Our Fluffy

Fluffy is the sweet and silly nickname that we gave to Caroline while I was still pregnant with her. Since we don't usually pick out names for our kids until they are here on Earth with us we had to call "him or her" something. She proudly received the name the day we came home with our first ultrasound picture at 9 weeks and 1 day.

(I have to interject here for a moment as say how bitter-sweet this moment is for me. It's the very first time I have shared any kind of picture of Caroline on my blog before :(. I keep thinking that maybe for her first birthday in October I will have the strength to post a picture of her or her feet or something. We'll see.)

Back to my story.... Bobby and I both joked that we had never seen one of our kids at this particular week of gestation before and that due to her size and positioning she looked a little chubby (in a sweet way). We called her our "Fat Little Fetus " or "FLF". Both of those morphed into Fluff and then on to Fluffy.

Graham was over the moon to call her this. It just cracked his 8 year old self up for some reason and he proudly shared the name with anyone he could. He still calls her this to this day. The name Caroline has almost no meaning to him. And that's fine. The death of a sibling has to be almost as hard as the death of a child and if calling her by her old name helps him then I'm all for it. One day I said the name Caroline out loud in the car for some reason and he had to ask me "Is that the name of our baby in Heaven?" For a while it hurt me soo bad that he had to ask this question. I just kept thinking to myself what a bad job I was doing as a mother that I couldn't even keep her memory alive within our own family! (I realized later that he wasn't used to the name Caroline as I am, but her old nickname.)

But, as the time for our new baby to arrive draws nearer and we feel a little bit safer for the outcome, we talk more and more about "baby brother". It's obvious that Graham is picking up on this and in turn is taking more about "Fluffy" for some reason. At first it made me really sad to hear that nickname. I quickly realized though,  I didn't want to be one of those parents that just sweeps things under the rug emotionally just so "it can be easier on everyone". We let him talk about her as much or as little as he wants to now.

I will admit freely to hiding much of my tears and emotion from my kids. I want to spare them the sadness that I feel and I certainly don't want them to worry anymore than they already do. So I don't talk about Caroline all that often. That's why it brings me soo much joy when Graham and I have conversations about our growing family and he goes through all the "new roles" that everyone will be playing. He is still the "Big Brother", Grady is no longer the "Little Brother" but now holds the title of "Middle Brother", then he always adds in "then there's Fluffy" and then our newest  "Little Brother". I love love love that he always includes her in the lineup of our children. Even I as an adult don't always do that. My brain just seems to get stuck in the "I only have 3 boys" category. Bless his sweet heart for the gentle reminder of "No, there will always be 4 kids".

I hope that this garbled mess makes some sense. It's all been running through my head for a couple of days now and I really needed to get this out! Grief, fear and excitement are all hard emotions to process all going on at the same time.

I hope that everyone is having a great weekend so far and thanks for listening!