Where Do I Fit In?

[jefferysmommy]

My name is Jenn, I lost my Jeffery to SIDS almost 15 years ago, he was 9 weeks and 6 days old, 69 days.  Jeffery passed away on January 11, 1996, just two days before my daughters second birthday.

Jeffery was not the easiest baby, though he was born healthy and we loved him dearly.  Jeffery had his nights and days mixed up and I was getting very little sleep being up with his sister all day and then up with him all night, we tried everything to get him to switch, I would even wake him from his sleep and give him a bath to see if I could get him to stay awake for a little while, he would, scream until his bath was over and before he was back in fresh sleepers he would be asleep again!  He was just starting to get better at sleeping at night when he passed away.

The day before he passed away, I had him lying underneath a sesame street play thing that hung over top of him, and as I was crossing the living room where my daughter was sitting with him I saw one of the sesame street characters swinging wildly, and Jeffery laughing hysterically, I said, "Did you do that for Jeffery?" to my daughter, and she said, "No, he's doing it by himself."  With my hands full of stuff that I had picked up to put away, I sat on the couch and watched him, he was just over 2 months old and he could get his little body right over on his side, swing his arm and fall back on his back and laugh at the sesame street character as it swung wildly back and forth.  He amazed me, everyday of his short life, he amazed me.  This is one of the good memories I hang on to, and there are many others.

The reason that I am writing today, is that I'm having a really bad week, just thinking about him and missing him, the loss has always been apparent, he has never been forgotten, I have never missed a birthday or Angel Anniversary, but for some reason, I have been thinking about him a lot lately.

Also, I now have a 3 year old son, and my daughter is 16, I worry about them all the time, I am really trying not to be an over protective mom, but everytime I lay my son down to sleep, I can't help but think, will something happen to him tonight?  When my daughter goes downtown with her friends, will she come home?  I let go, because I have to, but the worry is eating away at me, not to mention the strong waves of emotion that I have been feeling for Jeffery.

I hope to find some solace within these message boards, and if someone could point me in the right direction, that would be very helpful.

[westleysmom]

Jenn,

So very very sorry for your loss.  I can't imagine how hard it must be for you.  My son Westley was 20 years old when he died this January, so I should feel lucky that I got to keep him that long, but no matter how long we get to keep our babies, its never long enough is it?  I have only been on Loss of Adult child for a few weeks, but I believe that group is the most active and supportive of any on here and all are welcome.  Most of the group's children really were "grown up" but some were younger and all in the group are very caring and friendly.  It seems a lot are on vacation/out of pocket for one reason or another, but try over there.  Its only been 6 months since I lost my son, but I know in 15 years, it will probably still seem like yesterday.  Again, please accept my sympathy in your loss.  Westley was my baby, so I don't have anybody else at home to worry over, but I worry about my daughter and granddaughter too, even though they don't live with me and I can't watch their every move.  Take care,

Rhonda Westley's Mom

[shorty16]

Jenn

Boy can I relate.  We lost our 16 year old son, brother to a preventable car crash.  I am totally paranoid concerning my younger son (now 16).

What I have learned is:  Aaron is not Brian.  Aaron is himself and has a much better sense about him (knows his limitations).

No matter how long our kids have been angels, it will always be difficult.

Colleen

[Kelly]

Dear Members,

We are excited to mention that we are moving to a more new and improved message boards on MONDAY MORNING AUGUST 9th! The boards will be done for a few hours while we are making the conversation. Remember we posted information about this move a month ago. For some of you this might seem a bit sudden,  but when we were reviewing the site we determined the current message board you are using is out of date and the company that designed it is no longer in existence. The good news is this new message board will have new features that have been requested in the past like more fields we can add to your profiles and a chat room up to 20 people at one time. If we find the chat room is bursting at the seams we will add additional room for extra people. All your old posts, private messages and such will be migrated to the new message board. You might have to put up your profile picture again but not sure. The new company will be doing the migration for us. Here is a short list of some of the new features on the board:

- Custom Profile Fields- Users can customize their profile pages by selecting a background color or background image, with tiling options.- Facebook and Twitter Integration- users can respond to multiple posts at once with "mini-quote"- Pinned discussion threads - like welcome to our board etc.- Announcements made across some boards or the entire message board- Search: Users can easily find all content generated by a particular member, by clicking the 'Find Content' button that appears on the main profile page, or in the Mini Profile Popup which can be accessed throughout the board. The results page allows content to be filtered by application, as well whether the member created it or merely participated in it. - Privacy: allows users to sign in anonymously, hiding them from the online users list. Users also have the option to disable personal conversations and user-to-user emails, as well as ignore other users if necessary.

The next exciting piece of news about the new message board is it will have a new domain name of www.grieving.com for search engine optimization purposes. It will still be apart of Beyond Indigo and can be found through www.beyondindigo.com. We will be redirecting your current URL's to this new domain name but we might miss a few. If that is the case simply go back to www.grieving.com or www.beyondindigo.com to find your message board thread. We will try to make the transition as seamless as possible. 

The bottom line is the new board will give us room to grow our community and more options to interact better with each other. 

If you have any questions please direct them to feedback@beyondindigo.com.

Kelly Baltzell, MA

CEO/President

Beyond Indigo Family