3 years to long...

3 years have come and gone since I last seen you... The imagine of you still burns in my head, I can see your beautiful face, your eyes, your nose and your little lips. I can still feel my fingers trace your face and your hair. Feeling your soft baby skin against my fingertips and your sweet tiny baby hair. I brushed my thumb up and down your forehead what seems to be in my head days, but the harsh reality was it was to short.

My fear is one day I will wake up and forget those images and I will forget how it felt to touch you. I pray to God everyday to let me keep you alive in my head and keep your name going.

Yesterday was a good day, two beautiful friends of mine sent you balloons to heaven. (By the way I know you seen Nevaeh snatch your purple butterfly balloon!) I hope you loved your balloons, but be sure to share with Jenna and Nevaeh (even though she already snatched the purple one). I know they are keeping you company on your special day up there... you are probably having 'glitter wars' and eating as much 'cotton candy' as you can.....(Thank goodness there's no cavities in heaven).

Know that everyday I keep your name alive and you are still remembered. Until that beautiful day when we are reunited you are forever in my heart, my brain and my soul.

Know that even from Heaven you are changing lives and making strides to help others. Your life did not end in vain. You are loved far much more than you know.

Fly High Baby Girl...Fly High..

*Finding Hope in Grief and Learning to Dance in the Rain...*

And let there be P.A.I.N.

The pain of not knowing
is the worst of all.

Not knowing if she made it
where she can never fall.

This I will never know
in this life after all.
~Me

My faith in human kind has been really really bruised and crunched yesterday. I am one of those people who REFUSES to watch the news. I hate it I hate it I hate it! There's always something horrible going on and when I rummage the paper for my coupon and sales ads I have seen a LOT of families loosing their children and personally it aches my heart so I chose not to watch the news.
Well.... Yesterday something told me to sit in front of the TV and turn on Channel 7 (our ABC). I did against my better judgement and SLAP right in the face was a news segment on the county that I gave birth to Audrey in. Not just some old politician with their hand in the cookie jar story... but sickening enough, bodies forgot about in the morgue. (Now to me dead bodies don't scare me, my actual major before I chose Psych was Mortuary Science. Now the process of death and someone dying scares the dickens out of me, hence why I dropped my Nursing major. I have to much compassion and I could never live a life with so many what if's and watch someone die. Now work with someone who's passed on and help a family who is going through a tragedy hurdle over the hardest point in their lives is what I am about. Some people think I'm creepy for it but I say, its the last time you are ever going to see your family member in the flesh besides when we cross to the other side and I want to make sure its memorable and you are content with it. Ok enough of my side note)
Well the morgue SCREWED UP super bad... I mean HORRIFICALLY BAD. They forgot to process bodies, they forgot to send bodies to donation sites. This was said and I quote "Some of the photos show red plastic bags that morgue workers say contain fetuses, piled high on shelves, and some corpses that appear to be surrounded by garbage." Awesome huh? For one if a child is born its not a fetus that pissed me off, and two who the hell let this happen and doesn't have a friggin care to human life like this? Oh yeah COOK COUNTY MORGUE. 
So now I sit and wonder.... 'Was Audrey in one of them red plastic bags they called a fetus?' OR was her body used and in the meaningful way I intended on it to be used for?? 
IF you have the stomach to read the story and watch the video the link is here. 

My heart hurts... it just throbs right now. I am so numb that I don't know what to feel. I am angry, scared, sad, everything balled up into one.

My amazing friend posted a quote and picture that sums it all up for me in what path I have to go down right now:
                                     For all the times you couldn't... for all the times hope felt lost.

New Year ... Same Ache

My heart aches for her. Normally for me the years start off SO hard. Her birthday and entrance into heaven being in February really hits me hard in the beginning of they year. Then just when the pain seems to 'subside' a bit, BAM here comes mothers day and then her due date (June 19). I feel sometimes like I do NOT get a break from grief. There is always that CONSTANT reminder she's not here. That pain at times is suffocating and crushing.
 Today the pain was hanging her butterfly love Carly Marie Dudley drew for her in her honor. Next to her pictures, I put Jenna Belle's and Nevaeh's pictures she created as well. There is now a constant reminder of the THREE lovely little girls that have given me such a 'new and different' perspective on things and that have changed my life. And behind two of those little girls is two beautiful women who I just adore. I don't consider them friends... they are family... my sisters. Thousands of miles might separate us, but thank the LORD for the Internet I can always 'stalk' them a bit. We share laughs and cries via text and of course our angels. I could not ask for a better support system with my lovely ladies. Not to forget all of you either. Your emails, facebook posts, messages and comments have inspired me and left me absolutely humbled.
This year for Audrey's Angelversary I am asking  BEGGING (I am not to proud to beg) to help me with Audrey's angelversary this year. I have been put in a horrible compromising situation. I am sadly having surgery on the 17th and her bday is the 23rd. So that means.. BEDREST AND STUCK AT HOME ON CRUTCHES for her bday. My heart aches it hurts sooo bad. I am trying to see if people will help me light a candle for her or heck if you want to send a balloon up with a message or just say a little prayer to her. I can not do something like I WANT (my heart desires) to for her. Let me know if anyone has any ideas for her angelversary... it is approaching so rapidly. </3

Guilt..Grief...Journey

Today is probably the first day in a few that I have been able to stop and take a deep breath and enjoy some peace and quiet. Between birthdays, parties, football games, March of Dimes charity events and school work I haven't had much quality 'Dana Time'.
I read a post in my friends blog today. (Sometimes I feel bad that me catching up with my friends is reading an excerpt from their blog.) And she had TWO posts that hit home, one about guilt and the other about pleasing everyone. Well... I am a huge people pleaser with amazing amounts of guilt at times.
I often blame myself whole heartily about everything that happened to Audrey. I have always been the person to say if you are being mistreated in a relationship WALK AWAY, LEAVE YOUR LIFE ISN'T WORTH IT. But the words I repeat didn't affect me, I didn't leave, and I often think I say your life isn't worth it but yet I let my daughters be taken!!! The answer is... I was scared and threatened. I was fearful for what he could do to me and inevitably it happened. I know that a big piece of me went with Audrey, the amount of grief that I have and guilt consumed me for the bigger part of a year after she left. I am about to open up to you my demons my and my inner struggles. Please remember this is WHO I WAS.. NOT WHO I AM.. and Please do not pass judgement upon me as this is me being vulnerable.
On Feb 21 2009 my ex (Audrey's 'father' and my bf at the time) was dropped off at my house after a night of drinking with the boys. He had been kicked out of many bars and his friends were 'afraid' to bring him to his parents house as they didn't want to cause them trouble. So I mean hey.. why not bring him to his pregnant girl friends place. I was awoken out of sleep by my phone ringing off the hook and then my doorbell buzzing and his lovely friends running away and leaving him at the bottom of the stairs. Yes.. just what I needed, to wake up to my bf being at the bottom of 3 flights of stairs! Well... I don't know how but I managed to get him up the stairs and we made it to my apartment and I got him in my door. A friend was passed out on my couch (don't ask me why I didn't call for help getting him up the stairs). Well... as the drunk came into the apartment he seen someone sleeping on my couch and immediately started calling me names and telling me I was a cheater and that the baby probably wasn't his. He continued to accuse and belittle me and I just didn't want to hear it anymore, so I proceeded to walk into my room at the end of the hallway. As I attempted to walk past him he grabbed me by my arm and pulled me around and towards him. I don't know fully all what happened after that it turns to mush, but I know I was on the ground and then moments later I was pulled up and pushed against the door with a knife to my throat and my friend screaming bloody murder at my ex. I heard banging on the door I was behind and screaming from my neighbors asking me if I was ok and screaming to other to call 911. I don't honestly know what all happened maybe it was the fact that my head got hit and I blacked out or maybe my brain is doing me a favor and repressing those memories.
On Feb 23rd Audrey was born and my world spiraled more out of control. I started to drink.....heavily. As incoherently passing out was the only way I found to stop the nightmares. I lied to my family about what had happened (if you count lying not telling them the full story). I lay scared at night, knowing that he was out there, knowing that she was gone. I tried to forget everything that happened but I quickly realized it left me a horrible person to be around. Not only did my excessive drinking lead to horrible emotional breakdowns but they left me alone as my friends had turned their backs. I was down the road by myself. One night.. I drank a little to much and I don't know how (I like to think it was Audrey looking down on me) I ended up in the hospital for alcohol poisoning. They say I was close to death, that my gag reflex was gone and if I hadn't sent a graphic text message to a friend and they didn't call 911 that I would have choked on my own vomit and died. I owe that friend my life....but sadly enough that was one of the last times we've talked.
During that next day after I was released from the hospital I was sleeping.. SOBER, and I had a dream. A dream and Audrey was in it. It was of me sleeping on the couch in the same clothes I was wearing hospital bracelet and all, and she was kneeling next to me trying to pry open my eyes like kids do and she kept saying "Why won't you wake up? Why won't you play with me? Sometimes, I wish I had a new mommy because I don't like when you sleep all day because you are up all night". I shot up from my sleep and cried and realized, I was failing my daughter's name. I wasn't dealing with her death. I needed to change my focus and get back to "me".
Franchesca and Thank you Carly Marie. You two have no idea how much you have saved me from myself and who I was before this journey. Thank you so much for being you.

Named after Heaven

Its hard to think that a family that I do not know personally has been a major factor in my life lately. I fell upon a care pages from my lovely friend and I read it. It brought me to tears to see the posts that this mother had wrote about her daughter Nevaeh.

This little girl who is as precious as her name. Hard to think that this little girl is battling such a horrible thing. Cancer. Not just any cancer ALL leukemia. I have prayed for this little girl and her family day in and day out. I even made the decision to "adopt" the family for Christmas knowing the circumstances I wanted to provide them with an AMAZING Christmas. Now seeing the updates I know that my dreams and hopes for this family are to far away, and there is not enough time. My heart breaks for them knowing that they are loosing their daughter.

I wish I could find some kind of words to put together to take the pain away. I wish I could give them their daughter I wish I could do SOMETHING besides sit here and wait and PRAY.

I have fallen to my knees in prayer many of times lately this past week. For Nevaeh, for my mother and for myself. At times I start to think that all of this is just one BIG DREAM, but I am quick to realize there's no pain in dreaming and that this is real life. My dreams is where I am happy, where I can be with my daughter again, and where I can have what I want. My life.... not so much.

I find myself often screaming out the famous WHY WHY WHY... I already know that there is a purpose for everything and that nothing goes in vain. But I still don't get it. This is the part of my faith that I struggle with during the grieving process.

Keep Nevaeh and her family in your prayers. They are in need of a miracle of sorts....