about future plans. My husband has been telling me that he wants to move to South Dakota eventually, so I am doing my best to get us there sooner rather than later. I'm thinking about my friends and their problems which are more pressing than my own.

I'm also supporting my husband in his battles against injustice. Because this is tax month, my husband and I knew we were going to be short on cash and were going to struggle to put food on the table, so we applied for food stamps and ever since we've been battling with the department of human services. It seems that hard working tax payers cannot get help when they need it because the system is too busy serving lazy bums, drug dealers and illegal immigrant. It makes us very angry that our taxes fund programs like this which punish people who are trying to better themselves so they don't need to rely on the system and rewards people who abuse the system. Ben also battles with utility providers who make mistakes on our bills, though most of the time they are more willing to work with us to fix problems than government programs.

The troubles with TTC

Once the doctor cleared my health, Ben and I decided to TTC. It's been a very frustrating thing. I get my hopes up, start dreaming of a new baby, and then am crushed to find out that we weren't successful. In some ways, it's like losing another baby, because I have this pretty little scenario all in my head. I so badly wanted us to be successful last month. It would have been a bit of justification to me for losing Donna Rose. Had it worked, her brother or sister would not have been able to exist had she been full term. Here we are again at a point in the month where my hopes are high and I am starting to dream again. I'm not looking forward to the roller-coaster dip should we not have been successful this month, and it is so hard to wait to know. Ben is equally impatient, wanting me to take pregnancy tests well before they can tell us anything.

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