Lila's Toys

Evie has gotten to that stage where she is holding onto toys and playing with them more. She is putting things in her mouth and drooling all the time too. She is the greatest joy ever. I let her play with things that were Lila's occasionally too. It is so heartbreaking and so heartwarming to see her doing this. If Lila were here it would be no big deal to see this, but for us it means everything. I just wish Lila were here to give them to Evie herself. This picture below is a toy that my friend Leslie bought for Lila. It is very soft and cuddly and now both of our girls got to see it. 

31st of the Month

Yesterday, Lila would have turned 19 months.  It was one of those days where I noticed her absence more than other days.  Holidays, changing of seasons and meaningful dates are all times where we miss Lila more than others.  The 31st of any month is one of those days.  I was 31 when Lila was born, Jenny turned 31 a few days after she was born and she surprised us by being born on the 31st of January instead of February as we were convinced she would be.  That number has a significant meaning for us and since we don't encounter it every month, the emotional response to it has more time to build up.  The day never surprises us but how strongly we miss her sometimes it does.  Eve does an amazing job of bringing joy into our lives and maybe this is part of the reason why sometimes the grief can feel stronger than on most days.  One of our good friends, who is on a similar journey as us, said that they grieve less after having their second baby but when they do grieve, it is more intense.  This is a great way of summing up how you can experience great joy and grief at the same time. - Mike

Taking Eve to see Lila's Tree

Today we took Eve to see Lila's tree.  It was the first time that we have been there since a few weeks before she was born.  The last time we were there, the spring blooms were just falling off and now the tree is full of leaves and definitely has grown.  I love seeing the tree grow and change with the seasons.  As Eve grows and thrives, we get flashes of Lila as a 1 year old with a baby sister and flashes of things that Lila didn't get to do.  Seeing Lila's tree grow is at least one thing associated with Lila that we can watch thrive throughout the years.

We always get some comfort going to visit Lila's tree and we want to pass that along to Eve.  She grabbed onto one of the leaves and seemed to like it there.  We plan on coming here as often as we can.

- Mike

First dinner out

Today we went out to dinner for the first time since Eve was born.  Granted it was a restaurant attached to a grocery store, but it still counts.  I made the comment to Jenny that I've waited so long to take one of our babies out to dinner.  Eve was sitting on the same side of the table as Jenny and she was being a saint, sleeping away.  There was an empty chair next to me which is where Lila would have been sitting.  I knew this was coming but sometimes its hard not to play the "what if" games. The empty seat in these moments makes it oh so obvious.  Eve brings us so much joy each and every day and that smile she flashes is the greatest form of grief therapy.  But this is our reality.  There is and will always be one empty seat at our dinner table. - Mike 

Birth Announcements

Being able to send out birth announcements for Eve means everything to us as we never got to do it for Lila. We knew that we wanted to somehow include Lila on them, but struggled for many weeks on what to say. For Mike and I, we are a family of four and only three of us get to be together, not including Lila seemed so wrong to us. If she were here, Evie's birth announcements would probably say something about her big sister Lila. So why did that have to change just because she is not here? Some people see this differently and feel that including Lila's name might take away from Evie in some sense, or make it more about Lila than Evie. And so the internal conflict began on what was the right thing to do for us and our girls? Mike made the comment that we have no idea how Eve is going to feel about Lila one day and how she will deal with the loss of a sister she never got to know? But what if having Lila's name on her announcement made her proud? What if we are looking at it as only being a possible sad or confusing thing, when in turn it might be a positive one? So with that thought concept we decided we needed to do something. I looked online for a while for the right wording on how to include Lila's name, but I just was not finding it. Lucky for us we have a photographer who took Eve's pictures that was amazing to work with. Once we told her our dilemma she suggested we include the Lila stone and maybe put something on the back of the announcement. The picture below is what we came up with. The whole front of the card is all about Evie and has a collage of pictures while the back has a special little picture of a Lila stone and says "Watched over by big sister." This is what worked for us and we hope we did right by both of our girls. 

Evie photo shoot picture