TWO | A Birthday Not Forgotten

I knew what I was going to be taking pictures of for this week. This is going to be a hard post to write about. I know I said that I wanted to capture the moments that tend to get forgotten, but I knew there would be some at this birthday that I didn't want to miss.

We celebrated a birthday very special baby girl on Sunday. Last year we were excitingly expecting another baby. The first few months were going good, a shock for my very eventful pregnancies. At Nine weeks we spread the good news that we would be welcoming a baby in the late spring. Then at twelve weeks we went in for a routine ultrasound to check on baby and to check for abnormalities (this test is commonly called the nuchal translucency test). Our world crashed. We found out that our baby girl had a condition called Edwards syndrome (also know as trisomy 18). With this, 95% of all babies will die in utero, and most of the rest will die with in the first two weeks of life and have several medical problems. Not good news at all. We had a lot of difficult decisions to make about Abby's health and life. We decided to let God take over and carry Abby for as much time as we were given. At 17.5 weeks Abby went to heaven.

It's been a year of ups and downs. It was hard to watch the emotions of our 3 children as they tried to deal with death. Not just any death, but the death of their sister who they only knew by my growing belly and hearing her heartbeat with my home doppler. Also we were surprised by a new baby, a month after Abby's birth, I discovered I was pregnant again. Oliver is such a miracle, but I think I held my breath until he was safely in my arms.

One thing we decided on as a family is to never forget Abby. She is very much a part of our family. For those who have never experienced a loss of a child have a hard time understanding this. Even I didn't know the amount of emotions that Abby would bring us. She was not our first baby in heaven, but our fifteenth. All the other pregnancies were lost very early on in our pregnancy, I never got to see them on an ultrasound or feel them kick me from inside like I did with Abby. I didn't get to kiss their tiny body and have to say hello and good bye all in the same day like we did for Abby. We will never forget her and our lives will never be the same.

Sunday January 9, 2011 was Abigail Noelle's first birthday in heaven. We decided to make a cake for her and release balloons with our special notes on them. And though all this, I found some tender moments I don't want to forget.

The picture this week for my project 52 is:




The expression on my daughter Calla's face says so much about the day. It wasn't the happiest birthday party, but one we didn't want to miss. She told me she missed her sister, so much that she couldn't let her balloon go, she wanted to keep it to remember her.

Here are some other pictures from the day.

Our son Elliott spending a moment with Abby's box


A picture left for an Angel


Balloons with notes ready to soar




Daddy where are they?





**PLEASE check out the other Project 52 links on the side bar! There are lots of amazing storys being told though pictures! If you have a P52 you would like placed on my blog roll, please leave a comment with your link, I'd be happy to have you there. **