17 months and 3 weeks

Lila should be turning 17 months old and Eve is turning 3 weeks old today. What a bond these two girls would have shared being so close in age. Lila would probably be so confused as to who this new baby was and why she was making so much noise. Eve probably would have watched her every move and wonder who this person is that looks so much closer to her size than everyone else. It is unfair that we lost Lila and now it is even more unfair that Evie will never get to have her older sister in her life. This is hard. Having Eve here is the greatest joy of our lives and she is everything to us. I think some people assume we are "healed" now or "getting over" our loss better because we have a new baby. I think quite the opposite is true. We are so happy that Evie made it to us safely but we are seeing her do things that Lila never got to do. It is so very difficult and confusing. We should have two adorable girls here loving on each other and us on both of them. We are a family of four disguised as a family of three. 

Eve Rupinsky

We wanted to share on the blog that on June 9th we welcomed Eve Mikayla Rupinsky to this world.  She was born crying, she is healthy and she is beautiful. We had not shared anything on here until now because a pregnancy after a loss is a very terrifying experience and we were not ready to make it public until she was here with us. We will go into much more detail as time goes on, because there is a lot to share, but for right now all that matters is that Lila's little sister is here, she is wonderful, and she is the happiest part of our life. 

Lila stone pictures updated

We have been working on updating all of our Lila stone pictures this weekend. We have 153 so far this year and its absolutely amazing! Even though it sometimes takes us a while to post them on the blog, getting these pictures means everything to us. I still can't believe that 16 months after losing Lila people still think to take their stones with them and send us pictures on their own. We now have pictures from all 50 states, 31 countries, and 6 continents! Who is going to get Antarctica? There are still a few more pictures to post and updates to be made, but we wanted to accomplish as much as we could today! 

Thank you and keep sending them in, it helps us more than you'll ever know. 

Seeing my Tattoo

I was at the grocery store and while I was checking out, the cashier said that she liked my tattoo of Lila's footprints.  I haven't had anyone mention that to me in a long time so I didn't realize what she said at first.  I said thanks but nothing else.  I always like it when people see the tattoo and say something to me but I don't always say that Lila died.  I don't know why but I don't always want to talk about it with random strangers.  

For some reason on the way home, it really started to bother me on the drive home that I didn't mention more of Lila's story.  I was thinking about Lila a lot and was really missing her.  I sort of felt like I let her down because I didn't talk enough about her.  It was just one of those times that you get upset when you aren't expecting it.  Later on that night, though, I was thinking about it again and realized that I don't have to tell everyone that Lila died but the fact remains that someone else knows about a baby named Lila with some of the cutest feet ever.  This is why I got the tattoo, for people to ask about it and the fact that more and more people ask about it and say they like it is a form of remembrance. - Mike

Mother's Day's Somber Roots

A friend of ours' sent us this article today, about how Mother's Day began:

Mother's Day's Dark History

Mother's Day "was founded for mourning women to remember fallen soldiers and work for peace."  It began as a day for those women who have to go on living after their children have died.  The way we currently celebrate Mother's Day is set up as a completely commercial slap in the face to what it was intended to be.  What if Mother's Day morphed into a day to lend extra support to those women who have lost children?  What if the intent was for everyone to pick up whom they know who suffer every day without their children?  It's what those of us who have lost children and babies want from the world.  Acknowledgement and remembrance.  There is pregnancy and infant loss day in October but how many people recognize that day who have not gone through this type of loss?

The over commercialization of this day and all the advertisements, flowers and Mother's Day specials that are thrown in your face everywhere you go do the exact opposite for those women for whom the day was founded.  Mother's Day is now a day that ignores those whose children have died.  Holiday's in general feel like this (at least for us).  Mother's Day feels like it is just a day for businesses and restaurants to make money and a day for everyone else to tweet or Instagram a picture of their Mom to the world.  To those of us without our kids, this is a day which makes us feel like we don't belong in this society and a day where the loss of our kids stings more than most days.  We miss you Lila. - Mike