Liam's 5th Birthday

Liam's 5th birthday was yesterday and it was very different than in years past. Brad was gone all day at drill (not ideal for either one of us) and with Kylie being mobile and requiring more attention, I was very distracted for most of the day, which I thought was a good thing, but when the girls were in bed and we laid down to start winding down it all hit me like a ton of bricks. 

I was sad for Liam. Sad that we didn't really give him due for the day. Sad for so many reasons. I think about Liam all the time but not unlike other years, on his actual birthday I am taken back too all the details of the day. Not just thinking about Liam but finding out he was gone, delivering him, holding him for such a short time, giving him over to the nurse. Seeing him at the funeral home one last time before we closed the casket to put him on a plane with us to fly back to Iowa for his funeral. Those details that I don't often dwell on. How today is suppose to be filled with presents, cake, singing "Happy Birthday" and what would have been a 5 year old boy so excited to celebrate his birthday. Maybe he would have picked a Spider Man theme this year. Or Tonka Trucks with lots of dirt. I will never know. 

So this year instead of having a cake we got balloons that we all wrote on and released. It was very beautiful and I feel like much for fitting to celebrate his birthday. I took pictures today of Kylie with Liam Bear. The closet thing we will get to sibling pictures. Brad and I will write in a birthday card like we do each year and tuck it away with the rest of his memorabilia. I plan to use the girls footprints to make blue butterflies as a keepsake for his 5th birthday. That is all I got, it just doesn't feel like enough for our precious boy. 

On Friday I was eating breakfast with Izzy and said,

"Do you know what tomorrow is?"

She said, "no"

I said, "It's  your bother Liam's Birthday!"

She said, "Gasp (excited), are we going to go to heaven and take Liam birthday cake?"

I said, "No honey. We can't go to heaven but we are going to release balloons for Liam."

She said, "We are going to take balloons to heaven?"

I said, "Well no honey, we can't go to heaven. We are going to send balloons up into the sky to celebrate Liam's birthday."

 

Sigh, the heart of a child. Her youthful innocence. I am sure she thinks we can just jump in the car and go to heaven. I wish it was that easy to see Liam. 

 

I will never forget the last thing I said to Liam before I handed him to Brad for the last time to give to the nurse. 

"I love you Liam Micheal Felty, precious boy, and I will never forget you"

Happy 5th Birthday Liam. Until THAT day!  

 

Somedays are harder than others -March 2017

Laying here in bed, I can't tell you why sometime I just start thinking about THE DAY, the day we lost Liam. Liam is ALWAYS on my mind, whether the forefront or somewhere on the back burner, but sometimes like a punch in the gut, the events leading up to us holding Liam just hit me. I am suddenly, without warning thinking about how I went into labor. Trying to piece together the timeline of events and even find myself googling questions. Once again, I am scrambling for answers, answers to questions I thought I had long laid to rest.....Did my body go into labor because Liam had died? Did I go into labor first and that contributed to his death? Signs of labor are what had us thinking that day, then when I started spotting I called the doc. By the time we were on our way to the hospital I was measuring contractions, once at the hospital they were 2 minutes apart. 

I remember after taking a shower and shaving my legs, grabbing the to-go bag I hugged Brad and told him I was scared. He assured me that Liam was fine and he prayed for us. I feel so guilty because in the that moment the thought of Liam not being safe was never a thought in my mind. I was coming to terms with the fact that I was in labor and I was petrified of delivery. It breaks my heart to think that Liam was in distress, or already gone and I was selfishly thinking about myself. 

I think about how we should have RUSHED to the hospital and I should have NOT showered. Then I remembered. I remember feeling him kick, it was lower left side. He kicked me one time when we were standing at the receptionist desk in Labor and Delivery. I googled if you can feel a baby kick after they are gone and everyone said it was probably gravity and my movement that were moving Liam around. I will never know for sure if he was alive in that moment, or if we missed saving him by mere minutes.  Sometimes they can tell if baby has been gone for a long time when you deliver. Liam hadn't been gone that long, we know for sure he was kicking up a storm as we played poker with friends till 2am the night before he was born.  

The events that took place after that are behind me, yet I am once again asking God to give me peace. Peace that there was nothing else I could have done, peace that it wasn't my own selfishness that we could have saved him had we hustled. Peace that we didn't miss him being alive by mere seconds. 

Then I think about him and have to nearly say it out loud for my heart and head to agree. I HAD a baby BOY!!! I actually had a SON. I had a son who would have developed a personality, who I would have interacted with. I think about Kylie and think that Liam wasn't just a baby that I held lifelessly in my arms. He was a person, he was alive at one point. Ugh, I feel like I am in a dream, running in slow motion through a pool as I try to articulate how I am feeling. This bizarre emotion and confusion almost of thinking about how you had a child but never got to meet (really) or know them. 

I HAD a son but I don't HAVE a son. 

I think as Kylie gets bigger and begins to grow out of things like the swing and play mat, and we start to pass those things along, it will be tough. Tough to think that all those things we got for Liam being gone. It will begin to mark the end of our child bearing years, of having babies, of having babies around our home. Another thing that makes Liam seem so distant as my last baby quickly moves to being more of a toddler than a baby. Liam will always be a baby to me. Yet, the reality of that and all of the tangible things will soon be gone. I can only hold onto a few intangible things that often seem to allude me. 

Memories can fade and even trick us sometimes. 

I know that guilt and "what if's" are something I will probably wrestle with in some capacity for the rest of my life. Some nights, like tonight they are hitting me hard. That and the weirdness that is the whole thing. I look back in my minds eye to our townhouse on the Chesapeake Bay and it's almost as if I was in the movie "A Christmas Carole" and I was with the ghost of Christmas past, peering through the window at myself. But it's like it's not me. 

I had a son but I don't have a son. It feel like a lifetime ago. 

Not so much even the "Why God why?" Why did you let him die but more of the "How". How did this happen and why from a medical standpoint. There are days I feel like I should have filed a lawsuit with Sentara Norfolk General and the doctors, but I know we chose not to for all the right reasons. 

Answering, "Yes!"

Today is Kylie's first birthday and my heart can hardly handle how quickly she is growing up. She is tiny in size but mighty in so many other amazing ways. The fact that she is my last (at least biological) baby makes milestones like this even harder to absorb.
It hit me several months ago with Kylie, that time always seems to be moving faster and faster with each passing day. I am very keenly aware each night when I lay her in bed that she will not be the same person tomorrow. She will be a day older, a day more mobile, a day taller, another day changing. I am very aware each night I lay her in bed, pray over her, and kiss her good-night that it's another day we will never get back. Time is moving so quickly that it is scary to me, scary how fast each day, month, and year go by. I watch her play with her paci in bed each night as I sing to her and watch her little feet curl up as she grabs her toes, I wonder how much longer she will curl up into that cute baby ball. 

Today I am aware that I don't have a baby anymore, although Kylie isn't fully mobile yet, and tiny for her age, she is for all tense and purposes a toddler now.
I am a baby person friends, I LOVE babies. Tiny babies, chubby babies, newborn babies are the best. I love the squeaks they make, the smell, the snuggles, everything. I can't believe that our baby days are over. I will never hold my own 'baby' again. Ugh, where did the time go?


Liam changed everything for me. My heart, my perspective, my view of God. I remember when I was pregnant with Izzy and talking with our pastors wife at Wave church in Virginia Beach, she asked me a very tough question when I was conveying to her my fear of loosing another baby. She asked, "If you lost this baby right now, would you still thank God for blessing you with her?" My immediate answer, and truly my answer up until recently was, "no." Why would I be happy that the Lord 'blessed' me with a baby that I only got to carry for a few months and then was taken away?
It has only been after laying Kylie down night after night, sometimes with real tears running down my face as I try to burn the image of my precious baby into my long term memory, that I can finally answer, "yes."  I was praying one night over Kylie and for myself and my bitter-sweet tears of joy for my girls and sadness at how quickly time is going. Kylie blew some kisses at me and in my heart, in that moment God touched something deep inside me and I thanked him. I thanked God for blessing me with all 3 of my children and that no matter how quickly time on earth goes, not only their baby days but school years, teenage years, adulthood. I get to spend FOREVER with my babies. I get to enjoy Liam, Izzy, and Kylie forever even after our time on this earth is done, however long or brief it is. So I am thankful that God gave me three beautifully amazing children that I get to spend eternity in heaven with.
I still look at my girls each day, bitter-sweetly enjoying the here and now, and mourning each day that quickly passes by. I mourn Liam everyday and wishing he could be here to spend our earthly days with, but I know the best is yet to come. A time will come when time doesn't matter. We won't be sad at how quickly it goes because we get forever. No good-byes, no growing up, just beautiful moments spent together for eternity.
This is an incredible, beautiful gift that God has given us. I will mourn each phase of my girls life's that come and go, but I don't have to be sad because I know that although our time on this earth is brief, whether you live to be 100 or never take a breath outside of the womb, God has given us forever. So I am thankful for Liam just as much as I am thankful for living children!