...minute by minute...

...that is how today's date goes...

...I once again relive it all...

...one minute to the next...

"This love wasn't enough for us to survive
I swear, I swear, I swear I tried
You took the life right out of me
I'm so unlucky I can't breathe
You took the life right out of me
I'm longing for your heartbeat
Heartbeat, heartbeat"

~Beyoncé Knowles
 
Tomorrow is Claire's birthday however today is the day that we heard the words,

"I'm sorry, there is no heartbeat."

The day that forever changed my life.

The day I had to share my devastation with my family and friends, 
the day I went to the hospital to be induced, 
the day that seemed to last forever yet was over in the blink of an eye. 

The day that the waiting began,
that the grief began,
that the loneliness began,
that the overwhelming heartache began,
that the indescribable sadness began,

...when the beginning meant the end...

The one day that haunts me every year when

...I once again relive it all...

...one minute to the next... 

9 years ago today...

  I lost my first baby.

It made me question everything about my future plans.

It's strange looking back after how far we have come as a family.

What would our family look like now if that baby had survived?

You can find my Little Love's story here.

Dans ma famille nous sommes...

Exactement mon homme!

So proud of my little man's school project.
I love that he never hesitates to include her.

(Now the only thing we need to work on is proper spelling of her name! Haha!)

I can't remember the punch line...

At the beginning of the month I went away with my family to Edmonton. On the Saturday evening we all went out to celebrate both my cousin and uncle's birthdays by hitting up a comedy show. The guys performing had us in stitches!

One guy was part way through his set when he started a new joke with, 

"And then there was this girl Claire..." 

I cannot for the life of me remember what the joke was about as when I heard her name my heart skipped a beat and my head got kind of cloudy, kind of like blurred out slow motion.

I instantly wondered if and how it affected those I was with...

Did they hear her name too?

Did they immediately think of her too?

Did their world stop for a millisecond?

Did their heart skip a beat?

Did they wonder if I heard it and how it affected me?

Or did it go unnoticed to them?

It's amazing how one name can trigger so such emotion.

It's amazing that in one quick weekend away that name appeared twice.

(See previous post here.)

It's amazing how much I love her even though she is no longer here...

In print...

I love it when I hear Claire's name. 

Be it on tv, on the radio, in casual conversation, it always makes me pause and smile.

I also love to see it, like I did in the book I was reading on the plane this past weekend! 

Up popped her name and all I could do was stare and smile and then take a picture! 

And then to sweeten my reading experience a little more... up popped Lucy's name!

August lovin'...

August lovin' thanks to: Elaine and William, Antoinette, Kate, Belinda, Jasmin and James, 

Wendy, Becky, Lina, Cally, Heather, Maureen, Amber, Vanessa, Holly, Tracy, 

Lara with Davide and Paul, Molly, Virginia, Mandi S, Mandi M, and Heather.