It's That Time Again...

Leaves are turning to vibrant and almost magical-like colors. Hues of orange, yellow and red are all popping up around on the hill and mountainsides of the Appalachians. I love Autumn here in Virginia.

It's also time to break out hand-me-down costumes, or purchase new ones for the kids that have outgrown them all. And not to mention, buying the goodies that you will be passing out to the little fairies, ghosts, superheros and goblins.

And for me personally, it will be my 2-year-anniversary post-transplant for my eye. It's strange to know that already two years has just flown right past me. I still wonder about my donor and their life. And I often think about the donor's family, that I will seemingly never have the pleasure of meeting. I even throw around the idea of maybe even writing them an update letter.

Also, it will mark 22 years since my mother passed away, on the same day that I celebrate my anniversary date. Wow!! 22 years. How is even possible? It certainly to me, does NOT feel like that much time has gone by. But it has.

As you can see, I haven't even posted on to ANY of my three blogs in well over a month. I pretty much have given up writing on them. For various reasons. And honestly, for the most part, I do NOT miss this. I felt freed up, truthfully. I don't feel mentally pressured to crank out posts. I have never been in to blogging as to be popular or get mega numbers in followers/readers. I did it/do it as a release for my mind and to just talk about things that interest me, and maybe bring awareness to topics (like Pregnancy & Infant Loss month, which coincides with Breast Cancer Awareness month...but is overshadowed by BCA).

So, consider this my update, but don't be too surprised if I don't jot in this area again for another good while. I really don't feel the "love" for blogging like I had once had. And I'm okay with that. If I lose followers/readers, I'm not going to cry over it, or lose any sleep. But it's nice to know that there are a FEW people that follow/read me that genuinely care about what I have to say on here. To them, I thank you from the bottom of my heart. And I thank you for still sticking with me, though you know it may be like forever before I write again.

Later taters!!

The "Pregnancy Game" Statuses On FaceBook

I'm pretty certain that those of you reading this, have a FaceBook page. And I'll bet you two to one, that at least once, within your News Feed, you have seen the now infamous "cravings game". The status goes like this...

""I'm _weeks and craving _"

It is inboxed to LADIES ONLY on FaceBook, and specifically in the email, like the bra and purse games, you are not to NOT tell the men about it, and to keep them guessing what it's all about. All the while, it is SUPPOSED TO be promoting Breast Cancer Awareness.

Here's one little flaw. BC Awareness is NEXT month, people! In October. Not in September. And it sure as hell is not in August (when it started to circulate)!

And here is flaw number two. Do you all know what other Awareness time it is, in OCTOBER, that coincides with Breast Cancer Awareness Month? Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month.

Personally, I see it as being insensitive to Breast Cancer survivors and those that sadly lost the battle, to use pregnancy "jokes" as a means to raise awareness. Being that it, as well as the bra thing is NOTHING in relation to the subject of Breast Cancer. And yes, to me, it is also in a way, distasteful to make it a "game" when there are many women (and men) that have lost a baby during pregnancy.

If you (general use, not to any specific person) are going to try and raise awareness for something or a cause you believe in, then it's best to "shoot from the hip" and state specifically what the nature of the subject is. Not to make others wonder (especially saying WOMEN ONLY CAN KNOW WHAT IT REALLY MEANS). That does not a thing to raise awareness for the ACTUAL cause/subject.

Plus think about this...men are MEN. They aren't going to sit and think "oh look, I think that these ladies are trying to make us aware of a deadly disease that can even strike men". They are just sitting there, wondering "WTH is this crap with weeks and cravings for all these candies?". Sad, but true. Even my husband has said it's not doing a single thing to "raise awareness".

As a mom that has lost 2 angel babies, and as a daughter-in-law that has a MIL who has survived BC twice and other cancers as well, I'm sorry, but yes I am a bit offended, and I have strong oppositions to "games" like this that don't do a thing for the "root point" of awareness.

*Wander with me over at FOR THE LOVE OF BLOGS and join in the fun!*

I won't remember for a day,or for the month.This 'rememberance' will be with me until I die.

See the ribbon above? I have chosen personally to not only remember this important day of awareness on just October fifteenth of every year. But, to remember it for the entire month of October.

Nor will I ever be allowed to forget for the rest of my days.

October fifteenth is known nationally (in the USA) as "Pregnancy And Infant Loss Remembrance Day". And for many mothers such as myself, as well as the millions around the world, we will never be able to forget our babies. Some of us were lucky enough to hold them for a few hours, a few days, or a few months. Then again, some of us (such is my case) never got to hold, touch or even see our baby.

On Halloween Day of 2003, I was in the sixteenth week of pregnancy. All was going fine (as so I thought, seeing as I had no complications to that point, and it was my third pregnancy). That day, I was scheduled for a vaginal ultrasound being I was a high-risk pregnancy for health reasons.

I knew, the second I had seen the little peanut on the screen, something was very off. After having so many ultrasounds in the past, I knew what to look for. And the one thing that none of us had seen was the heart fluttering.

After the doctor's tone changed to the ever-so-famous "cautiously optimistic" tone, I knew that it was confirming what I already knew thanks to my "Mommy gut".

To get a better look and to indeed confirm what all of us already knew, I got placed on the big ultrasound. And then and there, I had the worst nightmare for a pregnant mother to go through. My baby was dead.

After getting the shocking news, my mother-in-law called my husband to get to the doctor's office. All he knew was that something was wrong with the baby. After we both got over the shock of all that happened, I called where we both worked at the time and let them know. For some stupid reason I kept on apologizing for not making it back to work from my extended lunch time.

A few days later, seeing as the baby did not miscarry on it's own, I was forced to have a D & C (Dilation and Curettage) to help expel my twelve to fourteen-week-old baby. I was nearing toxic levels in my system from the baby being dead inside for up to approximately four weeks. It was the worst and the most horrific surgerical procedure that I have ever had to endure.

All I knew was this was NOT supposed to be happening. I was not to be having to abort my baby. I was supposed to be having a normal pregnancy and readying for the new addition to our hearts. And instead, I was being forced to let him or her go.

To this day, especially when Halloween Day is upon us, and when November third (the day that my baby was "officially" gone from me), I still grieve. And I often wonder what would have become of our Michael Gregory, if he had survived.

Sure, some will read this and say to themselves that I need to "get over it already". But they cannot EVER know the lasting pain and the hole that is forever etched in to your heart and in to your soul from a loss as deeply profound as losing your baby (or a child in general).

I may not have ever been able to have held and caressed my child in my arms. But he is forever within a special place of my heart, and is deep within my soul, right along with his two sisters and his brother. For they too had lost out on having another brother to love.

Our new baby Great Niece and what she is already giving us as a family. The flashbacks started.

It never ceases to amaze me. Even though I myself have brought forth the world's future three times over.

But there is something to be said when it comes to seeing a new life come in to this old world of ours. With them, we hold the torch in hopes of a better tomorrow for the future. We hand them our dreams to grasp and make their own.

When eying my new Great Niece this morning, I flashed back to the days when I was the one in that hospital, in that bed, holding that new life within my arms. It hit me in my mind as if I just gave birth yesterday.

What made this birth even more "close" to me was that Kirra Sage was only an ounce off, as well as 1/2 an inch off from my oldest, Hayley's birth totals. That little tiny girl sent me back ten years in the space of about five minutes.

She is an adorable little thing. Chubby, round cheeks. Long legs that were just kicking up a storm when her Daddy placed her in the bassinet from her Mommy's arms.

Kirra was born at 5:58 this morning, weighing in at 8 pounds, 8 ounces. She was also 20 1/2 inches long.

We all welcome this new bundle of happiness and joy in to the family. She was greatly anticipated. If only she knew just how big of a family she came in to. Then again, Kirra will know all too soon enough.

Thanks, Kirra (and Mama Kala) for bringing a little more love, joy, happiness and two more little feet in to our lives, not to mention, our hearts as well. We love you both, and Kirra's Dad, Jon as well. May you all have a happy, prosperous and joyous life as a family and an extended part of ours (and our hearts).

Testimony Sunday (1 Peter 1:6-7...Grief, Loss & Suffering)

<sup>This week's verse...

6</sup>In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. ⁷These have come so that your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.

I know of this passage quite well within my life. Within my thirty-three years on this earth, I have already lost my Maternal Grandparents, never knew my Grandfather's (but have 'felt them' near), my Mother, my Paternal Grandmother and two pregnancies, and my Paternal Great-Grandfather.


With the exception of my Grandfathers, my Maternal Grandmother (too young) and my Great-Grandfather (again, too young to understand), my Christian faith was rocked to the core from these losses. Especially the loss of my mother and my last miscarriage in 2003.


For years after my mom's passing I despised God, His love, and anything else to do with Him. I wanted nothing of Christ. He had nothing to offer me. Except pain, grief and internal agony within my spirit and my heart.


The Lord made me suffer within some very deep Valleys. I saw the Mountain tops. Every time I would get halfway back up that Mountain, it seemed that the Lord would push me off a cliff, back down to the Valley floor.


It took a few years worth of soul searching, internal 'tug-of-wars' and finally seeing God's Truths behind Satan's snares and lies that the demon fed me. 


You know the kinds..."If God really loved you, He would not have taken all those people away. Especially you mother and baby". "God is punishing you for being a bratty child, so he took your mother for all the lies you told her". Those are just a couple of the thoughts that I had...The 'gem' of them all came when I lost my second pregnancy. "The Lord has taken away your child because you are not worthy of His love. An eye for an eye. You rejected Him, now He has given the ultimate punishment....Your child for His".


It took much prayer, much Scripture reading and much one-on-one with my Heavenly Father to finally realize that none of the above was true.


What is true now, as it was back then is that He will test you. He will put you through "trials by fire" and He knows that you indeed will suffer. Loss, grief, anger due to the loss, and walk through some pretty deep Valleys in order to climb to the top of that Mountain.


But never once will He forsake you. He is with you every step. Even when it seems that you are alone. Jesus Christ is there. And in the end, when your grief and suffering are over, He will be there waiting to take you in His arms and let you know that He never leaves His children to ever fully fend for themselves. And that the Mountain Top is always attainable for all.

Dear EBay

Dear EBay,

While you did rectify your poorly made decision, your company and it's "higher ups" still suck!

How can you sit there and pledge to WAIVE the fees to hold an auction to benefit a sick little boy and his family, which was amounting to around $450.00, only to get greedy and try to recend on YOUR promises?

EBay, you sicken me! Especially being that you TRIED to pull this little stunt right at Christmastime. That makes you the biggest SCROOGE of all to myself, many mommy-bloggers around the world, the family that the funds from the auction are helping, and many others from AROUND THE WORLD.

Are you people at the company happy with yourselves now? Or do you (and I hope you DO!) feel like a bunch of horse's asses? If the latter is true, then guess what? GOOD!!!! You don't deserve praise in my mind, even though you FINALLY did do the right thing.

But doing the right thing came a bit too late. It took multiple conversations with Supahmommy, many calls from angry mothers and fathers, and blog letters from us mothers who have been praying for and spreading awareness about Baby Jaden. Not to mention Tweets that went out WORLD WIDE, and Facebook users such as MYSELF who had spread the word about your selfishness and what crap you tried to pull to make a quick buck at the expence of a DYING BOY.

If you as a company that claims it cares and is a "community service" really in fact DID CARE, you wouldn't have gotten those dollar signs in your eyes and try to back out of a promise to waive those fees in the first place.

Instead, you had seen how successful the auction was and just HAD TO HAVE a cut of the profit that was meant to all be SOLELY FOR JADEN and his financially, emotionally, and physically hurting family.

I'm hoping that you the people of EBay have learned an extremely valuable and endearing lesson from all of this....

That is to KEEP YOUR WORD when you make A PROMISE to a DYING CHILD and their family!!!

Sincerely,

Melissa C.