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Today, March 30th, marks the anniversary of the worst day of my life.  The beginning of the darkest period in my life.  Five years ago today we lost a child.  Our baby girl Kendra.  I was five and a half months pregnant and we went in for our big ultrasound.  The one where you are supposed to see your baby, check for abnormalities and hopefully find out what you are having.  You leave with pictures of the being growing inside of you and pure joy in your heart.  We left the hospital a week later with nothing but a huge hole in our hearts.

I went into a deep depression.  I started drinking a lot.  I withdrew from our little family.  I was horrible to my husband.  I was so mad at him.  Because he did not fall into the depths of depression as deeply as I had, I felt like he didn't care.  He didn't cry every second of every day.  He didn't just sit there like a zombie stroking my stomach aching for the baby that was no longer there.  I felt like because he got up in the morning and was able to function, he didn't care.  But now as the years have gone by, I see how much he cared.  He got up and did what I could not.  He cared for our daughter.  He gave her everything, that at the time, I could not.  He loved her.  He cooked for her.  He bathed and dressed her.  He read to her.  I now see that while I sat there, sad and angry at him for not caring.  All he did was care.  He knew that we both could not do what I was doing.  That if we both did, we would lose our other daughter.  The one who needed us.  Another thing I see now is that he probably had it worse than I did.  He was mourning the loss of a child and the loss of his wife.  For several months I was a shell of my former self.  He had to watch me, helplessly, sink deeper and deeper into depression.  There was nothing he could do.  When I did talk, I would pick fights, yell at him and accuse him over and over again of not caring. I can honestly say that during that time, we came very close to divorce.  Today I am very glad that my husband, my wonderful, caring, loving husband put up with me, gave me time to mourn in my own way and picked up my slack.

As the years have passed this day has gotten easier.  But it is still hard.  I have to fight the urge to lay in bed and cry for my baby.  But today I did get up and made breakfast.  I went grocery shopping and returned some things to Target.  Then I cleaned.  I cleaned and cleaned.  I could not sit down because I knew once I did I would sit and cry for the rest of the day.  Then Kayleigh got home from school and the kids went outside.  All of the other moms were out watching their kids so I went over and talked to them.  This day is much easier if I am around people and keep busy.  I don't think that the pain will ever go away.  It still hurts the same today as it did that day we saw no heartbeat on the ultrasound.  I think the only difference is that  I have learned to live with it. I can not allow my self to be as selfish as before.  I can take a few minutes to mourn our child in heaven but, this year especially, I HAVE to be able to function to take care of our precious children here on Earth.

Today's picture shows how much the snow has melted.  When we moved it the snow was about hip high.  This is the back yard today.  Too bad we are supposed to get between five and nine more inches tonight. I have facilitated melting a little by digging Lola a trail and spreading some of the deeper snow around as the rest melted.  So our back yard has the least amount of snow in the neighborhood.  Lola is loving playing fetch in the grass.