Happy Birthday Little Birdie.
We love you, we miss you...we really really miss you.


Here is how it began...(from Matt's notes when I began having contractions on Friday March 2nd early in the morning)

1:00 am in the bath tub
1:40 mucous plug
2:12
2:22 - 60 seconds
2:34 - 30 seconds
2:40 - 65 seconds
2:57 - 65 seconds
3:10 - 75 seconds
3:15 - 60 seconds
3:22 - 60 seconds
3:32 - 75 seconds
3:39 - 65 seconds
3:51 - 65
3:58 - 60
4:02 - 60
4:13 - on the phone w midwife
4:19 - 45 sec small one
4:24 - 60 - standing
4:31 - 30 sec back in tub
4:35 - 55
4:39 - 20 seconds very small
4:46 - 60 seconds
4:51 - 60 oranges
4:56 - 55 toast
5:01 - 50
5:05 - 25 secs
5:10 - 45 secs
5:14 - 55 secs
5:18 -
5:22 - 25 secs out of tub standing
5:32 - mini 15 sec rest
5:40 - intense - puke seeing little white fireflies
5:50 - 55
5:56 - 45
6:02 - back in tub
6:08 - 45
6:13 - 40
6:20 - 45
6:26 - 65
6:33 - 45
6:41 - 40
6:46 - 50
6:51 - 50
6:57 - 3 in here
7:18 - 40
7:23 - 7:28

that is where his notes recording my contractions stop...as one of our midwives had around that time arrived at our home. Less than 24 hrs later, our lives were turned upside down and shaken with amost fierce force and then slammed as hard as possible upon the ground....but then before my eyes my baby became an angel and in some way told me to stay here on earth as her life slipped through my body and into the universe.

It feels really strange this day. This day that was supposed to be really happy, a day that we had both imagined when we were pregnant with Birdie, our child's first birthday. I feel lost in a mental fog right now, and it doesn't even seem real that this day is here. Even now I can remember so clearly seeing and holding Birdie for the first time and then those 3 days that followed. I can't believe that I didn't have a nervous breakdown during that time, or at anytime this past year. I guess that I am a lot stronger in mind than I had really known.

Today just like on this day last year time will stop for us, and carry on for everyone else. Today I will want to just stay in bed all day and just think about her, but I won't, we won't. The fresh air of the mountains nearby are just what we need on this day. Surrounding ourselves in nature is what we will do.


Birdie, my little one. It feels like only yesterday (or today, because it's your day) that we help you so close and felt your warm skin.

You still feel so close to us even though your body has become earthen Ashe.

We keep you close by in your bed that was meant to keep you side by side with us, but now houses all your little toys and paper cranes.

My womb from where you flew with grace into the world has now healed, and on the outside the mark has healed.

But my heart is not healed, nor is Papa's heart. Our hearts will forever remained scarred by your death and scarred by the deepest love for you, our beloved daughter.

We will carry you with us always, even in death.

We are always one together. (Mama/Papa/Birdie)

With greatest enormous eternal love,
Mama & Papa