Life since our baby became an angel

Well, it's been 10 months since Hailey made her way to her forever home in Heaven.  10 months.  308 days.  It seems like such a short amount of time, but it feels like we haven't held her in years.  

Since I have been so behind in keeping this blog updated with what has been going on with us, I figured I would cram it all in to one post. 

Here we go...

We have celebrated every major holiday.  

I would have to say that Thanksgiving and Christmas were the most difficult to make it through.  Halloween was so soon after she passed, that I think we were still pretty numb to it all.  Thanksgiving hit me so hard.  My dad is such an amazing cook and we had talked for so long about how we would let her try sweet potatoes and cranberry sauce.  It was the first time that I really felt what we were missing out on.  

Christmas was rough, but not what I expected. For me, Christmas Eve was my hardest day. I cried all through the 9:00pm service.  At one point in his sermon, I swear Pastor Paul was talking directly to Mike and I. There had been very few times that I had thought about how Hailey's death had impacted him.  He was at the hospital minutes after she passed to baptize her.  I don't know why I never thought about it.  I mean, he's a father of two amazing boys, I should have known he would carry that weight on his shoulders.  After that service, I started to pay more attention to how my friends and family were impacted by my Little Miss. I would say that Christmas was the most difficult for Mike.  He was so looking forward to playing Santa.  We had her stocking, ornaments, and even a Christmas dress complete with a matching bow.  It wasn't easy seeing all of those things go unused by our baby girl.  We did our best and made it through the day with smiles on our faces.  
By the time Valentine's Day, St. Patrick's Day, and Easter rolled around, we were self-proclaimed experts at surviving holidays.  We made sure those days were spent celebrating instead of focusing on what we were missing out on.

We have celebrated major events in our friends and family member's lives.
One of the hardest things about the death of a loved one, is that life continues to go on without them.  I still have moments when I think, "I wonder how different this moment would be if Hailey were here with us."  It's not easy, but I snap myself out of it and live in the moment.  One thing I have learned is that anything can happen and I need to make sure I soak up as much of this life that God has blessed me with.

• Brooklyn Doering came into this world.  We have been through some of the best times with Marc and Katie.  Brooklyn was the first baby I held after Hailey passed.  We made our way down to Austin a couple days after Brooklyn was born.  It wasn't the easiest of trips.  We had just been there in August with Hailey...it was all very fresh still.  Mike was amazing with her.  Seeing him interact with her, made me realize how badly I wanted to fill my empty arms.  After that trip, we decided to start trying for a baby.

We don't have any Brooklyn pics from that trip, but there's this gem of her crazy brothers :)

• 2 of our best friends got engaged!  Desirae and Rick will be getting married January 2015 and Brian and Lauren will be getting married September 2014.  We are so very happy for our friends and we can't wait to celebrate their special days with them.

These two crack me up!

• Brolan Story made his grand entrance!  What a crazy, wonderful day this was!  Mike and I were on our way to Austin when we got the group text from Lissa that her water had broken...a few weeks early!  Before we knew it, he was here, legs by his head and showing off his goods :) hahaha.

• My brother graduated from the University of Oklahoma and got his first "big boy job" with IBM.  I could not be more proud of the man he has become.  I still worry about him constantly, but I know he is going to do great things with his life.  

• Lauren and Jeff announced that they are having a baby boy in September 2014!  I can't wait to welcome little Jeffrey to the crazy group of friends we have :

We made an exciting announcement.

On December 29th, God answered our prayer of adding another little baby to our family.

THE pee stick.

We could not be more excited for Hailey to be a big sister.  Since finding out we were pregnant again, we have experienced every emotion in the book (I will go more into details on another post).  There have been the highest of highs and the lowest of lows.  Mike has been such an amazing support and I am so blessed to have him by my side. 

In no way have these last 10 months been easy.  There have been times where the tears don't stop and the yelling at God is endless.  However, through all of those hard days, we have our little Rae of sunshine that brings a smile to our faces.  We have celebrated some big events in our lives and our loved ones lives.  There have been multiple birthdays, weddings and anniversaries, date nights, parties, laugh until we cry moments, snuggles with our puppies, dancing, movie watching, work accomplishments, hugs, kisses, and more hugs.  Every single day we have been blessed with friends and family that support us through thick and thin.  Thanks to them, it's getting easier to say that the good is beginning to outshine the bad.  

We have 2 months until Hailey's "Angel Birthday".  There is a lot that will happen in those two months and I'm not sure how we will handle the one year anniversary, but I know that we will be surrounded by love and that's all I could ever need.

Love,
Mary