Items For Our Charity

These are some of the items that we have for our charity Fruit Of The Womb Angels. Keepsakes and giveaways that will be promoted here and through our Fruit Of The Womb TTTS Angels facebook page.

Not featured in this photo are the bags and bags of precious items like stuffed animals, beanies and pillows. Several things are in these containers like our beads for our beaded bracelets and items you may see at baby showers.

I want to be able to do as many giveaways as I can for bereaved parents, we've only been able to two giveaways so far due to shipping costs.

Recently I've decided that I want to get in touch with the local hospitals close to the area and be able to give bereaved families keepsakes that they can have after the loss of their child(ren). Plan to include our business card for our charity with a pamphlet of helpful resources and information too.

Many things planned for the future. Now it's just a matter of filing our paperwork so our charity can be official, finding a fellow photographer to work with us for our bereaved photography, and order our business cards and pamphlets.

We do plan to accept donations too because we have been asked about it from several people. Eventually that too will be an option available through our website and may see about getting a PO Box address for donations of items.

Have come a long way since everything began in May 2013. No idea what the future holds but always hopeful and optimistic.

Forever My Angel "Name In The Sand" Photograph

One of our current graphics I created from a photograph taken while on vacation in Los Angeles, CA, USA.

When A Cloud Forms A Shadow Photograph

One of the photos I created for our current graphics at Fruit Of The Womb TTTS Angels

Had a nice vacation this past week in Los Angeles, California with my husband.

This photo was taken while flying over the midwest USA on our way to LA.

Dreams That Keep Me Wondering

Last night was one of those nights where I couldn't really sleep well. I tried but something kept me from being able to rest. My subconscious decided to take me on a trip into anxiety land and I managed to have about every possible dream that isn't pleasant or easy to wrap my mind around.

Dreams keep me wondering after I wake up. Why did I dream that? What does it mean? Is this a glimpse into my future or is the a look into a past or future life? Who knows. All I know is that my imagination ran away this morning and attempted to entertain me in my sleep. I was not amused.

The last dream I had before I woke up was at first a very happy dream. I became a mom again and had a child. I do not know if it was a son or a daughter but they were small. The last part of the pregnancy I was either frightened something could happen or it was that I was having difficulty, either way I ended up having the baby.
Next part of the dream was odd because it took a part of another dream and incorporated it into this dream. I was not working at a portrait studio but was at one with my newborn baby. I still looked a little pregnant because the baby had just been born. I was there to take some photos of the baby and I, my husband wasn't in this dream too for some reason.
I remember sitting in this swing like hammock with the baby in my arms and looking at the camera for photos. It's odd because I couldn't see a camera but was looking in the direction of it. By this part of the dream I wasn't seeing things from first person anymore, it is as I was watching myself from above.
Suddenly the baby's body goes limp but I don't notice what's happened, everyone else has and watching the dream now from above I notice. Then I who is holding the baby looks down and then it's first person again, holding the baby up to my chest and just start crying and screaming, "Noooo!"
Then I wake up.

I feel that dream was very unnecessary. What did it give me today? Uncomfortable feelings about the future and hopes that never happens. I don't want to ever lose a baby again, I already lost two.

My Silhouette Heart

Just another day when 

My heart won't let it set in

Reality that's making

The day turn into night

I can't see through the light

It's cold, shallow and cruel

I'm thinking about you

But the distance separates us

I need a dream to take us, away

Wondering when it's better

Could it be this shadow? 

Surrounding me

I didn't want you to stay forever young

Now I am here and you're above

Dreams dashed and broken

Words left unspoken

Future plans never to see

It's breaking up the joy inside of me 

My silhouette heart

My silhouette heart

My silhouette heart, I can't break free

My silhouette heart

My silhouette heart

Trying to destroy my everything

I can't let this take control of me

I may just scream 

Please hope just let me be
I need a path now

A rainbow to see

Someone help break these chains 

We need a rainbow, make it rain

My silhouette heart

My silhouette heart

My silhouette heart, I can't break free

My silhouette heart

My silhouette heart

You're were all mine

Now my sweet and precious memory

© Evelyn Schwenke, July 4th 2013

Just Wait, There's More! Bad Infertility Jokes.

 Recently when looking up pictures on google 

I ran across a few that I decided to collect and write a post. 

After being diagnosed with infertility, many methods of trying to have a baby, 

finally get pregnant, wow! it's identical twin girls, but they develop TTTS 

and pass away before their 19th week. I qualify to be able to vent. 

Here we go..

So you start out on your journey into parenthood with the desire to one day have children. 

You begin trying to conceive and of course you learn about that couple who tried 

for two whole months, maybe less, but it was suuuch a long time trying. 

Give me a break. Try eight years. 

Clomid is funny stuff. It never really effected me that way. 

However the infertility drugs and injections were another case. 

Moody doesn't even begin to describe the surge of hormones that take over your body.

Eventually people decide to give advice, 

some mean well while others do not but are just trying to be nice.

After years of trying you begin to feel cranky, at times upset, 

you get unwanted advice from your pregnant friends or your family. 

And..

Of course advice from those who have kids too 

because they "know what they are talking about"..

Then it's back to the drawing board. 

Let's try something else this time. 

Oh the joys of injections.

"Everything happens for a reason" you're told by your friend. 

You may have been trying and again unsuccessful 

or perhaps you just lost your pregnancy. 

"At least it was early on" you may hear.. 

Suddenly you may want to lose your cool. Keep control. 

They will probably think you're crazy if you react to them.

Now you're in this void of either not pregnant 

or used to be pregnant but lost everything.

All you see around you now are pregnant women, 

either early on or within weeks of their due date,

feelings that occur are not pleasant when you hear complaints. 

Did you complain when you were pregnant? 

You certainly never tried to because you were grateful to be pregnant, 

you wanted to enjoy every moment good or bad, 

because it meant you were pregnant!

So what is the fasted way to lose an infertile friend? Isn't it obvious?!

But have you tried this? Well of course you have. What haven't you tried?

Now that you've been pregnant and lost everything, you're trying again.

That ninth year anniversary of trying is creeping up quickly, isn't it?

You may hear someone say, "you're not as young as you used to be" 

and want to reply with either something mean because to you that's a 

reminder of how many years you have been trying for a family. 

Instead you just reply with something obvious like, "yup, you're right." 

So what's next? Just accept defeat and move on?

I THINK NOT!!!

In the meantime it's all a waiting game while trying.

Attempting to keep our composure and sanity as the weeks,

months and years continue to pass by. Always hopeful.

Waiting for our family.

It will happen again for us, I have to believe that.

And our future children will always know that they were very much wanted!

Growing up in a household with parents that loved them 

even before they were born, a family. 

A long for that someday.

You're So Lucky

"You're so lucky" some may say with a tired look on their face after being up all hours of the night between feedings and diaper changes. But when they say this to me I feel like replying two ways.

First is to reply with, "Well I guess so *insert artificial laugh*, though I'd love to be a mom right now, hopefully someday soon."
Second is to reply with the lesser nice version, "Oh? I'm so lucky. Tell me how I'm lucky. My babies died and I've give anything to have little sleep because of late night feedings and diaper changes. I can only dream that one day we have an earthly family. I'm not lucky at all. Yes I have free time but for almost nine years I've been ready to sacrifice free time and be a full time mom. So you see, you're the lucky one, not me."

I just can't get away with being crabby like that because most people don't deserve that hostility as a reply to their simple comment, probably meaning well but also one that they just shouldn't have said.

It hasn't happened in awhile but I'm sure that as more months pass by and we are still not expecting and the anniversaries arrive and leave; that I will hear those words "you're so lucky" said to me.

Do you know who is the lucky one? The parents who don't have to face life without their children. The parents who never ever have to know what life is like after years of infertility and lose everything that they worked for. The lucky ones are those parents who have their children, alive and well.

Think about what you would feel like if your baby / child / or adult child suddenly died. Just think about it. Now you have just a view into what life feels like with out a part of you in it. The death of a child, less alone two children, is a loss like no other. Try and remember how lucky you are because in the blink of an eye everything can change and there is nothing that can bring back your child once they are gone.