Nastassia.

I've been thinking about her a lot lately.  I'm sure it's only natural because we're getting very close to the one year mark of losing our tiny little angel.  Sometimes the emotions are overwhelming, just like they were at first, and I find myself shedding those big alligator tears as I think about her extremely short existence and long to have her in my life.  I'm not sorry for our experience with Nastassia.  Not one bit.  I'm so grateful for the growth I have experienced on my own as an individual, and also for the growth Darwin and I have made together as husband and wife.  We're a team, and he's the best teammate I ever could have asked for :)  I'm grateful for the tender mercies of a loving Heavenly Father who allowed us to experience this extremely difficult trial because he knew it would make us stronger--and it has!

On Valentine's day while Aurora was napping, I took the opportunity to read some of the February Ensign, and two of the articles I read that day were exactly what I needed.  The Refining Fire of Grief and Lifting the Hands Which Hang Down both touched my heart, even though their stories were very different from ours.  My tears were sad as I read the articles and I couldn't help but think about Nastassia and our very personal experience with grief, but I felt the reassurance of Heavenly Father reminding me that Nastassia fulfilled her mission by getting the body she needed.  I'm grateful that Darwin and I were privileged to provide that body for her.

As we come up on our one year mark we've been discussing ways we could give back to the IHC Angel Watch program, which gave us some very priceless keepsakes to always remind us of our tiny little angel.  An idea I had a while ago, but we hadn't pursued until recently, was to ask jewelery stores to donate small jewelery boxes to place the fragile molds of the baby's hands and feet in.  When we were given our keepsake box, Nastassia's molds were given to us in a tiny hospital medicine cup.  We thought it would be nice to donate the jewelery boxes to the Angel Watch program so that other parents experiencing very difficult loss like we did will have a place that's more special to hold onto those precious molds.  We've been pleased so far with the response we've received from some of the local jewelery stores, but we still have a lot of work to do.  We plan to donate the boxes we receive to the Angel Watch program for our one year mark.  We're so grateful for the amazing gift we received when we were given our keepsake box and hope to make a tiny difference for other families as well.

We also plan to participate in the Running with Angels 5k run/walk again this year (and every year) which is a fundraiser to also help families like ours during their difficult time of loss.  We'd love to have you participate with us.  We'll let you know when we get registered and start our team if you want to sign up with us.  It's something we're really looking forward to participating in again.

I'm grateful to have reminders each and every day of our precious Nastassia Grace.  I told Darwin the other night that I'm so glad we chose Grace as her middle name because I think of her every time I hear or read the name/word "grace".

I've been asked by several people if I think that Savannah, the baby we're currently expecting, is actually Nastassia coming down in a different body.  No.  They are two very different spirits, and I know Nastassia fulfilled her mission.  Things happened the way they were supposed to, and I'm okay with that.  We are expecting our third daughter, and we're so grateful for all three of them!