Christmas

I have always loved Christmas.

It is a beautiful time of year with all of the lights, music, friends, food and the birth of our Savior.But times have changed for me. I have faith that I won't always go into a pit of grief during this beautiful time of year but for now I'm having a hard time.

I have tried really hard to share the hope, blessings, faith, love, and joy that Timothy's life has given me. I don't even know how to put my feelings of grief into words. But I feel like I really need to write about the darkness that can take over my world at any moment.

I'm tired
I hate the fear
I hate the anger
I hate that inability to cope
I hate the frustration
I hate the stolen joy
I hate how this has affected every aspect of my life
I hate the blackness that can take me over
I hate that daily tasks can feel as impossible as building your own house
I hate that I miss my son and that I can't hold him or kiss him or cuddle him when he is scared or laugh with him when he is happy.

But normally I can handle my own emotions. I find it much harder when I have to watch my children and husband suffer. My children have a broken mom and my husband has a broken wife.

My 8 year old son wakes up in the middle of the night with nightmares about how he might have killed his brother by being too loud. Or nightmares about how he was buried alive and couldn't get out. He does class projects about his brother that died and has friends that tell him that they wouldn't have allowed their brother to die; they would have dug him up and brought him home and kept him. In the darkness of his room in the middle of the night we cry together while I try to comfort him and he tells me how much he misses his brother and just wants him here with us, and all I can do is agree. My fear has rubbed off on him and he has a hard time controlling his emotions.

My almost 5 year old daughter collects anything that has to do with angels or babies. She deals with a need to hold firmly onto everything that comes into her life and it affects her all the way to her core when something is lost or broken. She still believes that our baby angel statue is Timothy. My anger has rubbed off on her and she has a hard time controlling her emotions.

Kadin was a lot younger when Timothy came into our lives so I think that he is mostly affected by me. My sadness has rubbed off on him and he has a hard time controlling his emotions.

My husband has been a rock. He is strong and steady. But he is affected beyond words. His whole world has been affected. I am very lucky because he has turned to God in his difficult times. He had been studding the bible and learning the Word more then ever before. (It has sparked some interesting discussions between us). He misses his wife.

One thing that is extremely frustrating about all of these emotions and feelings is that they do nothing for Timothy. He is at home in Heaven experiencing the greatest joy. Having me miss him and grieve for him doesn't bring him any more joy. He doesn't benefit from it in anyway shape or form. He is with our Savior and the only emotions he feels are love, joy and peace. Nothing we can do here on earth can increase any of those feelings.

So what is all of this pain for???????

I guess it is for us. To help us turn to God in our weakest moments and with our greatest needs. So that we can find true joy, peace and love in His arms. So he can bless our lives as only he can.

Please join me in praying for all the families that are grieving during this season of joy.

Since I really don't feel like updating on our normal family stuff and I know that many of you would like to see how big the kids are getting I would like to invite you to check us out at http://www.curreyclan.blogspot.com/.

Joy

I am filled with joy.

I know that when I say that most people will think that our new little girl is the source of that joy. She's not. I mean she is...but she's not.

My entire life has changed since Timothy. All my children have brought me joy and changed my life... I'm in love with them all, but Timothy's short life really blessed me.

I live my life with a different kind of happiness. One that comes from this little boy that lives in my heart. He will never be replaced. He will never be gone. He walks with me everywhere I go and reminds me not to take one moment for granted.

He sits in my heart right next to my Savior. The source of my joy. The One that has blessed me beyond my wildest dreams and knew exactly what he was doing...both when he gave me a tiny little boy to love and when he took him home to Heaven. He made me breath when I couldn't do it on my own, carried me when I couldn't walk, cried with me when I couldn't get out of bed and hugged me when nothing in this world could comfort me.

AND

He has also given me JOY.

(family pictures update coming soon...I just have been too busy enjoying them to blog!)

14 months

I can hardly believe that 14 months have gone by since we held Timothy. I'm amazed at how fast time goes by sometimes. We celebrated by going to visit him. I love that we are always filled with joy when we go to Timothy's park. Our children are always excited. They laugh and play. Don't get me wrong. The joy that we feel is bittersweet but I am glad that we don't have to be sad every time we think about Timothy or when we visit him. We believe that his life was a blessing and enjoy celebrating it! (Even though it isn't always easy to do)

One of the things that cracks me up is that they love to give him their toys but like any other brother they also love to take them back. (Almost) every time we go to visit and love on him our children bring gifts and when they arrive they are very excited to take back the presents from last time. It reminds me of the normal sibling rivalry...

"It's mine!"

"No, it's mine...give it back"

"You gave it to me"

"Only to borrow...I want it back now."

"Mommy!"

I know that is all in my head but it always brings me a little smile.

Yesterday was also Malya's first visit with us since she was born. It was really nice to have all our kids in the picture together. (We moved the stuffed animals for the pictures, but I promise we put them back before we left!)

just a quick update

Hello friends! I'm sure that many of you have noticed that I haven't been writing very often lately. I'm sorry.

Mayla is 6 weeks old now and she is doing great. She has even had her first smiles! She does keep me busy though. She loves to be in my arms just about every second of the day so most of the time she is snuggled inside our best friend Moby. We have become quite the three some...Moby, Mayla and Me. In fact Moby has almost become part of our family, "Don't forget Moby mom.", "She want's Moby mom.", "WOW mom, Mayla really likes Moby doesn't she?".

As much as I really want to keep you all up to date on Mayla and share every second of our rainbow, I really set this site up for Timothy. So I think that I'm going to try to keep this site for Timothy. I plan to come here when I need to talk about him, think about him, remember my time with him, and mourn for him.

My posts here may be infrequent for a little while as I'm learning who I am right now and where I'm going. But rest assured, I will keep posting and keep updating. And I will continue to read all your wonderful blogs and journeys that have brought me so much support over the last couple of years. God has brought each one of you into my life and I'm thankful.

Can you guess??

Where we have been for the last week with our brand new 3 week old baby?

What? You mean I didn't even tell you I was going somewhere?

I guess that I have a little catching up to do!
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.

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soon.

Mayla's birthday

(Some of you may have already read this story on my family blog, but I wanted to share Mayla's birthday with all of our wonderful friends that have loved Timothy and supported us throughout the last couple of years!)

A true dream. That is what I will remember when I think about my first moments with our new daughter. She is a beautiful blessing and our little rainbow...

But let me back up a bit and share how she came into our arms. First I have to say that I didn't think she was ever going to come. I never thought I would go into labor and I was sure that we were going to need an induction. So when I woke up at 1:30 in the morning with my first contraction I didn't think much about it. Back to bed I went.About 10 or 15 minutes later, there was another. Then another.

Finally I started to get a clue and decided to get up and take a bath. After being in the tub for about 30 minutes I realized that we might be going to the hospital soon. BUT the problem was that we didn't really have anything ready! So I quietly packed our bag, put together some clothes for our children, emptied our camera, got the video ready, and brought the car seat down.

By 3:00 am I felt that we needed to go to the hospital. So I woke up daddy-to-be. He really thought that how I woke him up was really funny. I woke him up at 3 am and he just looked at me for a minute. "What?" he asked. No response. "What??" he asked again. "Why would I be standing in front of you at 3:00 in the morning fully dressed?". Ding Ding Ding!!!! He jumps out of bed and dresses in record time...

Then he thought I was even funnier when he got to the bottom of the stairs to see bags packed and the car seat ready.

So about 3:30 my mom arrives and we decide to go to the hospital. By this time my contractions are still rather irregular between 5 and 8 minutes apart and only moderately painful but since I was at high risk for placenta abruption we decided it would be safer to be at the hospital then at home.

I was a little surprised when we arrived at the hospital at about 4:00 and were already 5 cm (by the time I'm a 5 I normally deliver within 1-2 hours)! By about 5:00 we had an epidural and I was 8 cm. We really wanted our very special Dr Shope to be our delivering doctor but unfortunately he wasn't on call. The on call Dr was wonderful. She agreed to wait until 6:00 am and call him to see if he would come and deliver for us! And as promised she made the call and he was on his way instantly.

I believe that he arrived at about 6:40 quickly ruptured my membranes and told me that we should deliver in the next little bit.

Have I ever told anyone how much I love epidurals? I love epidurals!!! They ROCK! ( And I know because I didn't have one with Kadin). The only reason that we were able to wait for our awesome Dr Shope was because of that wonderful epidural. In fact he said that without it we would have delivered over an hour earlier...crazy.

Anyway... he came back into the room and announced that we were about to have our daughter in our arms. The room was quiet and without the normal hustle and bustle of a quick birth. The bed wasn't taken apart, and everyone was extremely relaxed. Dr Shope sat at the edge of the bed and within a couple of pushes she had arrived. At 6:58 am our little Mayla Lynn took her first breath and let out her first cry. 8 pounds 2.5 ounces and 6 days early! I'm lucky we didn't go 5 days late like we did with her big brother.

My husband would be disappointed if I didn't share one last part of her birth story...As Dr Shope told me is was time to push, I quickly asked Kevin to hand me our camera. Without thinking or asking me why he just did as I asked. So the entire room was SHOCKED when, after my first push, as I saw her tiny head appear... I snapped my first picture of her. Both the nurse and doctor stopped what they were doing (in the middle of her birth...I might add), looked at me in awe and said they had NEVER in their entire career watched a mother that is PUSHING her baby out taking her own pictures. I just laughed and continued to take pictures as she arrived. I guess that's what happens when you have had 5 babies!

The first week

Today Mayla turned 1 week old. She is a great sleeper, likes to eat, loves to cuddle, and tolerates all the love and attention she receives from her proud brothers and sister all the time!

But today was a difficult Timothy day for me. It began at 5:30 this morning when Austin came into my room in tears saying that he misses Timothy. We cuddled together for a little while and talked about how Timothy is very happy, playing with his friends, and being loved by Jesus. Then He fell back to sleep and I proceeded to cry for quite awhile. I miss Timothy too. I should have 5 children climbing into my bed every morning cuddling with me. So today I spent much of my day celebrating Timothy's little sister and grieving his loss like I have too many times to count in the last year.

I have thought about him a lot these last couple of weeks. Between celebrating his birthday and returning to the hospital where I loved and lost him, I have had many ups and downs.

God has placed me on this roller coaster and asked me to trust him. To be honest I have struggled with trusting him lately. I trust that he has a plan for our family...I just haven't been able to trust that I was going to like that plan. For many reasons that we will never understand, he has taken more then one child from many families. That has been very scary for me.

The thing that I love most about this roller coaster is that I wouldn't change it. I wish Timothy was still with me, I miss him, I love him, but I would never change the fact that I had him. He is part of our lives and will continue live in our hearts forever. I am also deeply in love with his sister. I shouldn't have her in my life right now. But because of God's wonderful blessings and fulfilled promises I do.

Thank you God for taking such good care of our family and holding us in your hands as we have struggled and grieved. We ask that you continue holding us as we heal and learn to love and trust again. And give Timothy a kiss from his family that misses him dearly. Amen

just a taste

Hello! I'm so excited to share a little taste of what we have been doing the last couple of days. Mayla is VERY loved by her sister and brothers. In fact I think that they get more baby time then mommy and daddy! Thankfully I still get a bunch since I nurse but poor daddy...he is feeling a little left out!

I'm hoping to post more about her birthday and share more pictures soon but until I'm able to get a little more sleep at night this will have to do!

She's Here!

The Currey family is thrilled to announce the arrival of Mayla Lynn Currey. She arrived this morning at 6:58 am weighing 8 lbs 2 oz. She is absolutely beautiful ~ brown hair, sweet little cheeks. She looks so much like her big sister Emma and has certainly captured the hearts of her brothers.Jennifer is amazing! Within hours of Mayla's arrival, Jen had already showered, changed back into normal clothes and was walking around as if she were ready to bake a cake. She even had the Pediatrician doing a double take, asking if she was going home today.For those who are wondering, "Mayla" is a kind of waterlily...a fitting name for the beautiful little flower that bloomed today.Congratulations Currey family!
With joy ~ Karen

bees and butterflies

Here are some pictures of our celebration on Saturday. We literally have hundreds of pictures so it has been hard to pick my favorites but here goes!

Our cake! As you can see bumble bee's were the theme for the party. I even spent several hours decorating the cake myself. Those bees were fun to make but took a lot of time. I just kept thinking about how much Timmy would love them! (But I didn't make the cake! I ordered one that was blank for me to decorate)

In Timothy's memory we released 60 live butterflies! They were beautiful and it was fun to watch them fly away. Some even stayed for a short visit while they landed on clothes and rested on hands . One thing that was really fun was that they continued to fly around the rest of the afternoon and we were able to watch them and continue enjoying them the entire party.

And then we just had a ton of fun together! Check out how many people wore their Timothy t-shirts!

Tomorrow is Timothy's birthday. We have a some more fun planned and I will share more in the next couple of days.