Well, it's done.

The funeral was two weeks ago already. It wasn't too bad, just very sad but compared to Irvin's funeral just over 4 years ago, no where near as emotionally charged. It was just full of quite sadness. I was late getting up to the cemetery and I was a little panicked because when John and I got lost getting to the cemetery in Iowa for his mom's burial, we were too late; the coffin was already in the ground. We weren't very late though and fortunately everyone waited. We would have gotten there sooner if I hadn't missed seeing the cemetery before we ended up on the interstate. It was in Black River Falls which is right next to I-94. John didn't go up with me though; I went up with some of the members of Irvin's family who still keep in contact with us. So that was pretty much it other than a small luncheon at my sister's in-laws when we got back to La Crosse/Onalaska.

Hard to believe it's been a month already. It still seems very, very unfair and sometimes I get angry when I hear of moms who don't want their child or hurt their child and I think it's just not fair. There are moms who smoke and drink and nothing happens to their baby and my sister does everything she's supposed to and loses her. Where is the fairness in that?

The obituary is up.

You can see it here.

Emmah Anastasia Faith A-----

was born sleeping on July 14, 2007 at 8:12 pm. She was 2 lbs, 11 oz and 14 and 3/4 inches long. So far, there's no apparent cause for the death. Tests are still being run and an autopsy will be performed. There's a 50% chance that they will not be able to find out why. All I can say though is that it was the most heartbreaking thing I've ever seen. It went much faster than she expected. Because of the baby's size, she only needed to get to 5 or 6 cm and I'm not even sure she made it that far. The really painful part of the labor went so fast that she was never even able to get the morphine. By the time the nurse came back with it, it was time and it went really fast; she pushed once and the baby came out with help from the resident doctor and the mid-wife. And of course, the worst part was when Vannessa saw the baby after they got her totally out. She was just completely purple and definitely looked not alive. It was absolutely awful. All three of us girls just sobbed. The ironic thing is I remember the three of us at my nephew's birth and how different that all was from this. She was just so TINY and so perfect in form; everything was already in place. Her eyes were not open though so you couldn't see those but everything else, from the tiny fingers and toes to her little button nose, was perfect. She even had hair already. Her skin though is so fragile that if you weren't careful, you could tear it from her body. She was very skinny too, no fat on her at all.

I held her for a few moments and she was just so lightweight, hardly heavier than a child's doll. There was a photographer there to take pictures, courtesy of the hospital. The professional photos are free and I believe it also includes a slide show. My little sister has some pictures already on her MySpace page. That link is on my other blog. I'll be going back up for the funeral which is the 30th. She will be buried in the town my little sister and I were born, next to her great grandmother who died back in 1983. It sounds like all the details are falling in place but I'm sure it's still hard for my little sister. It's not helping that the two little ones she does have at home are fighting constantly and because her daughter is a screamer right now, someone called the cops on her!?! As if she doesn't have enough to deal with.

Things aren't going too badly here other than John being in a mood the past few days. I can't get out of him what the deal is; he says there's nothing wrong but he's definitely acting strange. I haven't been doing too badly considering other than feeling like I'm not doing enough for my little sister. There really isn't anything I can do but I didn't stick around La Crosse very long after the birth. By the time it was all over with, I was physically exhausted from lack of sleep and just not really able to do anything for her. It was a sense of helplessness that was very hard for me to deal with. Living so far away does not make it any easier.

It's NOT FAIR!

I got a phone call tonight, a call I did not want to get, especially on Friday the 13th (at least it wasn't Saturday the 28th but still). My little sister, Vannessa, only 12 weeks to her due date, lost her daughter Emmah. She is being admitted to the hospital and will be induced sometime tomorrow morning. I will be heading up to La Crosse tomorrow. I can't even imagine the pain she has to be going through. I grieve for her though because I know she has to be suffering greatly. She's not even 22 years old and has suffered two of the greatest losses a person can suffer already: loss of a spouse and loss of a child and both within a five year period.

Along with this terrible sadness comes great anger. WHY?! She doesn't deserve this! She's not a bad person and it's not right that she go through this much suffering. Whoever said that God doesn't give you more than you can handle is a liar. Everything was FINE until just last night. From what I've been told, she hadn't felt the baby move since midnight last night. No warning, no NOTHING! And now, she has to go through a birth that's...I can't even say it. I can't say it; I can't imagine it. I just want to cry and scream and I can't even guess at what my little baby sister is going through. I hate being so far away. I feel SO helpless! WHY?! WHY WHY WHY WHY?!

And I've got to be the one to tell my mom. How am I going to do that?

Well, I got through the anniversary okay.

It was actually last Thursday but yesterday (July 3rd) was the anniversary of the day my brother-in-law was buried. That year, it was a really hot day followed by a really intense thunderstorm that night. I remember nothing of the storm because I came back from all of that so exhausted, I slept like the dead myself. I don't think I even had any nightmares that night which certainly beat many other mornings where I'd wake up in a full-blown panic attack. This year, the day sort of crept up on me with the only real reminder being firecrackers. There were a few that were near enough and definitely loud enough to cause the old heart to pound in shock. And while I know these are just firecrackers and not gun shots, my body has yet to differentiate the two thus leaving me with a pounding heart and shortness of breath along with the sudden desire to duck and cover. And go figure, all of this happening the week my therapist was out of town. I didn't even think of the fact that the anniversary would be coming up when she scheduled my appointment two weeks after the last one. I usually don't until those firecrackers start up. But all in all, I made it through okay and fortunately, my mother called me on Monday instead of on Tuesday. Next year I might be a little more jumpy though. Not only will it have been five years but the dates will fall on the same day they did that year. And considering how superstitious I've become about that date, I imagine I'll be very glad when 10:30 am comes and goes.

On an ironic note, 1311 is now for rent for the first time in four years. It was pretty interesting that my lease not only ended just two days after the murder but also the house itself had just been sold. I believe the upstairs went to a sister of the house owner who took the downstairs and I'm thinking that perhaps she moved on to something larger and perhaps not as haunted as 1311 (not to mention a place that hasn't infamously been on the news so many times). To be honest, before the whole ordeal occurred, I recalled trying to figure out a way for both my future husband and I to fit into this tiny two bedroom (though technically one bedroom because it was too cold in the winter and too hot in the summer to actually sleep in comfortably and even with an air duct in it, it WAS still a porch!) apartment because I did like it. It had a certain cozy charm and I LOVED the neighbors; the wife was just a dear to me while I lived there and I felt so bad that this happened to what she very much considered her home too. Now, you couldn't pay me a million dollars to buy the place. It's too bad that bad things happen to nice homes and I wonder if there will be trouble renting the place because of what happened. I imagine that a college student will end up in there, one that's not from around La Crosse and thus never heard about the vicious crime that occurred within its walls. Heck, my brother's girlfriend was checking it out but my brother quickly informed her that there was NO WAY he was going to live THERE! I'm sure he doesn't need the nightmares either.

Still, I kind of miss it. It was my first real apartment alone and I kind of enjoyed having my own place without anyone to rearrange my stuff without asking me. I don't think I ever really got much of a chance to really live on my own. I had a year, barely, but that was about it. Otherwise, I lived with my parents, with John, or in the dorms. Sometimes I have my regrets about that but I know too that the loneliness would have gotten to me eventually. And I enjoy my life with my little family now that things have calmed down and stabilized a little. It just would be nice once in a while to have a place of my own; I don't really get that here. Natalie has her own room but John and I share the master bedroom and with both of us owning a good bit of stuff, it's a pretty tight space. It would be nice to get a three bedroom apartment/house someday and have a room just for me. Maybe that's selfish, especially considering John is barely home these days but sometimes, it's nice to have a little space to do some of the things I'd like to do in peace. As it is, I don't even have any space to do any jewelry projects or work on my scrapbook other than the kitchen table. That makes for a lot of taking out and putting away and it would just be nice to have an area where I can leave stuff out and then come back to it later. That may be an impossible dream though with a toddler around.

Welcome to my humble blog.

Thank you for your interest in reading my blog. I will try to be better at updating more frequently but I can't make any promises. I will at least try to post an entry once a week. I will be updating soon with pictures as I got the pictures that were taken last month back already. I actually got them back about two weeks ago but I have to scan them and I haven't gotten to that yet. It will take me a little while but I'm hoping to have all the links from the other blog on this blog soon. I wish I could transfer the template but unfortunately, it won't work here. When I had it on the other blog, it was before I switched over to the new blogger. While the template transferred fine with the switch, I can't actually copy and paste the template from there on to here. GRR. I'll either have to find another template or find someone who can help convert it so that it can be used here. I learned HTML but not the other one. Eventually, I probably will post in the other blog but it will go back to being more about what's going on with me while this one will be updates on Natalie only. But it will be by invite only.