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Some people who stumble across this site may wonder “why”?  Why have a site dedicated to a lost baby?  Well, for me, I started it as an easy way to share Dekar’s Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep video.  It also was an easy way to share his story without having to send it out individually.  I didn’t have the energy for that.  Then I just kept adding posts here and there.  Some I have removed, but most I have kept posted.

When I look back and read some of the stuff I posted, honestly…..I cringe.  I don’t really like what I wrote, or the tone I wrote it, or the way I conveyed my feelings.  But I keep them there because it is all real. I could go back and edit things, but I wrote what I wrote and I stand by the words I wrote, even if they aren’t pretty or eloquent. If I changed anything now, I would take away the reality of what I felt at the time.  Grief is a weird thing. Some days I could feel fine and felt “over” the loss of Dekar, and then the next day I could feel so sad that it felt like a truck hit me.  So my up/down, nice/not-so-nice posts are all real. 

Here we are, three years and five months later.  And here is more of my reality:

• We still have a Dekar Day every month.  We break out the ice cream or some other too-sweet treat and remember Dekar’s short, but full life.  My one son never made the connection that we did this on the 27th because Dekar was born on the 27th….but now he knows. 🙂 Today is that day!–We will likely go to a store and pick out whatever flavor strikes our fancy.  Sprinkles have become a frequent occurrence of the memory celebration.
• I have a box of Dekar’s photos that are still not in albums.  I requested that they all be printed in order–from birth to the last moments–so that the albums would show the flow of his life.  But I can’t do it.  I haven’t even opened the box to look at the photos.  Why not? I don’t know.  I just can’t do it.  For my birthday I requested some photo albums specifically for this purpose–thinking that would help me make the next move.  Well, my birthday was in October, and the albums and box of photos still sit.  Someday.
• Dekar’s ashes are still in the box that the funeral director gave me.  I thought that once I got the perfect urn that it would not be a hard thing to have the ashes placed in the urn.  Wrong.  The urn sits in my memory cabinet, and the ashes sit in the cardboard box in my closet.  It’s another thing that will happen Someday.

I keep this site up now not so much to share Dekar’ story or video, but because many people search for baby obituaries.  I know how helpful that is for them–it was in the reality of what I was going through that I saw the need to have a reference site of baby obituaries. 

I also keep this site up because it was, and still is, my reality.  I also know there are others going through their own reality that may be similar to mine:  I was pregnant, Dekar was given a diagnosis of “incompatible with life”, I hit the grieving stage from the moment of diagnosis,  I carried to term, I wondered if Dekar would open his eyes and meet his family, I said hello, I saw him smile,  I said good-bye, I wrote an obituary, I gained too much weight while pregnant, I encountered kindness, sincerity, coldness and indifference.  Put a million other realities in there, and that is my story.

In all of this I did the best I could.  Just like with this blog–it has simply been my reality.  I am not a “professional” blogger and don’t have any desire to be.  But I do want people who have had to deal with the loss of a baby, directly or indirectly, have a place where they can safely say, “I can relate to that” or “that helps me understand why my sister is acting a bit off, even a year after losing her baby”  or “these obituaries are really helpful–I have no idea how to write a baby obituary….” 

Maybe you can’t put your photos in albums, or your baby’s ashes in the urn.  Or maybe you are just the opposite and look at the photos every day and light a candle by the urn every morning.  Our realities are the same–just dealt with in a different way. There is no right or wrong.  All I know is that I would gladly share an ice cream with you, listen to your story, and love having the opportunity to share mine.