Christmas Eve | | 2015

Christmas Eve in the Lanese House was super relaxed this year. Lilly Belle and I spent the morning baking cookies and playing while Matt worked from home. We made our favorite Peanut Butter Blossoms even though we still had like 4 dozen cookies left from the cookie exchange I had with my friends.

Lilly Belle and I had to run to Target for a few last minute things and when we came home, Nana and Papa's presents had arrived and Matt had them all set up under the tree. We Skyped with them while we opened our gifts and Lilly Belle was so excited to "see" them!

Just as we were about to head out to church before dinner, my childhood dance coach and her girls surprised us with a visit! I didn't know they were in Orlando until Matt saw it on Facebook a few hours before. Lilly Belle showed them her recital dance and they taught her a few cute little songs too - she loved it! It was a really nice visit and felt good to have some "family" with us for Christmas. I was feeling homesick all day.

We made it over to church and Lilly Belle was thrilled to see that her friend Emilie was in Kids Church with her. They got to go on a train ride outside around the parking lot during the service and she made me a sweet nativity craft. Lilly Belle is like mommy and loves going to church!

We headed home for our usual traditions - even though it was super late! We had our chicken asparagus casserole (tradition for 8 years now since Matt and I were dating and he made it for me). We had hot chocolate and popcorn while we watched The Grinch and Mickey's Christmas Carol. Lilly Belle was exhausted so we read her The Night Before Christmas and she got to sleep in our bed. She loves when she gets to sleep in our room! She was also excited to wear her Santa "footies"!

One last time checking the Santa Tracker! He was in London. She didn't understand where that was, but we have some friends who were in England, so I told her that Pennie and Poppy were getting their presents delivered and she was happy about that.

We set out the cookies and then it was time for Santa's Elves to get to work! We put the hoop together in about 3 minutes and then...it was time for that crazy kitchen. It took us 3 hours to put it together. Matt and I usually hate putting things together...together, but this wasn't so bad.

We were exhausted at midnight when it was all done, especially knowing Lilly Belle would be up crazy early the next morning!

It was a wonderful Christmas Eve. I'm so thankful for our little family and that we have Lilly Belle to experience Christmas with now.

Dear Lilly Belle

Dear Lilly Belle,

My sweet girl. You are getting so big. I haven't wrote you a letter in a long time and I am feeling like there is so much I want to tell you right now. I have so much that I want to remember about who you are right now. You are just 2 years old, but you are wise beyond your years. You can feel others emotions and are so good at comforting people. We just had a sweet baby go to Heaven, and you have been so incredible through it all. You are one amazing little girl.

I call you my little best friend. It is so incredibly true. We do everything together. You're always by my side. When I say that, I mean that literally. Today I couldn't take a bath alone without you crying at the door saying "please mommy. I just want to come in. Please mommy open the door!" (you got to come in, stinker). We spend all of our days together. We do so much together. You are so sweet with daddy and love him to pieces until I'm around - then daddy gets frustrated because you're attached to my hip.

You bring so much joy to my life. You bring so much joy to daddy's life. I cannot imagine our lives without you in it making us laugh and smile. This Christmas was hard with losing our angel baby, but oh so magical to see it all through your beautiful eyes. You are so verbal and animated. Christmas morning was so special - you loved it all so much. You were so grateful for each an every gift and thing we did with you.

I just want you to know that I love you. I don't want there to ever be a day that goes by that you guess how much I love you. You are my whole entire world. From the second I saw you I knew you were going to complete me. You made me a mommy and that is the best gift in the entire world. You are so precious to me. I can't begin to tell you how many times a day daddy and I just want to squeeze you.

I try so hard to soak you all up. All of your smiles. All your giggles. Even your tantrums. All of it. I want to bottle you up. I know you are getting older and there will be a day when you don't want me by you every second. This time, in the big scheme of things, is so short. I soak it all up. If you want to be held, I hold you. If you want to take a bath with me, I let you. You're so little but think you are so big.

I love you my sweet girl. Always always. You are the light of my life.

10 Weeks Pregnant with my Angel

Some days are harder than others. I was "strong" all day yesterday. It was Christmas. Lilly Belle is 2. She had been waiting for Christmas and to see what Santa was going to have under the tree for her since before Thanksgiving. I kept it together all day. We had fun. I will write about Christmas later, but right now I just need to write about my angel and how my baby is still in me. And how that is killing me. The past three weeks have been the hardest weeks of my entire life. From an emotional rollercoaster to start it off to now feeling the saddest and most lost in my entire life, it has been just really, really hard. It sucks. It really sucks. Yesterday felt like something was missing. I missed my baby and I grieved for all that I had planned for Christmas Day. We were supposed to announce our baby. We were going to give Lilly Belle her Big Sister Kit complete with her Big Sister Mickey Ears, big sister books, a doll, and her own little bag. Our Christmas/New Years cards were supposed to get sent out a few nights before. The cards announcing our sweet Baby #2. I miss my baby. I miss my baby so much.

I cried a lot today. Today was hard. Today sucked. This morning I felt so angry. I am 10 weeks 'pregnant' with our angel today. I am still technically pregnant which is the hardest part. 10 weeks of carrying my child's body in mine. And now knowing my sweet baby is there but is lifeless and there is absolutely nothing I can do. I can't fix my baby. I can't help my baby. I can't bring my baby back. But it's still there. My body won't let go. I'm doing all I can to tell my body to please, please just let go. I try hard to relax and pray. I pray to God to please let my body let go. I don't want surgery. I don't want my baby to be taken from me...again. I don't want to go into surgery awake and with my baby and then go out, have my baby taken from me...scraped or vacuumed out from me...and then wake up to feeling completely empty and lost. I'm scared. I'm really scared.

Matt has been so incredible. He knew Christmas was awful for me. This morning, he had all the decorations and tree cleaned up and put away by 9:00am. He then moved our entire living room around to how I've been wanting it so I would feel more comfortable and more at home. He spent the whole day taking care of me. He let me take a bath. He let me go to Trader Joes alone. I struggled today.

This morning I fell apart in the living room. I was sitting on the couch and just started crying. I cried that I wanted my baby back. Lilly Belle was playing in her room and Matt held me. Lilly Belle heard me and came out. She pushed her way between Matt and I and then crawled up to snuggle on me. She wrapped her little arms around me and rubbed my face. She said, "its okay mommy. I'm right here, mommy. I'm right here. Baby sister is an angel. It will be okay mommy. I love you mommy. I'm right here. I'm right here..."

I held her as tight as I could and just sobbed. And she just let me and continued to hug me back and rub my face. Matt held us both as he cried hard too. This has been so hard on all three of us. We lost sweet "baby sister" and forever will have an angel with us.

Matt got stern with me the other night when I was crying. All of my friends keep saying how I am so strong and they're amazed at how strong I am being. He told me to stop. I don't have to be strong. I'm not right now and that is OK! It felt so good to hear. It felt good to have permission to just feel. It felt good to feel like I don't have to keep it all together right now, because honestly, I just can't. I miss my baby all the time. Especially because it's not gone yet. I am 10 weeks pregnant with our second sweet baby yet I'll never get to meet or hold my sweet sweeet baby. I'll never get to look him or her in the eyes and tell them how much I love them. I will never get to hear them laugh or hold them when they cry. I'll never get to nurse them or rock them to sleep in the glider. It hurts. It hurts so so much.

I have lost my symptoms. I just feel like me again except with a bit larger tummy and breasts. I wish that my sweet bump was growing. I wish it more than anything in this whole world. I wish that today we were at Disney fighting off the ridiculous Christmas crowds so that I could get my bump picture with a character holding my little number banner.

Today as we were cleaning I found my pregnancy test and our "I'm Celebrating Baby #2" buttons from Disney when I told Matt we were pregnant during the fireworks at Epcot. I held them and cried. I want to put them away. But I'm scared to. My 4 year old nephew drew me a picture of our baby. It will be on our refrigerator forever. My parents got me a little ceramic teddy bear angel with a July birthstone and that will forever be on my shelf. Right now it feels like that picture and that little bear are all I have of our baby. Those and the slowly fading picture in my mind of our ultrasound. I wish she would have printed it out for me. I'd hold it. I miss my baby. I am so scared of what is coming next. I am scared of the pill that will make me bleed and bleed until it's gone. I am scared of the pain, enormous amounts of blood, contractions, and nausea that come with it. I am scared of surgery. I'm scared of not waking up and losing Matt and Lilly Belle. I am scared of waking up and having scar tissue and not being able to conceive again. I don't understand why this is happening or why it is happening this awful, awful way. It is dragging on and on. December 2015 will forever be the worst month of my life. And at the same time, the most amazing as Lilly Belle and Matt are closer to me now than ever before.

Today I am 10 weeks pregnant with my angel. Today was hard.

Growing Up Lanese

This blog is about to get real. You just laughed in your head; maybe even out loud? With all that has been happening, one thing has stood out among the rest - I need to be a voice. After the post about our Angel Baby, I had so many messages from mamas who said they could not believe how brave I was for writing our story and how strong I was. So many said it made them feel better and remember their sweet angels in Heaven. I really do believe everything happens for a reason. Right now, I believe that the reason this happened to our family, is so that I can start to help other moms who are going through the same thing, or who will in the future go through miscarriage, or even moms who have had a miscarriage in the past, but have felt alone this entire time. Hopefully only until now.

I have been praying that this blog will turn into something bigger. It's always been just how I have documented our life. It started when we got back from our honeymoon, and then has continued and has become something so important to me as I documented so much of Lilly Belle's life here.

My goal (not resolution - I don't do those) for 2016, okay wait, one of my goals for 2016 is to grow this blog so that I can reach more moms. As the owner of FIT4MOM South Orlando, I have had the opportunity to reach so many moms here locally and to create a village of moms here whom have turned into my closest most best friends. I am really hoping that I can take that even further. I want to motivate, inspire, and encourage moms everywhere. I want to reach moms all across the country. Maybe even all across the world. Why not? I'm not one to set my goals low.

I so deeply believe that this baby was given to me so that it could be loved and celebrated so strongly. Our baby was then taken from us too early, but not early enough for us to not have dreamt out it's whole life. And with those extremely strong feelings of love for our sweet angel baby, I am now able to feel so passionately about this whole pregnancy and miscarriage. The pain that I felt and am feeling is so real and raw and awful and in it's own weird way, beautiful. It's beautiful because now I forever get to have an angel watching over us. Our time here on Earth is so temporary. We are here to learn lessons and to face hardships. We are given so many obstacles and it is our job to handle them in a way that will not steer us from getting into Heaven one day.

This miscarriage is only bringing me so much closer to God instead of further away. I want to be closer to Him because I know that right now my baby is right in His arms instead of getting to be in mine.

This blog is going to start touching on everything real. Everything from motherhood and being a wife, to faith, finances, fitness, and tough things like life after miscarriage. I am hoping this can be a place we can grow together.

This is the new "Growing Up Lanese"! I so hope you can laugh here, cry here, and find so much comfort here!

One Foot In Front of the Other.

This blog is becoming more and more precious to me every second of every day. Over the course of the past few weeks in finding that our baby is now in God's arms, I have never felt more connected to more moms; to more friends, in my entirely (short but oh so long) two years of motherhood.

We took a giant leap of faith in May 2015 to move our family 3,000 miles across the country from Seattle, WA to Orlando, FL. We moved just about as far away from family and everything that we knew as we possibly could. Well, we could have moved a bit further I suppose - my Mother-in-Law jokes that we may as well have moved to Miami. We came here for two main reasons: to be closer to Disney, and for me to open my FIT4MOM franchise. We didn't know at the time the tremendous impact this would have on our lives. We came here with high hopes for new careers, new friends, and a fresh start, but we did not know that we would get that all plus so much more.

Today has been hard. Yesterday was hard. I miss my baby. Period. I miss my baby a lot. I have been crying every time the though of missing my baby enters my mind. Because even though my sweet baby's body is still with me nestled inside my womb, I know my baby is gone. My baby is not coming back. My sweet baby's heart will never beat again. My baby is with God now, in Heaven. Most of the time, that thought is all that gets me through; it's so comforting. And then there are times, like today, when I just feel angry and sad. I want my baby to growing. I want Lilly Belle and this little bean to be 3 years apart, almost to the date, as they were going to be. It was our plan. Everything happened like we planned. That never happens to us. And now, as I still haven't lost this baby, we have to wait. And wait. And wait. If this all ends in me having surgery, we will have to wait even longer. At this point, if we got pregnant as soon as we're possibly allowed, Lilly Belle and our 2nd baby here on Earth will be 3 1/2 years apart. Their connection is getting further apart. Their interests are getting further apart. Lilly Belle wants a sibling more than anything. She vocalizes that and shows that in her actions everyday.

Today I felt like I didn't want to get out of bed. In fact, I didn't until almost 8:30am. I am usually up for Body Back by 5 or 5:30am everyday. I cancelled this mornings class last night because I had cramping and thought it might be happening - but nothing. Once Matt left for work today, I felt so alone and everything I had to do felt like I had to do it with 1,000 pounds of bricks on me. I finally got showered and almost out the door when I realized I forgot to brush my teeth. I almost cried at the thought of putting my purse down, opening the door to our room where I had already put Cogsy away, to go and just brush my teeth. I keep telling everyone that it's getting hard to life.

We got out the door today and made our way to Epcot, because Lilly Belle cried to go there saying to me, "I need to go on rides. I need to meet characters, mommy!" I really am trying so hard to make life normal for her. She's 2. She shouldn't have to understand what is going on. Her life shouldn't have to come crashing to a halt just because I can't "life" right now. It's hard. When we arrived at Epcot, I realized I was a crazy lady. It's December 22nd. The parks are insanely crowded. We walked in and walked out. Lilly Belle was really understanding and agreed that a picnic would do the trick.

We came home and had a picnic on the patio. She was pleased. I just couldn't stop having the feeling that I couldn't get a deep breath. Every time I would try, it felt like I had a ton of bricks on my chest holding me down. I could only take quick little breaths. I started feeling panicky. I talked to Matt for a bit and that made me feel a little better. I felt okay enough to get Lilly Belle down for her nap and read her a story.

I was sitting on the couch trying to catch up on work a little bit and the door knocked and I heard a package get left on the mat. I quickly went over, opened the door and saw a box with all 3 of our names on it. I had no idea who it was from. I opened it curiously and then cried when I saw it was chocolate covered strawberries and brownie pop snowman from my friend, Nalani and her husband Derek, who are my sweet friend here. Just knowing they were thinking of us and sent that to us to make us smile made my heart fill. I cried and then realized I was breathing again. I needed to cry. Not 5 minutes later, but another friend text me that she was on her way to pick up the humidifier she borrowed us. She also brought me over some gifts and a bottle of wine. I cried more. God sent us here on purpose. He knew I would need these women surrounding me right now. He knew I would need to be in a place with women who are texting me, bringing us dinner, taking over all my classes, messaging me, and giving me hugs when I need them. My Village is God's gift to us right now. He gave us a wonderful baby, but had to take it back to Heaven with him. Now here, I have my friends. Real friends. Friends who I know from the bottom of my heart will be there for me always.

These days will get easier. Life will get easier. Life will get better. This isn't the end of our story. We have so much more room in our hearts to love more children. We already talked and if it's God's will for us to not have anymore biological children, we will 100% adopt.

I hope that our story is comforting for other moms. You are not alone. You are never alone. Miscarriage can feel so solo. It feels like you're going through everything by yourself. But you're not. We have had too many friends come to us with their stories of loss. I hope that I can be a voice for moms to know that it's okay to be open about your baby's. They are so real, so precious. No matter how small or how early you are.

One step at a time. One foot in front of the other.

Our Angel Baby

We are so thankful for all of the prayers and happy thoughts that have been coming our way even when we gave most of you no explanation. The love we have felt the last two weeks have made this all so much easier.

Matt and I now have a sweet angel baby in Heaven and it has been by far the hardest thing I've ever been through. I don't want this baby to be a secret, but instead to be celebrated and loved. I was a day away from 9 weeks when our doctor found that our sweet beautiful baby (who we got to see perfectly on the screen with little arms, legs and squishy little tummy) had just days or maybe even hours before (according to measurements) lost his or her heartbeat.

We have full faith that our sweet baby is now our angel and is forever at home with God. This faith is what is bringing us through this incredibly difficult time.

Lilly Belle knows her "Baby Sisser" is with Jesus and is an angel who will forever watch over her. She asks about "her" often and randomly throughout the day will say, "my baby sisser is an angel, mommy, right?". We told her what was going on a couple weeks ago after our first appointment.

We went into our appointment with high hopes and feeling so excited - as most do for their first ultrasound. When our doctor couldn't find our baby on the screen even though it was our 7 1/2 week appointment, it was terrifying and confusing, as she thought our baby was just 4 weeks as she could barely see it. She told us there was a "questionable" heartbeat. We left that appointment with so much confusion. I had bloodwork done to make sure my HCG and progesterone levels were okay and they were extremely high and were going up. Which made her thinking I was only 4 weeks even more confusing. My levels were appropriate for an 8 week baby as our dates would have thought.

We had another week and a half of thinking our baby was gone and grieving our loss. We told Lilly Belle that 'mommy has a baby in her tummy who is sick and that is why mommy cries all the time' - she was acting out often as she was so confused and totally feeling all of my stress. I felt so terrible and didn't want her to be confused or so worried about me. She is extremely empathetic and so good at reading people's feelings. Once we told her what was going on, she was incredibly sweet. There was one day when I was crying and just sitting on the couch just making it through the day with movie after movie on for her (totally not normal for us). She came up to me with her children's medicine she found in her drawer, looked at my tummy and said, "Baby Sisser, stop being sick, my mommy is too sad." She then handed me the medicine and asked if we could give it to "Baby Sisser." I only cried more for how sweet she was.

We had another appointment scheduled for when I would be 8 weeks and 6 days. I went into that appointment having basically already grieved the loss of our (4 week) pin drop size baby. And then, only seconds after she started our ultrasound...I saw my beautiful (big) 8 week 5 day baby on the screen. It was head down, with it's spine up against the left side. It had a perfect little tummy, legs, and its arms all curled into a ball in the fetal position. Our baby was perfect. I got ridiculously excited as I was not expecting to see a big baby as she claimed to not even be able to see one at our last appointment (we will NOT be going to this doctor for our next pregnancy...).

After probably about 30 seconds to a minute of seeing our beautiful baby, she told us that there was no heartbeat. She looked more and more... but nothing. I lost it. I could not believe this was happening.

We tried for this baby. We prayed and hoped for this baby. I loved this baby so much already. I cannot say I loved it as much as Lilly Belle because I loved this baby so differently. I loved it for all of the dreams I had for him or her. I loved it for the names we had picked out. I loved it for thinking maybe we could have a boy this time and thinking how different our life was about to be. I held my arms around my tummy every second I could and on the weekends when we were at Disney and I knew I wouldn't see any friends, I would wear as tight of shirts as I could so the whole world could see my sweet little baby bump that grew so quickly this time around. We celebrated every single second of this baby's life. And we always will.

My doctor sent us out of the room with 2 different pain medicines and told us to prepare for a lot of pain as the baby has now grown bigger and I want to lose the baby naturally. I need the closure.

We were then sent over to radiology where I was to have a second opinion ultrasound. As Matt went to finish our appointment details and check me in, I felt numb. I don't remember much. I remember not being able to feel anything. I didn't want to talk. I didn't want to even look up. I can vividly remember what the carpet looked like. When we got to the radiology waiting room, the obnoxious lady at the check-in made sure to tell every single person (who were mostly really old women in the there for mammograms or other ultrasounds) "Merry Christmas! Happy Holidays!!" I wanted to jump out of my chair and scream at her. "Please... please stop saying, 'Merry Christmas,' don't you know my baby is dead!" House Hunters was playing on HGTV and I really just wanted someone to turn it off. I wanted everyone to just be quiet.

After an hour of waiting, my name was called. As I was almost ready to go back, they informed us that Matt could not go back with me. I started bawling. I did not want to go through another ultrasound alone. As this would be the 3rd time getting an ultrasound during this pregnancy and none of them had been pleasant or with good news. Matt told me to be strong and that it would all be okay.

I walked back and remember wishing she would stop asking me random questions. It was a dark room. There was a really ugly picture of some yellow flowers on the wall. It was the most painful thing ever - both physically and mentally as she did two separate types of ultrasounds. Matt was supposed to be allowed back into the room before they would tell me the results. The ultrasounds took an hour. I lay there for a whole hour in silence and not being able to cry because it was just me and the woman doing the ultrasound in the room - it was so uncomfortable. An awful woman came into the room, she glanced at the screen and then said to me, "There is no cardiac activity. We see no heartbeat. But, at least you're early!" I began to cry and then harshly said back to her, "You don't say that to someone who just lost their child! I love this baby just as much as I love my 2 year old! I have spent the last two months loving this child. I loved this child before it was ever in my womb. You don't say that!" and then I continued to cry, she said "I'm sorry, ma'am," and walked out. I asked the tech, "can this please just be over, I want to go home to my daughter." I had another 15 minutes of ultrasounds...

I again was numb.

Once we picked up Lilly Belle, I began to feel better. She lights up my whole world. I cannot imagine my life without her and I feel so blessed that she is ours.

I could never have gone through any of this without my amazing village of moms here. I told all 40 of them what was going on from Day 1 when we had our first awful appointment and they've been so incredibly supportive. I don't know how I could have gone through this all alone.

We are doing better. I am doing better. I am taking it one day at a time. My baby is in heaven and that makes me happy - to know I have an angel and that my baby is forever safe. My baby will never feel pain, or anger, or have hurt feelings. All my baby ever knew was the extreme amount of love I had for it. Our baby heard it's daddy's voice tell it that he loves "her" (because he always said 'she') every night and got kisses from him every morning as he left for work. Our baby has an amazing big sister who gave him or her tons and tons of kisses and hugs and talks about him or her all the time. The memory of this baby will never be forgotten.

One day when I get to Heaven, I will be able to hold my baby. I'll never let go. We will never have to be apart.

Like my sister-in-law, Megan, said to me: I forever will now have two babies. No one can take that away from me. I am a mommy of two. Megan told me that she believes 100% that this baby was supposed to me mine. Not in a mean or sad way, but in the best way possible. God gave me this baby because he knew I would love it and celebrate every single second of it's life. Our baby got a "First Visit" button at Magic Kingdom, had it's picture taken with Disney characters every single Saturday as my bump grew and grew, and had a mommy who couldn't keep in her excitement and pretty much told everyone she could about he or she.

Our baby is in heaven, but it's body is still with me. I walk around everyday just waiting for it to be over. We don't know when that will be but I am praying hard it happens before Christmas. It won't be quite as hard because to me, my baby is already gone. What's left is only like a shell. My baby is in Heaven.

Matt and I very much want another baby and hope Lilly Belle will get a sibling to play with very soon. Our hearts are open and ready to love on a sweet baby. We feel blessed to have an angel as a baby. It is comforting. Now when I cry, I know my baby is listening and is there and it is so much more comfortable. I've never felt closer to God in my entire life. God is taking care of my baby. I know he is taking care of BOTH of my babies. And I know he is taking care of me.

I really don't want this baby to be forgotten. To me, that is the scariest and saddest part. I cannot imagine not writing this post. I've been waiting for the right time and prayed for lots of strength to feel this all again before I wrote it. My sleeve is a little wet right now, but I'm okay. I hope that one day there is another mom who can read this and feel comfort in knowing she is not alone. Miscarriage is something that is sadly so common. It is something my mom went through too many times, and although I always felt sad for her - I now understand. It is something I have feared my entire life because I know how hard I love.

I am not really sure how to end this post. There really isn't an end. I know for the rest of my life my baby will be with me.

I suppose I'll end it on this: the other night, the night of finding out our baby was gone, I had a moms night out at our house. A cookie exchange. I had 10 friends coming over. Which ended up being the biggest blessing and totally planned by God because I would have never made it through that night without them (and the wine they brought over) ;) As Matt and Lilly Belle were leaving for their own date night, I held Lilly Belle and said to Matt, "Don't you dare let anything happen to her! Drive safe! She's all I have!" He smiled and looked down and said, "She's not all you have. You have both of your babies. Right now. They're both with you. They'll always both be with you. Our baby will never leave you." I cried happy tears and they left. I had a few minutes to cry before the door knocked and my friends started to arrive.

We will get through this. We are getting through this. One day at a time. And our sweet angel baby will always be right here with me...

As our Christmas card photos this year were our baby announcement, I'd hate to lose those photos. My dear friend, Holly, did a beautiful job on them and they will forever be so special to me. One day we will have some beautiful pictures taken again for another sweet baby that will end up being our 2nd baby here on earth. I just don't know though that I'd be able to take pictures with a "Baby #2" banner like this again. These are so so special to me. One day, Lilly Belle is absolutely going to be the best big sister in this whole world....