Life with an angel baby: October 15th, 2012

Yesterday was October 15th, also known as Infant and Pregnancy Loss Rememberance Day. One year ago I had no clue that this day even existed, and now I have it on my calendar. I was fortunate enough to attend a balloon release last week Thursday in Bismarck with a the Angel Babies group I belong to. This is a group of women that have helped me a lot even though I had never met any of them in person before last week. Seth was able to come with me and it was nice, and for some reason I just wouldn't let myself cry. I don't know why I wouldn't, I think I was just trying to be strong and make it more of a celebration of Amelia's short life instead of something sad. I just kept thinking to myself, this is all I have of my daughter balloon releases. I know that is not try I have so much more then that, but in that moment I just felt sad. Because of this balloon release I was inspired to create a balloon release in Minot for all the families here that have lost a baby or pregnancy. I planned it in 10 days and thank God for facebook because I was able to get the word out to a lot of people. I also called the local news station and they were very interested in the story and agreed to do an interview about the day and the balloon release. So yesterday morning a reporter came over and we talked for over an hour, which is funny because my little blip on the news was about 30 seconds! Which is a good thing since I did a lot of babbling and I am sure I made no sense half the time, gotta love editing! I also contacted the grocery store in town and talked to the manager and he agreed to donate all the balloons to the release, all 65 of them! So last night at 6:30 my friend Catherine and I and our kids got to the release site and started sorting balloons! I had around 40 people that came and I was just completely overwhelmed by the response and the support of the even! Our local paper came and interviewed me and our balloon release was on the front page of the paper this morning! The pastor from my church, Nathan, came and said a prayer for all of us before we sent our balloons up to heaven. It was extra special that he was there since he is the one that baptized Amelia, he was there when I was at my lowest point ever and now he was there last night when I am at a much better point in my life. Although last night I wasn't able to keep in the tears, as I was thanking everyone for coming out and supporting me and the event I kinda lost it, I got all high pitched and people probably couldn't even understand what I was saying so at that point I passed it on to Nathan to say the prayer! I cried through the whole prayer and then we let go of our balloons and I felt at peace. I know Amelia was there just waiting for her balloons, I think she had 4 or 5 which is so amazing! Aiden was my date for the night since Seth couldn't be there, he's in Denver for work this week so that kinda sucked but I know he wanted to be there. I have received so much positive feedback from people about the balloon release and it makes me so happy that I was able to do something to honor my daughter, but at the same time help others dealing with their loss. I know there is a reason why Amelia's life was so short and I am not positive why, but I am going to make sure that something positive comes from her death. I refuse to let her be forgotten and I am determined to keep her memory alive, and this is just one way that I plan to do that. I love my baby girl more then words can even begin to express and I did this for her and I hope she is half as proud of her mommy as I am of her! Here are some pictures from last night!
Here are the links to my interview and the news paper article!
http://www.kmot.com/News_Stories.asp?news=59829
http://www.minotdailynews.com/page/content.detail/id/569897/Balloon-release-held-to-raise-awareness-of-infant-loss.html?nav=5010