Fundraising, Staying Busy, and the 4th of July

A lot has changed with me in the past week since that last ugly post. I was seriously falling fast into a pretty dark place. Was I able to handle those thoughts and feelings, nope! Were they getting me anywhere good, not really? My thoughts were literally making me crazy. I often wonder how I ever made it through the first half of last year. I am not saying that everything is all sunshine and rainbows now, but I do feel like I am in a lot of a better place mentally than I did since that last post........and most of June. I hope I won't be revisiting that place anytime soon because it is scary there.

I also started seeing a new counselor. I have met with her twice now and so far I think she will be good fit for me. The first appt. I might have even overwhelmed her a little. I was a huge wreck that day and bawled my eyes out that entire appt. In between the massive amounts of tears and snot running down my face I also talked about a million words per minute and she had to keep telling me to stop and just breathe for a second. I was having a really bad day.

Clearly the cost of the whole gestational surrogacy stuff was causing me added stress. So I decided I needed to do something about it versus just complaining about it. My awesome friend Liz had already set up the GiveForward fundraising page for us and talked about doing a game night fundraiser as well. Some friends from my grief group a couple weeks back also talked about a few other fundraising ideas we could do as well. I have not started or been in charge of a fundraiser before, but decided that getting one going would be a better use of my time than whining about money, or lack there of.  Through the help of a friend we have a nice, big, and free place to have one at. It is going to be on a Thursday night the first week of October, so I have a few months to get things together. So far we are planning to do a silent auction, a chili feed, and possibly a few other little things that night. Now I just need to get creative and come up with a flyer about all of this to hand out to people to spread the word. This should keep me busy for awhile.

Another thing I have decided to do to keep myself occupied, because that is the name of the game right now, is slowly work on remodeling the house. I know constantly distracting myself isn't the best way to deal with grief, but that is what I have been doing as of lately. Plus, we all know grief finds its way in eventually. I have already sanded, primed, and repainted our spare room. Derecks brother is also staying with us for a few weeks to help us with the bigger projects on our house. If you remember we had all that wind and water damage this past winter. The nursery and spare room already have new flooring in them, a few other spots need some new sheetrock put in and painted, and then some outside things need fixed as well. Once his brother leaves and those projects are done I think I am going to repaint the halls, the kitchen, hopefully do some tiling once I learn from Derecks brother how to, and then completely rip apart our downstairs bathroom because I am sick of looking at the nasty old wallpaper. Now I say I am doing this slowly because we need to be as cheap as possible about all of this, so I need to find good deals on stuff since we need to save up for our carrier stuff. Seems like good positive distraction to me.

I already have a huge list going of other odd and end projects I want to do as well. A few things on the list besides the house projects are to work on Evelynn's scrapbook, redo her wreath and basket from her funeral and burial with silk flowers like I did with Liam's cross, and make a quilt or two with some fabric I have had for years and never used. I want time to fly by and in order for that to happen I need to stay busy.

I have also been doing some reading. After Liam passed I read a lof of books on grief. I got burnt out on them, and then didn't read much again, other than blogs, until the beginning of this year when I picked up some more baby related books. Two recent books that I have read in the past week, that were recommended to me last year and I never read, is Heaven is for Real and Bad Things Happen to Good People. Heaven is for Real was a good book but I have a hard time believing a lot of what I read. Although, I want to believe its real because knowing I can one day be reunited with my babies means the world to me. Bad Things Happen to Good People though, I would say is an amazing book and I think everyone I know should read it. Everyone. So much of what was wrote in that back are things I have thought so much about since Liam was first diagnosed with Myelomeningocele, to him dying in surgery, to my baby girl passing away as well. So many of the various lines of BS that people have said to me after my losses he addresses as well. I could probably go on and on about how I feel about this book and the affect it has had on me, but really if you haven't read it then you just need to and you'll know what I mean. Or maybe you won't.


Love this! Sucks it has to be this way but it's so true!

July 3rd marked exactly a year and a half since the fetal surgery, Liam was born, and my little buddy passed away. Definitely not where I pictured myself and my family to be a year and a half later. A lot has happened.

I love you little buddy.

The 4th of July last year I was with dereck and friends in Dawson City in the Yukon. I was really missing my boy but also really hoping that I was pregnant. Which I turned out not to be. This year for the 4th we had planned on being in MN and ND with Evelynn introducing her to family. Her baptism was also going to be this Sunday. Oh, what coulda shoulda been.