Love

**Updated

I love:

my precious baby

my family- my husband, my mom, my brother, and sister, my niece and nephews

my blog buddies

my friends

my pets- my beautiful dog, Cassidy and my loving cat, Patches. That's me, Cassidy, and Ella (in my belly) in January at the beach.

walks at the beach

a good meal

a spa day

cool summer nights

a full moon

a good book

bubble baths

blogging

hot power yoga

butterflies

my necklace that has ella's foot prints on it

the quilt i had made with my dad's hawaiian shirts

the blanket ella was wrapped in that i sleep with every night

traveling (which I've done none of in the past two years, but i still love it)

watching the new season of weeds and entourage

Random Thought: What's up with word verification? What purpose does it serve? I always find myself trying to unscramble the word and see if it spells something. I guess I'm trying to see if there's a hidden meaning or a sign. It bugs me, I'm going to remove it from my blog.

Retouched Photos

After thinking about it for a while, I decided to submit Ella's pictures for retouching to this site. I'm pretty happy with the result. I think retouching the bruising will make the photo a little easier to look at. Though, I think I still prefer her original photo. It is more obvious to me now even more that she looks like my husband. I couldn't decide if I was going to post her picture here or not. But, decided to take the plunge and go for it.

p.s. these are not my hands. I wish they were my hands, but they are those of the angel nurse that cared for me and Ella.

Hate

I hate...

My life.

That I'm depressed and miserable all day because I miss my baby.

That I live in a neighborhood where I have to see young couples with their babies everywhere I freaking go.

That I have two baskets full of stuff sitting in my closet that Ella will never use.

That most of the human population fails to understand the depth of what I'm experiencing. That people don't equate my loss with the loss of a child.

That it seems that everyone around me is pregnant and I am not. And that some of those people still have the audacity to complain that they're uncomfortable, fat, miserable...

That people ignore me because they don't know what to say.

That trying to get pregnant again is work.

The freaking two week wait.

That I am unsure of when I'll have a baby in my arms again.

That my husband is depressed and doesn't want to take a vacation because he thinks we'll just come home and be unhappy again.

That I'm back to work and that I have to pretend to be okay and happy every second. It's exhausting and I've never been good at supressing my feelings.

That I work with kids. I hate putting all my energy into other people's children when I so desperately want to have one of my own. I hate having to look into the faces of these kids and wonder if Ella would have been like them. I wish I worked in a freaking office.

That I will never know what color Ella's eyes were. That I'll never see her smile. That I basically know nothing about her.

That I've only been back to work for 2 weeks and I'm already getting my first cold. Just a reminder that I was sick like every couple of weeks when I was pregnant with Ella because kids are germ factories.

That my dad died. I hate seeing my mom alone. I hate that on top of the loss, she lost her house, her car...

Scratch that. I don't hate my life. I hate the universe.

Is it weird that

I lurk on my friend's baby shower registry? I'm not going to the shower, but for some reason, I keep checking her registry.

I was looking at baby urns online, even though we already have one for Ella's ashes?

Ella's Angel Wings

I received Ella's angel wings from Lea today. This picture does not do these little wings justice. They are so beautiful, precious, and delicate. Just like my Ella. Thank you for warming my heart today, Lea.

I'm a Crappy Teacher

Tomorrow is the sixth day of classes and I probably know 10% of my kid's names. Sometimes, I look at certain kids and say to myself, "have you been in this class the whole time?" I'm exhausted. I only have it in me to present the lesson and then let the kids figure it out for themselves. They make messes, spill, aren't following along, and I don't care. I don't have it in me. Thankfully, there are only seven days left of the summer session.

If I truly have to return to work full time in the fall, I want to work here.

Totally off topic question: have any of you tried these early pregnancy tests? They claim that you can test as early as 7 DPO. I have 2 in my nightstand right now. I'm contemplating when I'm going to start testing...

** I made the above picture at my mom's this weekend. We had a hard time photographing it in the dark, so my brother added the cool effects.

Walking With You - Naming Our Babies

Thanks, Emily for introducing me to Walking With You.



Walking With You was created to help support those who have lost a child. Together we share our stories, helpful information, scriptures, encouraging words, prayer requests, and more. Thank you to those of you who have joined us for the past few weeks...for courageously sharing your stories. If you haven't joined us yet, and would like to, you are more than welcome.

This week, we are sharing how we chose the names for our babies and any special meaning behind them.

When we started trying to get pregnant, my husband bought me a baby name book. It was fun scannning through the book and choosing names for our future children. We knew that with our last name being twelve letters, the first name had to be short and easy to pronounce. Right away, Evan and Ella were put at the top of our list. I loved the name Ella because it meant "one who travels." I loved the idea of my daughter getting to travel and see the world. I'd hope we'd have many adventures together. Even though, Ella was our top pick, we had other names on our list too. We liked Serena, Amelia, Nora, Erin, and Clare. We were still exploring names when I went into preterm labor. The week I was on bedrest, I declared that her name was Ella. Our nickname for her is Ella Bella. When she was born, I did hesitate for a second when the nurse asked us for her name. I loved the name Ella so much and hated the idea of never getting to use it again. But, she was Ella, it just suited her.