Your headstone

This the stone we picked for you.  The lettering will be bright white so it can be seen from far away.  We will have your feet on a picture in the upper left corner and a bear engraved on the back.  We will always call you Claire Bear.

Sissy gets a tablet! No more iPad fights??

March Madness

Hey sweets!  Today is 3/31/14.  The end of March is finally here.  I think Spring is on it's way, or at least I hope so.  It will definitely make it better for visits with you at the cemetery.  This month has been busy!!! Your sisters birthday party was this past weekend.  We got her a tablet so that Matthew and Darrell (Bub) and her will quit fighting over the iPad.  Me, your dad, and your mamaw and papaw went and picked out your headstone and your dad and I are driving over to Brookville, Indiana to finalize payment and get the final sketch of how your stone will look.  We are going to have a picture of your feet on the stone as well. Such cute feet they are.  Your dad had emergency gallbladder surgery mid-March and Matthew has started his baseball season.  Yikes!  So much to do and not enough time.  I miss you so much.  The kicks, the movement, and everything.  If I was to have you now, your chances of survival would be good.  Life is not fair.  I am so happy to have a daughter.  You are my angel.  I think about you all the time.  I have included a picture of Katie after she opened her tablet and a picture of your headstone (unfinished product).  Your brother Darrell has pink eye!  Well, he is getting over it now.  Must have picked it up at preschool.  I miss you Claire Bear of mine.  You know I'm gonna love you forever, right?

Mama Bear

Help me help you

I think that this is a great meme.  Through my story I can help others heal as well as myself.  I don't know that we will ever truly heal, scars will always remain, some deeper than others.  To me, I feel my wound will always seem life threatening.  It's deep and it hurts.

C stands for C*L*A*I*R*E

I was so giddy about finding this C sun catcher for Claire at Hobby Lobby.  When I found it I let out a shriek of disbelief.  My mom (your mamaw) said it was the most excited she can remember seeing me in a while.  I was so excited to find this to take to you.  I hope you love it.  I know I love it.  We brought out a stepping stone and some more Easter decor.  I am excited to put your Easter basket together.  This year I have four to make.  One for your stepbrother, stepsister, and brother, and then yours.  I wish I was buying you candy and lollipops too.  Holidays are not fair now.  I have to do what I can to see that you get celebrated too.  I love having you as a daughter.  I hope you can see my heart and how much space you own of it.

Love always,

Mom

But....I knew you

In retrospect, I see where this book could be a good tool for mother's suffering from the loss of their child(ren).  In my case, I am grieving a child I very much knew and will continue to know.  I saw her face, gave her a name, touched her fingers, hands, nose, toes, ears, and kissed her face.  I felt her kicks, punches, and loop-de-loops as she made them in my belly.  Her name is Claire Evelyn and I still feel her in the breeze, absorb her from the sunlight, smell her in the peach candle aromas, hear her in the wind chimes outside our home.  She is very real to me, more real than things I can physically touch.  So real, because no matter what I am or what I will become she would have loved me deeply as I do her.  She has changed my life, she has taught me more about life.  Claire, somehow, someway gave me life.  I want to live my life better now, I want to be sure I get there to be with you someday Claire....in Heaven.

Blue skies on the horizon

The skies are looking clear and bright this morning.  I am sitting at work, thinking about you like always.  This morning your chimes were chiming like crazy.  Yesterday, your dad said he sat on the loveseat listening to your chimes and thinking about you.  Your dad had emergency gallbladder surgery this past weekend and is still home recovering.  His gallbladder almost burst before we got him to the hospital.  It could have been a lot worse than it was.  Nevertheless, he is still in some significant pain.  As I type I can see the warm sunshine splashing it's color on the buildings in front of my work.  I thought about you quite a bit on my drive into work.  The other day when I visited you for your 1 month since passing through this world, I promised you that if your dad and I have a baby girl someday, we will give her the middle name Claire.  I want your legacy to continue.  I left you some new windchimes and had a beautiful potted plant made for you.  I still have a few more things to bring out to you.  This Saturday, your dad and I are going with your mamaw and papaw to choose a headstone for you.  This is going to be hard for me but it will give me more options for decorating your grave.  Instead, I should be buying you more stuff for your nursery.  I had some great ideas. The theme was going to be lovebirds and the colors were purples and greens.  You know me, I am not a pink kind of person.  I was going to hang some decorative looking birdcages in your room.  I had plans for you.  Those plans were taken away from me.  Day to day I try to make sense of it.  I don't think I'll ever be able to.  I make assumptions, I try to make things better by trying to convince myself that you are better off in Heaven.  The truth is, I am not sure what I know, think, feel anymore.

Love always,

Mommy

Fudge Stripes

Today is a very blah day.  The weather is so-so.  Gray skies and just not much going on.  Last night your younger brother asked about you, and looked at your pictures we took at the hospital.  He asked me if you would be coming back from Heaven.  I told him that you wouldn't want to because it is too nice there.  He looked somber, I think he is beginning to understand that you are gone.  The day of your funeral he sat with me the entire time and hugged me as I cried.  The two of you would have played together and I am sure you would have fought over stuff too.  Normal brother and sisterly love.  We had to call Babies R Us today and tell them what happened and that we would not be picking up your crib, dresser, and changing table.  I want you to see what we had picked out for you so I am going to put the pictures up here.  This day sucks.  I have devoured an entire package of fudge stripe cookies and I don't feel one bit bad about it.  I love you doll face.

Mom

The Story of You

You were born 2/17/2014 at 21 weeks gestational.  We named you Claire Evelyn Miller.  You were 14.6 ounces and 10.5 inches long.  Your time of birth was 3:42 A.M. and you became an Angel at 3:45 A.M.  All of your features were there.  You have my crooked 2nd toes, your dads big hands and feet, my nose and small ears.  There were few small blonde hairs on your head.  I got to see your little butt, it was so cute.  You were well on your way to being a perfectly healthy, happy little girl.  While inside my belly you loved peaches.  You wanted me to eat them all the time.  I craved them daily and would eat them by the can/jar fulls.  It was never enough.  That is why my other nickname for you is Peach.  You are my peach.  Peaches were your favorite taste, smell, everything.  Now I burn candles for the peach smell.  I refuse to eat them though.  I probably will never eat another peach.  Peaches are a me and you thing.  

You moved around a lot, kicking me and rolling around.  I swear you were practicing somersaults in there.  There were moments of peaceful flutters and moments of raging kicks.  I didn't care though.  I loved it, I love you.  I felt your first movement at around 17 weeks.  I was sitting at the dinner table with your dad and brother Darrell.  I was eating and BOOM, I felt you.  I knew it was you and I told your dad.  I started to feel you all the time after that.  

On the morning of 2/15/2014, I woke up to a contraction at 7:30 A.M.  Went to the bathroom and caught the mucus plug in my hand.  I knew then something was very wrong.  I called the doctor and he told me to just take it easy.  Then at 2 P.M. there was blood.  I called again and they asked me to come in ASAP.  Your dad basically flew us there.  He was scared and I could tell.  I figured they would give me something to stop contractions and we would go home.  I was very wrong.  They took me to a room and did an exam.  Told me I was dilated and sent me down to Ultrasound.  The look on the ultrasound technicians face was priceless.  I knew she knew something was wrong.  She never said a word and left.  When I got back to the room they tried giving me a catheter.  OUCH!!!!!!!  Never again.  I even told the doctor that was NOT happening again.  Soon the doctor came in and said that I had lost my fluid around you and my body was trying to go into labor.  The rushed me via ambulance to a much more educated hospital.  They had told me during the ride that I could have an infection called Chorioamnionitis.  They also said it was rare and that more that likely I was just having an incompetent cervix and needed a cerclage.  I wish that was what it was.  

When I arrived at the hospital and lady doctor came into the room, examined me, looked at ultrasound results and told me that you were going to be born and not survive.  She was very cold about it and left the room.  I never saw her again.  I am glad I didn't.  From then on we had the best line of nurses and doctors.  They took great care of me and your dad.  Your dad was beside me the entire time.  He never left me.  

They began administering antibiotics right away and told me there was a high chance you would not make it.  They answered all of my questions.  Many of them cried for you.  They were hurt too. The next day, 2/16/2014 (my 33rd birthday), the contractions stopped and the doctor told me that it was possible for you to live inside me the rest of the time as you were and that you could very well me fine.  They were talking about sending me home on bed rest.  About 6 P.M. that day your dad left to get me P.F. Changs (my favorite) for my birthday.  When he got back I was in full on labor with you.  My body temperature shot up and so did my heart rate.  Your heart rate did the same.  At this time they told me that they were sure it was Chorio and they induced me.  I tried to fight it and they said that the infection could kill me too.  I was willing to take that chance but they pushed me along and induced me.  During the labor pains, I started to shake and I was freezing.  I started bleeding badly and my blood pressure dropped to a very scary level.  I was given a shot to help.  Then I was given morphine and an epidural to deliver you.  You were born, you did not cry, whimper or anything.  The nurse handed you to your dad.  He was one proud papa.  But he was very very sad.  My blood pressure dropped worse and the infection that was in the placenta started to spread inside me.  The placenta would not deliver and I was taken to the OR and it was removed from me.  At this point I was barely there mentally.  A few hours and a lot of medicine later I started coming around.  I held you the next two days.  Your dad and I transported you to the funeral home when I was released.

We had a beautiful funeral for you.  Lots of family and friends came.  We received cards, flowers, and presents galore.  Everyone really wanted you Claire.  Everyone loves your name and everyone loved everything you are.  Life is not fair Claire, I wanted you so bad.  I still do and I will never stop feeling like this.  I know I do not have the option to love you in a traditional manner but I am going to find ways to love you however I can.  

Meet the Parents

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We are your mommy and daddy.  Brandon and Kristin.  We love each other very much and are the very best of friends.  We are great parents to you.  I am not going to say that we would have been because we still are your mom and dad no matter what.  Even though you are in heaven, we still love you like nothing is different.  We cannot show physical love, simply because we cannot touch you, but we do show you emotional love.  We try hard.  We wait for signs.  We love you.  We talk about you almost everyday.  Myself more than your dad.  He doesn't show his feelings the same way that I do.  He keeps a lot inside.  I am more vocal.

Your dad is an excellent cook.  He graduated from the Chef's Academy and works in Food Service.  He is good at what he does.  When we first starting dating each other, he cooked me some great dinners and desserts.  I, on the other hand am a terrible cook.  So, we trade the cooking and laundry duties.  He hates laundry and I don't mind it.  I work in Staffing and management.  I am in school for my business degree, which I put on hold until next semester so I can have a little time to work on healing from the loss of you.  So far, there is no healing.  The only peace I have is my belief in God and Heaven.  I have no peace inside of me.  Only turmoil.  I blame myself, I blame God, I think constantly about how things might have been.  There is no peace in that.  I'm 33 and your dad will be 36.  His birthday is 6/27, which also happens to have been your due date.  This is always going to make his birthday hard for him.  If only you could have made it to that date.  

You have two brothers, Matthew and Darrell, and one sister, Katelyn.  They wanted you too.  At your funeral they cried, they don't understand how this could have happened.  Neither do we.
You would have been super spoiled by your grandparents too.  Oh the life you would have lived. 
The bond we have is unbreakable Claire.  I think about you day in and day out.  

Together, your dad and I enjoy movies, dinners, taking your brothers and sister to do fun things as a family.  We enjoy a lot of the same television shows, little vacations, and we make each other laugh all the time.  I love walking through life holding his hand.  I also want to be holding yours.  

I am getting ready to get back into scrapbooking.  I think I need to put my energy into something that I like to do.  I will be making a scrapbook for you too.  

Love,

Mom

Positivity on a stick!

This morning was one of the greatest mornings of mine and your dad's lives.  I was about ten days late and your dad was so excited this morning to get me up and have me take this test to see if I was pregnant.  I was nervous to see the result.  He was hoping for a positive one.  After the three minutes of waiting were up, your dad went into the bathroom, grabbed the stick, came back into the bedroom and said "Yes, we are going to have a baby".  I grabbed the stick, took a look at the plus sign and said "Yes, we are."  The phone calls and text messages were made instantly.  We just couldn't wait.  Later that day we took your brothers and sister to a pumpkin patch and picked pumpkins.  Fall time was setting in.  That is my favorite time of year.  Pumpkins, apple cider, crisp fall air, and harvest moons.  I just cannot get enough of fall.  This day was so exciting.  We told your siblings that you were on the way.  Everyone was overjoyed.  No one, especially me would have ever thought that this plus sign had a negative coming.

City of Angels

Claire, this is your movie.  If ever a movie was made this one makes me think of you.  The risks for love taken in this movie are the kinds of risks a person, especially a mother would take to show love.  This movie makes me think of how I want to live for you.  It makes me think of the extremes I would go to just to show you how I feel.  We take chances in our lives and most of those chances are for the things we want and long for.  Those things are usually standing on the other side of fear.  The soundtrack for this movie has many songs that make me think of you.  This movie came out in 1998 and I was just 17.  I watched it over and over again over a span of many years because it intrigued me so much.  I could not understand then why I was in such awe over this movie.  Sixteen years later I know why.  I love you Claire.  You are my angel.