Sleep

Sleep is a double edge sword. I am afraid to go to sleep at night. I have found myself doing everything I can to stay awake as long as possible even knowing I have to get up early and go to work. And I actually have to use my brain at work. I don't want to sleep because I know I have to wake up in the morning and go through it all again even if only for a few seconds. My first thoughts are always of Kaden and that leads to the thoughts of losing him and reliving that day over and over. Even with the sleeping pills I fight them as long as I can after taking them.

But on the other side sleep is where I don't have to think. When I am asleep most times it is blank, the only relief I get from the painful thoughts. I have had very few nightmares dealing with Kaden. But on the other hand I have had even fewer good dreams about Kaden. Sleep is suppose to help us heal, gives the mind and the body time to heal itself.

Of course not sleeping leads to running my body down, making it easier for me to get sick which leads to staying at home in bed all day and just thinking. Time to think is just not good for me yet.

I am sure there will come a day where it is ok for me to sleep, where I won't have to relive January 16th 2009 over and over when I wake up but I am not there yet. Until then not sure what I am going to do.

Kaden's Mommy

Meeting New People

So I went out last night and I had a good time. I spent time with my family and friends. I didn't meet any new people which I think made the night easier. Whenever you meet new people you have to do the getting to know you thing and the first things that always come up are "Are you married/dating someone?" and "Do you have any kids?" First question is easy. No and I am not looking to be either. I am just not in a place where I want to be dating. I am having a hard enough time dealing with my own feeling to have to worry about someone else's. Sometimes it sucks dealing with the grief of losing my son on my own but anyone I would be dating would not understand either because Kaden wasn't their son. My family is great and pretty supportive and I know they lost someone they love too but it is different when it is your child. A parent should never have to bury their child.

Second question is a little harder. Well not harder but leads to harder questions. Yes I do have a son, then comes the "How old?" I have answered that two different ways "He would be 15 months old" and "Well he passed away when he was 22 days old." Both answers bring on the awkwardness. No one knows what to say and I don't know what to tell people to say. Nothing is going to make me feel better but they shouldn't feel bad for asking, I mean how are they suppose to know? Then do you continue to talk about it or do you change the subject? I have had people then ask what happened and I have had people change the subject. I don't know which one is better. I do suggest that if you want to ask more questions make sure you ask the person if they feel like talking about it and if they don't want to talk about it don't push it. Sometimes people will tell you more about their child and what happened with out you having to ask. I know I have.

Truthfully I love talking about my son but there are days that I can't do it without crying. I love when people I know and who know Kaden bring him up and tell me they miss him and love him and tell me stories about him or even just a quick "thinking about Kaden." I mean even just a quick text out of nowhere. It lets me know he is not forgotten. (This is one of those examples of knowing something in your head, but reassuring your heart)

Kaden's Mommy

St. Patrick's Day

I have found that it doesn't matter the holiday, it is going to be a day that I miss Kaden even more than usual. Today is St Patrick's day and Saturday (March 20th) would have been my due date in 2009 so that means if things would have gone like they were suppose to we would be getting ready to celebrate Kaden's first birthday. It is weird to think of that since Kaden was born on Christmas day but still. Then Easter is coming up right around the corner which just happends to be Breanna's birthday this year and Ashley's is just four days behind hers. Last Easter I was able to tell myself who better for Kaden to hear about the story of Easter from than Jesus himself but I don't know if that will help this year when this year he would have been able to walk and actually do an egg hunt himself.

I am still sprinkling confetti on Kaden's grave for holidays. It was suggested to me by a friend whose youngest son was still born 13 years ago. I find that is does help a small bit and it is a way for me to decorate Kaden's grave site. I have found a website that you can order from and they have all shapes and colors.

I did not want to get out of bed today and I am going to celebrate with friends and family tonight and I am already dreading it. I am sure once I am there I will have a good time I just don't even want to go right now. Just want to curl up on the couch with a book and take a nap. I know it doesn't do me any good and I am sure if Kaden were here I would get a babysitter so I could go out with my friends and family but now that I don't have him here with me anymore he is all I want.

Kaden's Mommy

Feeling Kaden Move

I was talking with a friend over the weekend who expecting her first child in September and we got to talking about feeling the baby move. I didn't get to feel Kaden move much because he was born so early but I was lucky in getting to feel him move. It is such a different feeling. I can't describe it. I first got to feel him start moving when I was about five months along and Kaden was born a month later-at 28 weeks.

I remember many times just sitting there feeling him move around and watching him move from one side to the other. You could just see him move across my belly, if you have never seen it, it is amazing. I never knew that is was hard where the baby was and softer everywhere else. My cousins always wanted to feel him move but he hardly ever moved when people were around. (feel free to share your memories of feeling him move in the comment section here. I would love to hear them!)

There was one time when I was at home just laying on the couch, I was on my left side and one of my cats was laying next to me up against my belly and Kaden kicked her. She looked like what the hell was that and ran off. Kaden's father hates cats so I had to tell him right away and he said "that's my boy!" Another time, the first time Kaden's father got to feel him move, we were sleeping and I was on my side and his father had his hand on my belly. We were both sound asleep and Kaden kicked right where his father's hand was. It woke us both up and his father said "what was that?" I said "that is the baby waking us up. He is awake and wants us to be too I guess."

I never wanted to feel my friend's babies move, it kinda weirded me out but when Kaden started moving it was so wonderful. Everyone wanted to feel it. My family didn't care, it was like my belly was theirs, they felt it and talked to Kaden whenever they wanted, They were all so excited to have Kaden. He was loved from the first second I told them I was having a baby. Everyone had big plans for him, They actually even let me make some of the plans!

Kaden's Mommy

Weekend

Since I have started this blog so many things have been going on in my head. I have been struggling lately and I am thinking it is because I am replaying every little thing and thinking about how things should be different. There is still not a day that goes by that I don't cry. All weekend long I didn't want to do anything but I made myself. I did have a good time and I am glad I did stuff. I am still not over the guilty feelings that I have the day after I go out and do things and have a good time. I am working on it and it is better but it is still there. I would trade all the fun times to have Kaden back.

Kaden's Mommy

All the beautiful things

I have been looking at other blogs today and reading them and I have to say I am just AMAZED at all the beautiful things people make for memory items. I would have never thought of half of them ever! I wish there was something I could do. Of course I want one of everything with Kaden's name on it :) It is so sad to see all the names of babies on things but it is so wonderful that people are willing and able to do these things. It lets you know that you are not alone and others are thinking of your baby too. I would post things for all these pages on my page if I knew how. Thank you to all the people who do this and if you know how I can get any of these memory items made for my son please let me know!

Ultrasounds

I loved getting ultrasounds. It was a way to see the baby and see what he was doing before I could feel him. The 3D ones were kinda weird and I didn't really like them. There was one time when I was getting an ultrasound and Kaden's father was there and the tech had a great picture of his profile when Kaden just flipped around and kicked right were the wand was! She got a perfect picture of his foot. The father looked at me and said "Did you feel that?" I said no. I hadn't felt a thing, it was one of the first ultrasounds and we didn't even know the sex yet. The father thought it was so crazy that we could see him moving around so much and I couldn't feel it yet.

We had decided to find out the sex of the baby, OK I decided and didn't really care what the father said but he wanted to know too. I thought it would be easier with the name and shopping. When she first started the ultrasound she did the measuring and all the stuff she had to do first and I just wanted to know! Finally she asked if we wanted to know, she had no problem finding out it was a boy. She looked at the screen and said "It's a boy" and pointed out the obvious sign. The father said "Yes!" and secretly I was pretty happy too. I had wanted a boy. When we got to the truck I told the father "you weren't suppose to act all excited" He just said "Sorry" and smiled.

Every time I got an ultrasound I loved it. Even the time I had to have an emergency one when I was having some sharp pains that they thought might be my appendix. When they were doing the ultrasound looking for it, I just wanted to see my baby. It turned out to just be round ligament pain but my cousin Lacey got to see Kaden for the first time so it was worth it. We ended up having to go to the ER and it was me, Lacey and my mom. They told us only one person could go with me to the ultrasound. I quickly let them know that it was up to them to decide who it was going to be because I was not going to chose. My mom had gone with me to the first one so she let Lacey go with me. Of course I think Lacey probably would have tackled her and went anyways and I was in too much pain to really listen to what they said.

When we got back from the first ultrasound I showed my nephew the pictures and he asked if he could hold them. Of course I let him. We went to the high school football game that night, Kaden's uncle played so the whole family was there. My nephew was showing off the pictures to anyone who would look at them. Kaden's grandfather had just had surgery and was sitting in a car with my aunt so my nephew and I went to show them the pictures. He handed them to Kaden's grandpa and said "Look at the baby, it looks like an alien!" There were some 3D pictures so of course Grandpa agreed.

Kaden's Mommy

Baby Names

For me picking out a name was very important. I wanted to do it right away. Once the shock wore off I started thinking about names, names in books, movies, anywhere and everywhere I could. I started making list of names and talking with the baby's father about them. He kept telling me we have lots of time to pick one but I didn't care. We started crossing off names we didn't like and making maybe lists. I knew the girls names were going to be the hardest because there are so many in my family and almost everyone is named after someone. They were all the traditional names like Lynn, Mary, Marie, Dawn, Lee so I knew I wanted one of those for the middle names but figured we could narrow it down if it was a girl.

I found out I was having a boy and knew that naming him would be so much easier. The males in my family all have the name William either as a first name or a middle name since there is only one male in each generation (Grandpa, Uncle, Cousin, Nephew). However my nephew already had William for a middle name. I told the baby's father that he could pick the middle name. It took him a few days and he chose his father's middle name James. He said that he was named after his grandfather and would like to name his son after his son's grandfather. I thought it was great. All that was left was the first name.

Everyone has an opinion on names and they all will tell you about it even people who you don't really know. By the beginning of December I had a list of about ten names that I liked. Everyday I went over them and wrote them and said them out loud with the middle name and the last name. (Turns out my son doesn't have that last name, he has mine but Kaden James Shoopman sounds good and even the hyphenated name I use for the memorial items sounds good) Funny part was that there were three names on the list that were pretty similar and my family was pretty evenly split over which of the three they liked, Aiden, Brayden and Kaden. I tried different spellings of them and finally had it down to two names-Jonathan and Kaden. I don't do nicknames very often. If I name my baby something that is what I want them called. I knew that if I went with Jonathan someone would want to call him Jon and I don't like that name.

Not sure of the exact date but I am pretty sure December 5th I decided on Kaden James. I know I told my cousin Tessa on December 7th. We were helping at a dinner and I remember telling her and her rubbing my belly and saying "Hello Kaden James" and I told her to be quite because I hadn't told the father yet and he was only a few feet from us.

A part of me is happy that I did have a name pick so early because with all that happened surrounding Kaden's birth, it was one thing I didn't have to worry about and if I would not have survived my family knew the name I wanted and I knew Lacey would name him that for me. I use to say that it must have been Lacey who named him while I was all drugged up because that was the name she really liked and she was calling him Kaden before I had decided on it (she was in the room with me kinda I will explain that all later). But I do remember yelling when the nurse or someone was filling out paper work and said something like "now it's Caden with a C-A-D" and I started yelling "NO WITH A K! Are you stupid?" Not sure if I said that last part out loud but I know I was thinking it and knowing me I probably did.

Sometimes I am not so happy I had a name picked so early because I think maybe if I didn't have a name picked he would not have been born so early. I know it is silly to think that way but like I said I think of all the "what ifs" and you can tell your self it is a silly thought but that doesn't make you stop having it.

Kaden's Mommy

Still feeling lost

I am going to skip back and forth between posting memories and what is happening right now.



Kaden would be 14 months old now, well we will just call it 14 months but I do know months, weeks, days even hours and minutes. It is so weird to think about all the things we would be doing and to wonder what he would be like. I don't know much about how his father was when he was a baby so I like to think Kaden would be like me and take after my family. I think about what things my family would have taught him by now. Especially Josh. I remember how much my nephew looked up to him and I know Kaden would have been the same way. There are very few males in the family and they have to stick together. Kaden would be about the age Breanna was when I started babysitting her in the summers and I remember all the stuff we use to do together. Breanna is older than I was but she would have been babysitting Kaden this summer and I am sure there would have been some pay back.

I still wake up every morning and my first thought is Kaden and he is my last thought every night before I go to sleep. It has been pretty hard lately with the due date coming up. I know Kaden was born on Christmas and he has a birthday but I still think What if he wasn't born early and was born on his due date, that means his first birthday would be coming up. I have found I go over every "what if" even ones no one else thinks of. If he was born on his due date his birthday would be right in the middle of most the others in my family. After I had Kaden I didn't really think about how I should still be pregnant. Even right after I lost him I didn't think about it much. I mean every once in a while I did but this year I have been thinking more about the "what if I would have gone full term." What things did I miss out on?

Kaden's Mommy

Finding Out

I can admit when I first found out I was pregnant I wasn't ready. I was not thinking about kids. It was July 2008 and I had just graduated college in May and was applying for jobs and trying to figure out what I wanted from life. Actually the day I found out I was pregnant I had two job offers. I had to turn them down because I couldn't afford to lose my insurance. I was so scared even those first weeks wondering if I would be a good mother. I had worked with at-risk youth for a few years and the stories I had heard and had to deal with was enough to make any one afraid.

My cousin Breanna went with me to my first appointment so she could hear the baby's heartbeat. That was one of the most amazing things ever. I had heard other fetal heartbeats before but this was mine, it was my baby, coming from my stomach. That was when I first started to get really excited. Everything went really well, it all looked good. The heartbeat was strong and fast even though I was only about 10 weeks along. Everyone was saying that you could usually tell the sex by how fast the heartbeat was, faster is girls and slower is suppose to be boys. Most said I was having a girl because of the heart rate. Of course later we found out they were wrong.

I knew it was early but I started making plans and looking at baby stuff deciding what I wanted. I was pretty lucky and didn't get morning sickness much but just about everyday between 3 and 4 PM I would feel nauseous. My family was very supportive and very excited. I found out I was due March 20th 2009. I was kind of happy about that and kind of not. I was happy because my birthday is 9 days before Christmas and sometimes it gets forgotten in all the excitment of Christmas but with my baby being due in March I wouldn't have to worry about them being looked over but a lot of my family and friends have birthday's in March and April. One cousin's birthday is in the begining of April and she told me when it was time to just hold it till her birthday.

There is still so much that I want to write about with just the pregnancy but I don't want to make them to long so we will try this length for now.

Kaden's Mommy

Getting Started

I lost my son, Kaden James, on January 16 2009 when he was just 22 days old. I have decided to start this blog in memory of him and maybe to help me work through some of the emotions and grife that comes with losing someone you love. I am really not sure what I am doing when it comes to blogs and making them look all nice and how to add stuff so maybe I can learn some of that as I go too.