Last November I was in a pretty low place. We had just made it through the first anniversary of Peyton's birth and death, and were facing another tough round of Holidays before us. Hubs and I had been trying without success for months to conceive, and my doctor was still giving me the "you are grieving too hard to get pregnant" runaround. 


Being surrounded by so much loss had left me at a loss.


I was desperate for something good to come out of this. 
Out of any of it.
Something good to come out of all Peyton had suffered through and endured.
Something good to come out of all that we had lost as a family.


It is from that desperation that Doing Good In Her Name was born with these words:

"I feel such a strong desire to honor her, to have her name be synonymous with something other than the sadness and the grief.  This idea, well,  I like to think of it is her way of asking us to help out the little friends she has here... the ones who are still fighting the good fight."

This past weekend marked one year since we set Doing Good In Her Name into motion. At the time, we never could have foreseen all that it would become. We had created a basic website (thank goodness Franchesca has since come through to beautify it for us) purchased a few rubbermaid tubs to house any goodies that might come in, and waited - not really sure what, if anything, would arrive. I remember telling hubs that if we could just fill those bins once, I would feel like we had made some sort of a difference. 


What followed has been nothing short of a miracle - an outpouring of generosity, primarily from this community, like I never could have imagined. Fellow bloggers and readers began sending package after package to our P.O. Box to help us help families with critically ill infants being treated at the hospital where our Peyton spent her entire life. Those tubs, that we had once hoped to fill, have been filled and filled and filled several times over.


Peyton, in her own special little way, had given us this idea, and in spreading the goodwill and donations around to other families with children in the NICU, it was like spreading a bit of her love, and the love of this community, and there are no words for what that has meant to me. 


I rarely, if ever, post about it DGIHN here because this is my outlet, the place for my grief. This is where I come, to cry and to celebrate, to share and be heard, to grieve and to honor. That being said, your outpouring of love has been so immense that I feel it deserves recognition, so that's why I am writing this post, to honor you, the members of this community, who have come through in helping this initiative grow.


So many of the amazing readers of this blog have come through with donations over the course of the year. I don't feel comfortable in listing those names here individually because I have not gained permission, and I know that some of you who read here are on your own loss or infertility journeys and do so in confidence and might not want your name connected with this site. I also assumed that anyone who wrote that they know me from this blog, but didn't include their own blog site in their cards, might want their privacy protected. That being said, every donor's name is listed on the front page of the Doing Good In Her Name website, and should be celebrated.


And then there are my fellow ALI bloggers who have sent so many beautiful and caring gifts to assist other families with critically ill babies. Since you share openly in this community, I feel comfortable posting your links. Thank you so much ladies (and gentlemen) your generosity amazes me!


Catherine W
Salma
Margaret
Angie
Jenni
Jeannette
Bobbie
Holly
Paige
Lisette
Susan and Jeff
Sally
Malory
Sarita
Jill
Jane
Marissa Finn


And this is what that generosity has turned into - so much support for NICU families over the course of this past year... AMAZING!


Cash: $1890 -Gift Cards: 12- Infant Clothing: 555-Infant Shoes/Socks/Accessories:146 Bibs: 50 - Hats: 124 - Bottles: 102 - Bottle Accessories: 368 - Cans of Formula -15 Pacifiers: 89 - Pacifier Clips: 3  Infant Rattles/Teethers: 51 - Books: 116 - CD's:41 - DVD's: 7 - Posters: 1 - Toys: 32 Mobiles/Crib Toys: 6 - Blankets: 61 - Hooded Towels: 4- Baby Washcloths: 16 - Crib Sheets: 7 Tummy Time Mats: 1 - Diapers: 240 - Diaper Baggies/Accessories: 101 - Other Room Items: 6 - Digital Photo Keychains: 2 - Prayer Squares/Items of Encouragement for Families: 40 - Rubber Interlocking Foam Tiles: 1


So, from the bottom of my heart, to all those who have helped us honor Peyton's memory through supporting  Doing Good In Her Name, whether it be through donations, prayers, or just helping to spread the word - THANK YOU!


**If you have donated and don't see your link listed above, or you don't have a link but donated and would like your name listed here, PLEASE let me know so I can fix it :) 


Also, anyone who wishes to follow DGIHN's blog, please do so by clicking the DGIHN blog here. When we updated the site, our google followers were attached to the homepage and for some reason got lost.

Last November I was in a pretty low place. We had just made it through the first anniversary of Peyton's birth and death, and were facing another tough round of Holidays before us. Hubs and I had been trying without success for months to conceive, and my doctor was still giving me the "you are grieving too hard to get pregnant" runaround. 


Being surrounded by so much loss had left me at a loss.


I was desperate for something good to come out of this. 
Out of any of it.
Something good to come out of all Peyton had suffered through and endured.
Something good to come out of all that we had lost as a family.


It is from that desperation that Doing Good In Her Name was born with these words:

"I feel such a strong desire to honor her, to have her name be synonymous with something other than the sadness and the grief.  This idea, well,  I like to think of it is her way of asking us to help out the little friends she has here... the ones who are still fighting the good fight."

This past weekend marked one year since we set Doing Good In Her Name into motion. At the time, we never could have foreseen all that it would become. We had created a basic website (thank goodness Franchesca has since come through to beautify it for us) purchased a few rubbermaid tubs to house any goodies that might come in, and waited - not really sure what, if anything, would arrive. I remember telling hubs that if we could just fill those bins once, I would feel like we had made some sort of a difference. 


What followed has been nothing short of a miracle - an outpouring of generosity, primarily from this community, like I never could have imagined. Fellow bloggers and readers began sending package after package to our P.O. Box to help us help families with critically ill infants being treated at the hospital where our Peyton spent her entire life. Those tubs, that we had once hoped to fill, have been filled and filled and filled several times over.


Peyton, in her own special little way, had given us this idea, and in spreading the goodwill and donations around to other families with children in the NICU, it was like spreading a bit of her love, and the love of this community, and there are no words for what that has meant to me. 


I rarely, if ever, post about it DGIHN here because this is my outlet, the place for my grief. This is where I come, to cry and to celebrate, to share and be heard, to grieve and to honor. That being said, your outpouring of love has been so immense that I feel it deserves recognition, so that's why I am writing this post, to honor you, the members of this community, who have come through in helping this initiative grow.


So many of the amazing readers of this blog have come through with donations over the course of the year. I don't feel comfortable in listing those names here individually because I have not gained permission, and I know that some of you who read here are on your own loss or infertility journeys and do so in confidence and might not want your name connected with this site. I also assumed that anyone who wrote that they know me from this blog, but didn't include their own blog site in their cards, might want their privacy protected. That being said, every donor's name is listed on the front page of the Doing Good In Her Name website, and should be celebrated.


And then there are my fellow ALI bloggers who have sent so many beautiful and caring gifts to assist other families with critically ill babies. Since you share openly in this community, I feel comfortable posting your links. Thank you so much ladies (and gentlemen) your generosity amazes me!


Catherine W
Salma
Margaret
Angie
Jenni
Jeannette
Bobbie
Holly
Paige
Lisette
Susan and Jeff
Sally
Malory
Sarita
Jill
Jane
Marissa Finn


And this is what that generosity has turned into - so much support for NICU families over the course of this past year... AMAZING!


Cash: $1890 -Gift Cards: 12- Infant Clothing: 555-Infant Shoes/Socks/Accessories:146 Bibs: 50 - Hats: 124 - Bottles: 102 - Bottle Accessories: 368 - Cans of Formula -15 Pacifiers: 89 - Pacifier Clips: 3  Infant Rattles/Teethers: 51 - Books: 116 - CD's:41 - DVD's: 7 - Posters: 1 - Toys: 32 Mobiles/Crib Toys: 6 - Blankets: 61 - Hooded Towels: 4- Baby Washcloths: 16 - Crib Sheets: 7 Tummy Time Mats: 1 - Diapers: 240 - Diaper Baggies/Accessories: 101 - Other Room Items: 6 - Digital Photo Keychains: 2 - Prayer Squares/Items of Encouragement for Families: 40 - Rubber Interlocking Foam Tiles: 1


So, from the bottom of my heart, to all those who have helped us honor Peyton's memory through supporting  Doing Good In Her Name, whether it be through donations, prayers, or just helping to spread the word - THANK YOU!


**If you have donated and don't see your link listed above, or you don't have a link but donated and would like your name listed here, PLEASE let me know so I can fix it :) 


Also, anyone who wishes to follow DGIHN's blog, please do so by clicking the DGIHN blog here. When we updated the site, our google followers were attached to the homepage and for some reason got lost.

Thank you so much to all who reached out with support on the 2nd as we dealt with the anniversary of Peyton's passing. The weekend was a hard one for me, mostly because I couldn't get out to the cemetery and be with her, and thinking of my little baby laying neglected up on that hill since her birthday a month ago just breaks my heart. I learned earlier this week though of a visit some friends had made, unbeknownst to me, to leave fresh flowers on her stone, and thinking of them taking the time to honor her that way really did my heart some good.

The weekend itself was full of ups and downs. There were moments where I felt fine, laughing and getting along, and then others where grief hit me like a ton of bricks and the loss of her felt so new, and raw, and permanent, that I struggled for my breath the way I did last year, and the year before. I am coming to terms with the fact that the Fall will always feel this way for me.

At one point on Sunday I went back to the blog that my sister had authored to keep friends and family informed during Peyton's life (and at the news of her death), and re-read the comments that had been left there for us. They were desperate and encouraging, hopeful and then grief stricken. After that I went to the funeral home's site and re-read the messages from there as well. I don't know why I did that to myself, it was torture reading words left for a poor couple upon hearing the news that they had lost their baby, and knowing that poor couple was us made it even harder to take. I can't explain why I put myself through that, I just felt compelled to do it, and as I read the sympathies expressed there by family, friends, and strangers alike, I couldn't help but to feel sorry for her, and for us, and to just feel so robbed, robbed, robbed. 


I guess there is a reason I have let those messages go unopened for the better part of two years. 

Sitting in bed, reading and crying (hubs was out back doing some construction) I started feeling guilty for my grief, that in some way it was doing a disservice to the joy I feel over my little snowflakes. It's a complicated feeling, and hard to explain, but I find myself struggling for footing in this balancing act between expectant mother and grieving mother. 

I am hopeful - I am heartbroken.

I am overjoyed- I am full of sorrow.

I am planning for a future of what ifs - I am mourning for a life that never can be.

I rubbed my belly, and apologized to the snowflakes for whatever they might be feeling of my tears, and told them about Peyton, their big sister who they will never meet in this life. I explained that though she is not here, and they are,  I still love her as I do them, and that sometimes, even as we  celebrate in joy the blessings of our lives, there will come the time to shed tears for the little girl, our first little girl, who was taken too quickly and too permanently from all of our lives. It might sound crazy (as I often do here) but for some reason I got the feeling that they understood, and once that feeling had washed over me - my tears halted and I was at peace. 

This past Tuesday I went in for a higher level ultrasound of the snowflakes. I was under the impression that it was to be my first anatomy scan, but I was wrong, that comes a few weeks down the road. At this ultrasound they did measurements to make sure the snowflakes are growing appropriately, and got some good looks and pictures of my SCH (uterine blood clot). This exam brought with it lots of good news, and some not so great news. 

The good news is that both of my little snowflakes are growing and growing and growing! The average baby at 17 weeks is 5 oz, and despite the fact that I have struggled to gain weight in this pregnancy because of unrelenting morning sickness, pregnancy nose, and nauseating food aversions, I am happy to report that baby A is weighing in at a whopping 9 oz! while baby B is just about where (she) should be at 7 oz. 

All of the measurements the ultrasound tech and Perinatologist took, showed these babies to be right in the appropriate ranges, though it has become fairly clear on ultrasound that Baby A is our future NBA star, with long legs and big old feet like his daddy.

Always one for keeping up the mystery, Baby B decided to hang out in the shadows of my belly button a bit longer, keeping (her) parts hidden from clear view. The docs have told me that they really think A is a boy, and B is a girl, but like any modest little girl should, when they went to get a good look, B covered up with her hands (what a little lady haha) so a definitive determination of B's gender has not been made. The Peri assured us that at the anatomy scan, we will definitely find out for sure. 

The news about my SCH was pretty good. I had a few more brown bleeds since the last time I blogged about it, and the SCH that they have been watching seems to be down to about 6.5cm which is great news (it was 12.5cm at its largest.)

The not so wonderful news is that they think I may have developed a second SCH measuring 4cmx4cm, and this one was not as far from the babies as the first so that made us sort of say ugh. The tech told us they weren't absolutely sure that it was another SCH they were seeing, explaining that it could possibly be a blood vessel, so only time will tell.

My placenta previa also seems to be doing "okay." When I am having a contraction, I have full placenta previa, but when I am not contracting, Baby A moves up a little bit and makes some room for the cervix. I asked the Peri if she thought it would correct itself, and she said that while there is still a chance that it might, at this point I am pretty far along for that to happen, so that, too, may be something they have to watch for the remainder.

Overall I have to say that I am feeling pretty good, though I am officially the size of a house, okay maybe not a whole house, but a condo at least. I am still throwing up just about daily,  but not nearly as much - and though I hear talk about some mysterious energy boost that is supposed to be here in the second tri, the rain we have been having here in the northeast these last few weeks has kept that from happening. 

I guess that if there is one good thing to be said as I approach my now 6th week of bed rest (I can't believe it, I mean I can because it is boring and redundant and I have lived it every day, but I can't believe it still) is that there is a lot of free time to partake in some good naps.

I was going to share some ultrasound pics with you today, but hubs still needs to get them scanned for me, and we are overdue for a belly shot, so that will come soon too. 

Instead I thought I would share these lovely goodies that I have been so lucky to receive over these last few weeks, for which I am truly, TRULY, grateful.

This lovely painting actually came more than a few weeks ago, isn't it beautiful? It is a watercolored butterfly sent to me from my beautiful friend Jill at Footprints on Our Hearts!

Jill was also kind enough to send me this care package to get me through bed rest, as well as some twin books which unfortunately I don't have a pic of ...

And for Peyton's birthday, a lovely blog reader named Denise H. sent me the most perfect butterfly chimes... aren't they amazing?  They hang at our front porch now, and make the most beautiful wind-song when a soft breeze blows.

Well I guess that's all I have to report... please continue to keep my sweet little snowflakes in your prayers, that they continue to grow, and thrive, and come into this world healthy and strong.