Remembering Reegan..

October 16 - has come and gone... for this I'm so thankful.  The week leading up to Wednesday (his birthday) was incredibly hard. It felt as if we were just days out since the funeral. It felt like I was living in a fog, and when people would talk to us about Reegan's upcoming birthday, I would try so hard to hold it together, and not let the tears fall. Although, I know it's okay to let the tears come, just having to emotionally pull myself together again was mentally draining..

Reegan's first birthday was definitely not how I ever envisioned it would be.. but then again, who thinks that a healthy child won't live to see their next birthday. However, we did celebrate with family and close friends, and made the very best of it. We started the evening by releasing balloons at the cemetery. We all wrote a special note on a balloon, and then released them. It was beautiful, peaceful, and perfect. I find writing very therapeutic for myself, so being able to write a little special note to Reegan on his birthday, brought much healing..

Afterwards we came back to our home and ate Pizza Ranch pizza, and had cake and ice cream.

However, we were not the only ones remembering Reegan on his first birthday, most of Sioux Center was too! The Sioux Center News asked Andrew and myself to do an interview on SIDS just a week before his birthday. October was infant loss / SIDS awareness month, and the local newspaper was wanting to do an article in honor of all those tiny lives lost. I remember Andrew telling me about this opportunity, and at first my reaction was to say, thanks, but no thanks! I have been dreading this day for so long, the last thing I wanted to do was speak about what should have been a first birthday. After sleeping on it a night, Andrew consulted the interviewer about what we could expect as far as questions to help ease some of the anxiety of what we both had been feeling. The interviewer informed us that she was hoping to interview soon, as she wanted the article to be placed in the October 16th (following week's) issue. Ahhh.. What? That was our sign, we knew immediately that we needed to do this! How awesome it was going to be that Reegan would get his own recognition in the local newspaper for this first birthday! Andrew and myself decided no better way to honor our little man, than to share with many others his beautiful life legacy!  We knew that if we were going to follow through with this, then we are going to be open and honest about everything, and so it goes...

(To read the article, you may need to adjust your zoom on your computer to be able to read this well!)