We Are SO Blessed!

This has been an unbelievable amazing and hard 2 and a 1/2 weeks. You truly never know how it would be for you when a child of yours passes away. In the hospital I met a few families who lost their child and I just remember feeling so incredibly bad for them, but also thinking it must be some kind of a relief that you don't have to deal with the hospital life any more. I never thought I would be the one on the other end of that stick, I will tell you, I do not feel relieved that I don't have to deal with hospital stuff any more, I would have done it for the rest of my life for Deklyn, but I can also tell you I feel relieved for Deklyn. He had such a hard life compared to other babies, he didn't realized it but he did and feel relieved for him that he doesn't have to deal with all that any more. I can honestly tell you, I am ok. Of course I miss him, of course I wish I could have him with him but I made a decision shortly after he passed away. I don't want to be sad for the rest of my life. I decided every time I have a thought that makes me sad whether it starts by seeing a child or seeing a picture of Deklyn, I will try my best to replace that thought with how happy he must be right now. How he is completely healed and in the most amazing place that we just can't even imagine how awesome it is. So far I think I am doing ok with this! I know I will be sad, I know this is going to be incredible hard especially as holidays come up and family gatherings but like I said, I just don't want to be sad for the rest of my life.

 I want to keep Deklyn's memory alive, I don't want to forget about him and I don't want our families to forget about him. I would love if Deklyn's cousins and siblings talk about him like a regular family member! I want his future siblings to always know him as their big brother that they will get to meet one day. I'm not sure how we are going to do this in a healthy way but we will figure this all out.  Some of you have been asking me what is the best way to donate to HPP research. We are currently working on getting a foundation set up in Deklyn's name, so in a future post I will let you know how you can donate in Deklyn's name. Just another way we can keep his name alive!

After Deklyn's celebration of life, (if you missed it you can see it here) I was overwhelmed. I had just spent 14 months living in the hospital, a crazy afternoon packing up our life and then a whirlwind 2 days figuring out how to say see you later to our beautiful son. Now I was somehow supposed to magically go back to how things were before I was even pregnant. I didn't know how to do this. When things weren't going well with Deklyn, Sheridan and I decided if the worst were to happen, we were going to get away for a bit. So that's exactly what we did. 1 week after he passed away we were on our way to the Dominican. The first day there was actually pretty hard for me, it just kinda hit me that Deklyn DID pass away and that is why we are on vacation. I got really sad, but I just had to get myself out of it. I kept telling myself how happy Deklyn is right now and how he would want us to enjoy our trip, and we did! We had a great time just being together and relaxing. 

Going home I was nervous. I wasn't sure how I was going to feel going back home knowing Deklyn wouldn't be there. I was scared I was going to turn into a big crying mess, sit in Deklyns room and never come out. Well we were in for a HUGE surprise. We got home to a bunch of family in our entrance and a tour of our completely finished home! We'd been under renovations since we bought our house in December 2009, there wasn't a whole lot of big stuff that had to be done but LOTS of little stuff! Sheridan's brother really wanted to be able to do something for us, so he put it out to our church that he kinda wanted to do a home makeover thing and so many people stepped up to help! Seriously... we still can't believe our house is done! Anyone who played any part in this thank you so much! Seriously, thank you doesn't feel like enough but we are just so incredibly grateful! So many things can happen now that our house is finished. For Sheridan and I, our chance of having another child like Deklyn is 1 in 4, that risk is just to high for us. We couldn't put us, our family or another baby through this again. If we got pregnant and found out the baby had HPP we would feel so guilty because we know it can happen. So right now for us, when we are ready we want to adopt. But we needed our house to be done before we could even start that process! So now like I said, whenever we feel we are ready to start that chapter in our lives we can!  Here are just a few pictures so you can get an idea of what our new beautiful home looks like!

Kitchen! All the baseboards and casings were done for us,
the back splash and many other little things!

Living Room! Again baseboards and casings and other little things done here!

Deklyns room! His room was full of all this stuff from the hospital so family took the time
to organize and clean it up! Baseboards and casings, closet door and other little things done here!

Upstairs Bathroom! When we left this room was
totally gutted! Everything was done in this room and we are just waiting on glass for the
shower door!

Basement! The stairs were just wood before, so there is now carpet which I love! Again baseboards and casings here, doors, outlets moved to places where they should be, and more!

So much was done to our house, I probably haven't even found all things that were done! We have doors on all our closets and some rooms didn't have doors and now they all do! New cupboards were installed, some rooms needed more paint, that was done! Seriously.... our house feels like a new place! We liked our house before and now we LOVE it! So again, thank you to anyone who helped in any way! We are so incredibly blessed and all this has really helped us to start our new journey here without Deklyn. I have never felt so much love in my entire life, this is just unbelievable!

Well that's it for now! In my next post I will be able to show you something special I am getting done for Deklyn, so you have that to look forward to! Be blessed, and try to remember to be grateful for the things you do have in your life. Try not to focus on what is missing or what you wish could be different. You can decided to be happy, and that is what I'm trying to do too!