RAOK Day Recap- Part One

Wow!  We are completely overwhelmed by the Random Acts of Kindness you all did on Whitney's birthday!  Thank you all so much for participating!  Tomorrow, I will post a recap of things that our friends did!  Today, I wanted to share with you how we spent Whitney's first birthday.  

HERE WE GOOOOO!

The morning started out early... well, early for us Wilson's.  Earlier in the week, I called a friend, Jodi, who is a nurse at the hospital where we delivered Whitney.  I told her that we wanted to bring some special things up to the hospital for the nurses, and just to see everyone.  She also told me that Linda, the nurse who delivered Whitney, would be working on Friday, too!  Yay!  I was so excited to see Jodi and Linda!

We went to Panera first to pick up some bagels and cream cheese.  I'd bought some juice the night before, but left it at home.  Bummer.  Then we headed up to the hosptial...

I had my hands full with the breakfast goodies, flowers, and another gift bag of fun things.  My friend, Heidi (who sent us the beautiful gown that Whitney wore) sent me about a dozen angel gowns.  I was lucky to have received this from her, because it is really difficult to find something so small.  Other women who have a baby born and die early may not be so fortunate to already have something.  The hospital generally has little outfits on hand for these situations, so I wanted to add to their stash.  The gowns also included matching mommy-baby jewelry. Thursday night, I stayed up late packaging them all pretty with tissue paper and little notes... but forgot to take a good picture.  So here's the best I could get:

I also had some coloring books, crayons and word search books to leave in the L&D waiting room.  There was a sweet hospital volunteer in there when we dropped them off, so I asked if I could take his picture.  He was unsure about it, but such a cute man!  

I was so thankful for Jodi for many reasons... you may recall that I know her from the Pregnancy Care Center, but she was also there the day we found out Whitney had passed away.  She helped us get a private room to wait in until we could talk to my doctor.  Her familiar face on that difficult day meant the world to us.  (You can read about the day before Whitney's delivery HERE.)  Jodi walked us over to the L&D department where we got to talk to the rest of the nurses and Linda!

Linda said that every now and then, when she is in a delivery, another baby will come to her mind, and that she thinks of Whitney from time to time.  It was nice to know that she still thinks of her, too!  We gave the nurses the Panera yummies, as well as some cards and flowers.  They are all so great up there!  I am so sad that we are not going to be able to have Gianna there.  I was really looking forward to having Dr. G deliver her, and to be in the care of such great nurses again.  I know God is in control and we will hopefully have great care in Cincinnati, too... it would just have been really nice to have had Gianna in the same hospital where her big sister was born.  That said, I DO NOT want her to feel the need to come early just so that can happen! :)

After saying our good-byes at the hospital, my heart was truly so full.  I could have gone home and gone back to bed right then, and felt totally at peace.  In a strange way, visiting the hospital again brought a sense of closure that I didn't even realize I'd been missing.  BUT, we still had a lot more RAOK's to do! 

We headed to the church where we used to attend and where Sean once worked.  We wanted to thank some of the women there who were so great and supportive of us!  Sean bought some YUMMY bread at Great Harvest Bread Co., and we dropped it off in the main office for the secretaries.  They were always so encouraging to Sean, and took the time to often ask him how I was doing.  Here's Joy and Heather:

Then, we had some flowers to give to Carole and Charlotte.  They brought us a delish deli tray the day Whitney was born and dropped it off at our house while we were at the hospital, so that we'd have food when we got back home.  (Carole also cleaned up some cat puke... something we'd never ask someone else to do! But was thankful for her servant's heart!!)  

Carole was walking up just as we were getting ready to walk over to her office!  She and Charlotte also helped organize the meal train that kept dinners coming to our house for two weeks after Whitney was born... THAT was such a HUGE blessing in and of itself!!!

Next, Sean and I took a break to eat.... Chick-fil-A for breakfast, of course.  :)  After a little refueling, we decided that since it was still early, it would be a good time to go to Babies R Us and start our baby registry for Gianna.  It was a little weird to be doing that on the day that we lost Whitney, but it was actually quite therapeutic.  We were actually having fun!  And it definitely got us excited about our little girl.  We were sad that we never had the chance to do a registry or to buy anything fun for Whitney, but were thankful for the new life that Gianna is bringing to us.  

After and exhausting but fun hour and a half (and only getting about half-way done), we headed across town to Angel Babies, the perinatal hospice that helped us so much.  Kathy, the director of Angel Babies, was the one who called the hospital as soon as we found out when we'd be delivering Whitney and arranged for us to have Linda as our nurse.  Kathy also came and visited us at the hospital while I was in delivery.  She brought us a soft stuffed animal, something to hold on to and hug.  So I bought some stuffed animals and took them to the office.  Kathy had just left for lunch (we should have called ahead!), but she called later and we talked for a while.  

Aren't the lambs so cute?  I'm not sure if Angel Babies will use the lambs (didn't think about that until after the fact), but they were so cute and soft... I thought they'd be perfect.  The bear is really soft and squishy too.  :)

We headed home for a little time to rest.... we'd been going strong for about 4 hours and were ready to take a break.  My hairdresses and good friend, Katy, called and said she had time for a shampoo and blow dry if I wanted one.  Yes!!  Awesome- An RAOK for me!  And it worked out great because I had some flowers to give to her, too!  I am so going to miss her when we move... she is such a great encouragement and friend.  We've even gotten together a couple times to do crafty things.  So fun!  I've never really had a friend to do crafty stuff with!

I went home and picked up Sean so we could go to Whitney's Lake.  We decided to feed some of the monstrous geese and ducks.  If you've ever been to this park, then you know that feeding these beasts truly is an act of kindness... we usually shoo them away.  But, we decided to be nice and brought some bread for them this time.  Man, did they stink!  And they're kinda freaky.  But it was fun.  And it was a BEAUTIFUL day!

After the park, we headed to dinner at-- where else-- the Olive Garden.  It was delicious, as ususal, and we had a great time.  Before we left, we bought a gift card.  All through dinner I'd been looking around, trying to decide who to give it to.  Then I saw a little girl and her dad having dinner together, just the two of them.  A daddy-daughter date!  After we paid for our bill (and left a very big tip for our super great and friendly waitress), I walked over to their table and just told him that we wanted them to have this, and hoped they had a great evening.  I didn't want to intrude any more, so that was pretty much all I said... but the poor guy had just taken a bite of food, so couldn't say much.  I think we definitely surprised him... hopefully didn't weird him out too much.  :)

So that pretty much sums up how we spent our day... our daughter's first birthday.  All in all, it was a good day.  I am glad that we had some things planned because it kept us focused on the positives of our time with Whitney.  But of course, it was still sad.  Planning this day wasn't nearly as much fun as planning a real first birthday would have been, but it was good.  There were more things that we wanted to do, but decided to not push ourselves too much.  So we'll be doing some more stuff in the coming days.  Afterall, every day is a day to do a Random Act of Kindness for someone else!  Here are a few of the other RAOK's we did last week, leading up to Whitney's Birthday

We made donations to our alma mater, Ozark Christian College, in memory of Whitney.  Afterall, if it wasn't for OCC, Sean and I would not have met, and we would not have had Whitney!  I also send a donation to "String Of Pearls" and my friend Heidi, who makes the angel gowns.  Laura, from String of Pearls, emailed me to tell me that our donation was going to help a Denver-area family who had just lost their baby, and had no money for funeral arrangements.  I hope our donation can help bring some peace to them in this difficult time.  Heidi told me that she was looking forward to purchasing some fabric to make more gowns.  She has a group of women who get together to sew the angel gowns every month!  Isn't that amazing?!  What a blessing.  If you ever wonder where the good people are in this world, look no further than the tight-knit community of babyloss mommas.  Salt of the earth kind of people, these women are.  

I dropped pennies so that someone else could pick them up for 'luck.'  Anyone else do this?  I still do.  :)

And of course, I've been crocheting caps for Caps for Good.  I'll take a picture of the whole stash just before I send it off!  The deadline isn't until Feb. 28 so there's still time to get on board if you want to crochet some!

So back to finish up our day yesterday....

Sean and I went home (OK, we stopped at the Sugar Shack for some cupcakes first), got into bed and watched some TV, then we looked through the scrapbook album that I just finished for Whitney.  We spent the rest of the evening just talking about her and looking at her pictures.  I'd forgotten how beautiful she was.  How absolutely precious her sweet little face was.  We miss her SO.MUCH.  

I can't wait to share some of the Random Acts of Kindness that you guys did and shared with us!!  Stay tuned for that post hopefully tomorrow!