Support Group Meeting 4

We go to Cornerstone of Hope in a house in Independence, OH every Saturday for this class. This foundation is amazing. This support group that has helped me in so many ways is free to us and the amount of help I have received from this group is something I could never put a price on. I can't wait to make a regular donation every year to Cornerstone of Hope to show our appreciation of them. When we went to today's class, we had a tour of the house. It is gorgeous. It has a library, meeting rooms, relaxation room with a room painted like the clouds, an arts and crafts room, and an entire huge area with toys and activities for kids. They hold support groups for kids and teenagers here too and it was great to see the different areas and rooms. Our homework for this week was to think of a quote/song/ book that has helped us through our journey. I brought 2 examples. Frank did one and I explained the other one. The comment that I gave was " An angel in the book of life wrote down my baby's birth. Then whispered as she closed the book, too beautiful for this earth". My angel is just perfect and at first, I was taken very back by this quote but now I find a lot of joy reading this. My angel is the most beautiful angel there is out there! Without a doubt in my mind, Frankie is loving his life up there in heaven since he can't be here with us. The second quote that we brought to class was what Frank shared. It was a line from my favorite childhood story book. Also, we have a copy of this book with Frankie that we sent him up to heaven with. From the book "I Love You Forever". The quote that I smile and brings me to an immediate place of peace fullness is "I'll love you forever, I'll like you for always, as long as I'm living my baby you'll be." I can't begin to tell you in words how happy this makes me when I hear this. Frankie even has this book with this quote up in heaven with him!

After we shared our quotes, we watched a movie called "Tear Soup". It was an older movie but it was about a woman who is grieving the loss of a loved one and people and family are always trying to push her along in her grieving process not knowing how long it can take a person to grieve. Like any good soup, time, love, and salt (seasoning) make it taste so good. Never rush a person who is grieving and tears can be salty but we go about every day and "make our soup" or do what we do but we constantly think of our loved one we lost.

After the movie, we had art therapy. I FREAKED out at this point. I am terrible at art and without Pinterest, I would not be a crafty person at all. I don't have a creative bone in me. We made a collage with tissue paper picking 5 top emotions we feel off of a sheet of different emotions that are felt during this process. The emotions that I picked were determined (I am determined to have a family and will never give up), alienated (I knew there were other grieving parents out there in the world but never imagined meeting people in person who can sympathize with my heartache), anxious (I will never be able to have a pregnancy where I don't worry about my baby inside of me), confused (I don't understand if Frankie was so sick, how was eating and taking in food and weighed nearly 7 lbs but he had this problem where his stomach and esophagus that did not meet and couldn't have formula or breast feed when he was born until he had the surgery. I am also confused on what happened that day in the NICU. I still am very sure that the staff in the NICU were not working like they should have been that day and they were not honest with us what happened that day before we arrived), and the final and fifth emotion is sorry (we had a gorgeous baby that so many people did not get to meet. I am sorry for all of those who were not able to meet Frankie before he passed away). The 5 emotions that Frank chose were hurt/sad/sorry, guilty, envious/ jealous, angry, and proud.

We shared our feelings and explained our collages to the class. While we were all working on our project, we were all talking. It was my favorite part of the classes yet. We talked about where we bought our cribs and furniture, what we did with all the baby stuff, how we go to birthday parties for other babies, baby showers, pictures of our angels, and how we commemorate our angels every day. I loved just talking with the other mom and dads. It was great to hear what other people have to say and have been forced with this. Many people comfort us but this group of people comfort us in a a way that luckily most people can't because they just "know" how it feels.

Our class goes from 9am-11am. The class had to be let out at 12noon because something else was going to be going on. We enjoyed talking amongst one another that we went way over our meeting time that day. You know what, I was ok with that. In fact, this was my favorite part of any of the classes because we got to know each other on a different and personal level.