I was broken...so incredibly broken. We left the horrible year of 2010 behind us, only taking with us the beautiful memory of a beautiful baby girl who blessed our lives for such a brief period of time.
We made the decision to adopt and in January 2011, we had started forward with our plans to make this happen. We already had put together our portfolio, with this as our cover picture:
We had the best Valentine's Day ever...we got to see Cameron (at that time known as CB) and hear her heartbeat for the first time!
My cerclage was placed on April 1st. What's the irony that on the first day of April I would get the few little stitches that would be needed to keep CB safe and warm, when on the last day of April the year before, Bailey was born because we didn't have those little stitches? We also found out that CB was officially a Cameron instead of a Casey when the ultrasound showed she was a girl!
April also brought Bailey's first birthday. We officially made it through our year of firsts without her.
My birthday came around in May. And for the first time in 2 years, it didn't suck. My birthday 2009 - internal audit was visiting and I was stressed to the max. My birthday 2010 - one week post Bailey's death. Yeah, we all know how well I was doing then. My birthday 2011 - pregnant with Cameron and a few friends and my husband surprised me with a dinner get-together!
We made it past THE week in June. Yes, we made it past 23 weeks, which was THE week we lost Bailey. I was a nervous wreck that week.
We made it through the hottest summer on record with record breaking heat and record number of days of 100+ degree temperatures. Oh, how I love Oklahoma summers. For the record...if I could plan it, I would NOT be pregnant again during the summer....ugh.
After 9 long months, we finally met this sweet face on September 15 at 9:45 a.m....
After a stressful pregnancy after loss, to get her here safe and sound and to hear that first cry was music to our ears!
In November, we got to meet Allison, Josh, and Genevieve. That was also Cameron's first out of state trip!
We got to have firsts this year that weren't absolutely heart-wrenching and heartbreaking. Cameron's first trip, her first Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. We got to hear first laughs and we have many more firsts that we are looking forward to!
2011 was a good year...a great year. It was a healing year. A little piece of us is still missing and always will be, but we are doing much better at the end than we were in the beginning. Our little family grew and we are all well.
And as we started 2012 this morning at 5:30 a.m. (because Cameron REALLY thought she needed to be up!) but it was all worth it to see her smiles and hear her giggles!
I'm so excited to see what 2012 has in store for us. I am thrilled to get to watch Cameron continue growing and I can't wait to see her little personality develop! This little black-haired, blue-eyed girl certainly has us mesmerized, and it is definitely her show!
To answer a question Julie asked on Facebook earlier and that others have asked too over the course of this past year: Yes, we do still plan to adopt. We hope to have at least 1 more little one who is biologically ours, and then once we are a little more financially stable (meaning we finally have some crap paid off), then we hope to adopt. We would like to adopt from South Korea still, but we may ultimately decide to go through the Choctaw Nation as I am a registered Choctaw. We'll see where the road takes us when we get there!
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