Andrew's New Diggs

Yeah, that's totally morbid to write it like that. I'm aware.

For those not so savvy, here's Urban Dictionary's explanation of the word, in case you really hated my choice of a title:

1.	diggs
	home;place of residence;place of business "my bro just moved into new diggs across town."

See? Totally fitting.

I wrote a post earlier this month about visiting the funeral home and how our emotions affected the B-man. Here's the full story, for what it's worth.

The day after I delivered Andrew, our nurse came in with a paper of funeral homes we needed to call. Burial or cremation? Funeral or memorial service or not? Such questions we didn't anticipate ever having to answer and yet we were bombarded with decisions. When in a state of shock, you don't make decisions or think clearly through the tough stuff very well. And how were we to know what to do? You never anticipate having to choose where your child's final resting place will be.

Thanks to the nurses, we have professional pictures of Andrew. We would've never known about NILMDTS and yet, they were there for us in time of need. Our nurse on December 6 told us she would handle calling around to make arrangements for us because it was not something we were in a state of mind to be doing. Bless her.

We were discharged on December 7th and went over to select an urn for Andrew. The funeral home is about 2.5 miles from our home and I remember being a complete sobbing mess still swollen from being nearly 39 weeks pregnant just two days prior. I sat in a chair in a room where the walls felt they were suffocating me. We were shown some booklets and steered to select a keepsake urn for our son. I remember vaguely being told that because he was a boy and because he was a baby, that people often choose blue and this small heart urn. At the time, I didn't care much or have any clue how we could even do such a thing as pick out an urn for our son that we thought just 48 hours before, would be coming home with us in a carseat. We went with the blue urn and they told us they'd be picking up our son from the hospital.

He was cremated at a facility somewhere in Chicagoland and I guess the urn was sent to the crematorium for it to be filled.

Days later, we received a phonecall to come pick up our son from the local funeral home where we placed the order for that small, blue heart-shaped urn. We were told on the phone to come anytime. I don't remember when we picked him up, but I know it wasn't right away. We were a mess of emotions and had no real urgency, after all, he was gone.

When we arrived, they told us we could go into a room where his ashes were placed-- the room where they hold funerals. On a table would be his urn. The heart urn was wrapped in a velour black bag with a little Brother P-Touch label on the back of the urn that read, "Baby Wilson" on it. Not even his name. The box next to the heart urn also had his name, date of cremation and location of cremation, all in typewriter font. We were told his remains did not fully fit. Until just weeks ago, I had no idea how much did not fit, because I was too afraid to open that box. It turns out only half of his remains fit into that little urn and the other half were in the box. Sealed with a twist-tie.

I remember sobbing as we drove home. I was holding a heavy urn with my son's ashes, and they couldn't even put all of him inside the container. Insult to injury-- perhaps an understatement of that long-used phrase. I was surprised at how heavy that urn was-- but I know much of it was the urn itself and not my son at all. At the time, it felt like I was holding his full weight, 7lbs. 6oz.

He lived on our bookshelf in the formal living room for two years. His additional ashes were inside a basket underneath and it bothered us that he wasn't ever whole. I was frustrated that we did not receive a phonecall telling us that we should select another urn. Or that they didn't just leave his ashes in one container for us to decide later. What good is an urn with only part of our son? Our intention was never to spread his ashes. I also felt incredibly sad to obviously be an anomaly. Clearly they didn't deal much with dead babies, or they would have this all figured out by now. Lucky us. The anomaly.

For his 2nd birthday, we knew things needed to be made right. I wrote it on the whiteboard in our laundry room and we finally made the trek back to the funeral home the Saturday before Andrew's 2nd birthday. I called ahead of time to schedule an appointment and gave them all of our information. We were told we could come in later that afternoon. I received a phonecall a bit after making the arrangement to tell me they had lost our file.

Lost our file.

You read those words correctly. I can't make this stuff up. {I know my husband is considerably more understanding in this regard, but I'm not and I write this blog, so I'll be carrying on now.}

We arrived at the funeral home and sat down in that very same room, this time with Benjamin in our arms. I sat in the opposite chair I did before, but within those same 4 walls. The funeral home director plops a book down in front of us with urns to choose from. I was instructed to bring all of Andrew's ashes with us, so I brought the two containers. Despite explaining the situation on the phone since he lost our file (dead infant, too small of an urn, cremated, 2010, name, date, etc.), he didn't seem to connect the dots.

Once he saw the containers, he said he understood and started flipping through to show us our options. He sighed here and there, telling us they don't really have a size that would work for Andrew's ashes, at least not in the catalog. There are full-sized options and keepsakes-- primarily used to hold a small portion (about 2-4 cubic inches-- Andrew is about 7.5-- it's nearly a 1:1 ratio. Try Googling that for a good time) and for the rest to be spread or buried.

The he tells us that he'll jump on Google to look at some more for us.

Jump on Google.

No, sir. We know just how to jump on Google to search for urns ourselves. We were hoping to avoid that whole process, hence the middleman.

We decide on an urn he checked online to see that they had the middle, rare size that would still be far too big for Andrew's ashes. I was sobbing at this point and ready to leave. Benjamin wanted to crawl around and I was not having any of that.

We hurriedly ordered and walked out and I sobbed while holding Benjamin in the parking lot. We left Andrew inside. He wouldn't be with us on December 5th.

Before we got in the car, Ray headed back in because he just couldn't leave Andrew's ashes there on his birthday. He went in to retrieve him and we sat in the car, sobbing some more. We were no more than 2 blocks away before he asked me if I wanted to cancel the order. I hated the urn we chose, again, and really didn't think this was a good solution. But Ray knew that without me saying a word.

He called and canceled everything, stating that we weren't pleased with our options and that we would be handling things on our own from now on. We arrived home and Benjamin wouldn't sleep. He was feeling our grief.

Once he was down to sleep, we researched urns online. Nothing like having a website called "urn shopp.er" show up in your dropdown menu when typing websites in daily. Note to self: delete history. We found one that was perfect. As perfect as one can be anyway. LuciaUrns is an Etsy shop started by a potter in Massachusetts. People loved her pots so much, that they often asked her if she made urns for their loved ones-- as the current options on the market are not personal, warm and artist-made. Dealing with a rare size issue, it was fitting that she created urns that would meet the needs of any size, including babies.

We selected the smallest size, suitable for 10 cubic inches. Ordered, shipped and to our home the day after his birthday. I spent the rest of that day during naps figuring out what we would do about his ashes. I knew we'd pour them ourselves, but I was scared. I don't know of what, but I guess the idea of staring down the ashes of your deceased child doesn't exactly warm your heart. I opened his old urn, the heart, with a flathead screwdriver and there was residue. I didn't take the bag out of the urn because it was jam-packed in there and looked quite difficult to handle. But the ashes? They were more coarse than I imagined.

Once Ray came home, he took the additional container, the old urn, and the new urn into the laundry room and performed the switch. With some tears, our firstborn had a final place in our home where he would be whole again. The bag from the old urn with its very own twist-tie (like on your garbage) along with the urn itself, the screws, the "baby wilson" label, and the additional box were placed in the garbage along with dirty diapers and food scraps.

Just another example of the heartbreak of baby loss. The paradox of life and death.

While this post is terribly dark and sad, I do want to update that we are so pleased with the new urn, its beauty, and the daintiness of it. We're thrilled Andrew has a perfectly chosen piece of art as his very own. As sad as it is to have such a thing, we are pleased and feel more at peace with things ever since that package arrived on our doorstep. {I waited to post this on a day that there were no birthdays, to my knowledge. It needed to be in Andrew's birth month.}

We're finally done with that forsaken funeral home.