It has been a week today since we said hello and goodbye to our princess. We miss her so much. Every minute- second of the day she is on my mind. I am trying to recover physically and mentally. I know it will take time but I honestly feel like my world has crashed down completely.

Daddy bought Mommy an urn necklace for you princess! I am wearing it right now with some of your ashes. But you already know that since you are looking down on us. <3

Aubreys urn came today in the mail as well. We already put her ashes in it. It is so beautiful. Her nana and Pa bought it!

It is so perfect and beautiful!! It came out better than we had imagined!

I miss her so much. As you can tell I re-done my header in honor of Aubrey. I want to raise awareness for Anencephaly. My daughter came into this world with this condition for a reason. Raising awareness is only fair for her =]! I hate that all of this happened and I feel like I am losing my mind. Talking about her helps..I know that it is not going to make things better. I am worried for my husband. He seems so calm but I can tell when I look in his eyes he is not okay. I love the bond that we have. I told him that if I had even doubted his love for me that after this..I will never again. 

My husband is an amazing and awesome person. I cannot thank him enough for being here for me like he has. Wiping my tears away at night and cuddling me when I need him the most is just amazing. The crying comes into waves..mainly at night and when I eat because that is when she was always active.

I wanted to thank all of my readers for the support that you all have given me. Thank you for your kind words! It means a ton! I will still be blogging. I need to do this to keep things off of my mind. If i don't do anything..I will just go crazy sitting there with things running through my head. I found an idea that I want to do but I have to try it and see if it works before I announce =]! I am trying my hardest to stay positive. Until next time...xoxo

On April 10, 2013 Aubrey Elizabeth Brown grew her wings and was born sleeping. She was born at 8:33AM CST. She weighed 10 oz and was 9 inches long. She was born at 20 weeks and 5 days after two hard days of labor. My baby girl was the cutest and most precious thing I have ever seen in my life. I will write my birth story when I feel up to it. I just wanted to share that our daughter arrived. We got to spend 7 beautiful hours with her before the funeral home came to get her. We would have been able to spend more but she was going down hill too fast.

We chose to have her cremated. Her ashes should be ready for my husband and I to collect on Monday. My wonderful inlaws purchased her urn for us. I cannot wait to see it in person. I bought myself an urn necklace to hold some of her ashes in as well. 

I wanted to share a few pictures. For personal reasons, I will not be showing a full body picture of her. 

The hospital gave us this beautiful memorial box to keep all of her things in. I have her itty bitty dress and The nurses  pitched in to give me the Remembrance Angel. My husband bought me these flowers while I was in labor. I am so thankful that the nurses and doctors treated my husband and I so well. I will never forget my angel. I cry so much. I want her back. I fell asleep with her blanket lastnight. It still smells like her! My husband has been such an amazing person through all of this. He is my rock. I am in tears writing all of this. I will update with how things are going soon. RIP babygirl We love you so much. We want you in our arms so bad again. I want to kiss that itty bitty nose again. This is not fair. You left too early! I want you back!!!!!


EDIT: I have had people ask about helping out. We set up a Paypal to pay medical bills and such. The Paypal Email [AubreyElizabethFund@gmail.com] is in honor or my daughters name. Thank you all for your kind words in this tragic time in our lives.

I love wearing cute things. I love it even more when I am pregnant and I get to wear shirts that make my belly look cute! I have had the honor to work with an amazing company on reviewing one of their maternity shirts on my blog! Zoey's Personalized Gifts is an amazing website created and owned by Erin Delanty. The website launched in 2006 and has grown ever since!  Zoey's Personalized Gifts carries a ton of personalized shirts. This website is more known for the Sibling Shirts but don't let that fool you because there are a ton of personalized shirts to choose from! They have mom/grandma dad/grandpa, sibling sets, maternity shirts and more! I had the chance to receive one of their maternity shirts and I have to say that I am completely pleased! I chose the Customized womens my mom is blogging this maternity Tshirt.

I was asked a really tough question on a "mom" forum today. 

"This isn't a bash but a question I've always wondered the answer to and the answer may help make me a better practitioner....I've known what anencephaly was for a while but what I don't understand, and forgive my ignorance, why, given the 100% mortality rate, would they not terminate the pregnancy and allow you to carry on this pregnancy?"

I answered on the forum and many of you are probably wondering this here as well. We had the option to terminate my pregnancy. We were going to. THEN it hit us, this sweet sweet child living inside of me cannot help what is going on. We stayed up talking ALL NIGHT that night. The following day,  I joined a support group on Facebook and lurked a little and read about their stories. Not one of the women that carried regret carrying. They took pics and met their little ones. Some pass away before birth and some right after.Some live for hours and some live for days. BUT they passed naturally. Some people regret terminating because they will always wonder what their baby looked like. It is not my place to judge someone because they chose that decision. 

Why? Because until you are faced with the hard decision like we had, you don't know what you will do. YES, it is easy to look in from the outside and say " Hey!I would do this, blah bla " Well let me tell you something, when you are sitting in that ultrasound room and they tell you that the Dr needs to see you immediately, and they tell you that your child is going to die because of the condition. You break down. You cry. Your world just came crumbling down on you. IT SUCKS! I hurt EVERY SINGLE DAY. My husband hurts every single day. It hurts our family.

They allowed me to carry this pregnancy because my child is ALIVE. What are they going to do? FORCE me to get rid of my child? NO! I had two options- Go to planned parenthood and terminate ( because this is a catholic hospital they do not do early inductions to terminate) OR Carry this sweet baby. When we told our Dr that we wanted to carry, she was THRILLED!  

We are carrying this baby because we want her to go peacefully. They say that Anencephaly babies do not feel pain, that may be true. They also say that they they can't respond to things. This is where many of us think that doctors are wrong. My baby kicks when I push in on my belly. When we talk and even when I eat!  We cannot wait to meet her. We will enjoy every moment of this pregnancy as if nothing is even going to happen. I am carrying an angel! She will go when she is ready, until then she will be safe inside of my womb then in our arms. 

After reading my blog post, if you know someone that is carrying a baby that has a fatal birth defect or even if they have already had a baby and their child has passed...please think before you speak. Words may be words. BUT sometimes when you don't word them right, THEY DO HURT.