It is crazy how you have so many good days that you actually feel like you are making progress with healing and then totally out of the blue, you are hit with a wave of emotions that take you ten steps backwards.

I have had some rough days lately. Last week, Noah visited me in my dreams. I had a dream that Noah was alive, he was just laying on his back playing on his playmat like he did so often. The dream really had nothing to it, but it was so great to feel the warmth in my heart of having him with me again. For the last (almost) 6 months, I have lived with a dull ache in my heart that will forever ache until I hold Noah in my arms again. Saturday night I had a dream about Noah, except it started at the hospital and seemed to drag on until the next thing I knew we were at the funeral home. It was horrible. I woke up and just stared at the ceiling. I was mad once again. Saturday night Maddy disappeared and I found her sitting upstairs staring at Noah's pictures. When I asked her what was wrong, she just shrugged her shoulders and said that she "just misses Noah so much". It breaks my heart. So many times, when we are hanging out as a family having a good time, or just simply being a family, I sit and think we are missing a huge piece of our puzzle.Today Maddy brought home an art project from daycare, candy corn hand prints. She had to make three of them, one for herself, one for Noah, and one for her new baby brother.

I am dreading the next few months. Monday is Halloween and I really wanted to dress Maddy and Noah up as a cute pair. Then we hit Thanksgiving, Noah's 1st Birthday, Christmas.... All of the family times that we look forward to and this year we celebrate without Noah.

We went shopping for a few baby things for our baby boy that is due to arrive February 16, 2012 and it was exciting yet sad. Everything I see reminds me of Noah. As I have said before, he will forever be our 4 month old baby boy.  Last night after Maddy went to bed, I just had a breakdown. A breakdown that had been building for a few days and I finally couldn't take it any more. I just look at Noah's pictures and wonder how someone so perfect could be gone in the blink of an eye. I wonder why we had to lose him when we did everything right. Kevin and I live for our kids. Everything we do, we do as a family. We work all week to support our family and on our off time, we spend it together. And we wouldn't have it any other way. I am so excited to have our 3rd child, our 2nd baby boy in February 2012. It will be wonderful to have a new addition to our family, not to replace Noah, but to add to our family. Last year at this time, we were anxiously awaiting Noah's arrival and then we knew that our family would be complete. Now, just a year later, we are grieving our loss and anxiously awaiting the arrival of another little boy. Kevin and I have had said since the day that we found out I was pregnant that this pregnancy was a gift sent straight from Noah and I know without a doubt that he is.

I am slowly getting used to the new normal that I was forced to accept, but I have my really rough days. I am thankful that I can still say at the end of the day that I am blessed. I refuse to focus only on our loss. I also focus on all that we still have and what we have to look forward to. Every day I remind myself that someone always has it worse than we do. It doesn't take the pain away, but it does ease the pain and when I see Maddy's smiles, everything seems right in the world!!