Dreaming of Ellie

This is kind of a personal post:

Some of you might know that I was born with a thyroid problem which affects my reproductive hormones and does not allow me to ovulate and thus become pregnant naturally.
It took us 3 years, 3 doctors, 2 surgeries and countless drugs, injections, a miscarriage at 11 weeks following an accident, heartache... a LOT of heartache and almost tearing my marriage apart, but in March of 2005 I was finally pregnant!

It was a bumpy start and a bumpy pregnancy, I won't get into that, but in the end I gave birth a little early, to two wonderful, healthy, perfect baby boys; John Mario and Cody Peter.
John and Cody were named at 12 weeks, when we were told the sexes of the babies. John is named after George's father and Cody is my father's name... its a family tradition for firstborn males to be named after the paternal grandfather. But since there were two boys, my father got to hear his name too (although he will probably hear it twice more since I have two unwed younger brothers).

What I wanted to share with you was that, in the beginning of the pregnancy I was actually carrying triplets. I don't know why, call it instinct, but I am positive the 3rd baby was a girl. Unfortunately she had implanted very near the cervix and she did not make it :(
All through the pregnancy I didn't even think about her or that other lost baby. But when the boys were born, it hit me: these two could have been here right now. I could have had two more little persons in my arms right now. The potential was there. Had they developed they would have had a face. Their hair color and eye color were already determined when they died.. They could have been here.

If I had my little girl, I would have named her Ellie after my grandmother who was the most important person in my life and the one who spurred me on with my doll making. She was very artistic and a very brave and educated woman. The only female in a class of 250 male Civil Engineers right before the 2nd World War and she was brilliant. One of the most sought after Civil Engineers after the war!
She used to tell me bed time stories... not children stuff like Red Riding Hood, but by the age of 6 I knew half of Jane Austin's stories by heart and we had moved on to the Brode sisters novels.

If my Ellie was alive, she would have been close to two years old now, like my boys. She would have looked like my grandmother, with reddish brown hair and green eyes or maybe with blue gray eyes like my dad and blonde hair (95% of people in my family have green or blue eyes, red or blonde hair. I have hazel eyes and auburn hair and only my brother has deep brown eyes with auburn hair. The boys got their browns from George who has black eyes and hair although John has light brown eyes and both have auburn hair)

And so in dreaming of this perfect little toddler I never got to hold and meet, I have been "in labor" mentally for many months now.
And I decided I want to try my hand now and create my Ellie. I missed out on everything about her, her pregnancy, her birth, her first birthday...
So I will start at the beginning... a newborn at 36 weeks like my sons and will go up until my boys' age. They will be 2 in 6 weeks. So for the past year I have practiced making older looking mini babies. I figured if I can't get the anatomy just right, at least they are mini babies not much time or materials lost anyway... and I have gotten to a point I feel I am now accurate enough to try a life size two year old.

So just a personal post today about my dream baby... Wish me luck and I hope to share pics with you very soon... I can't start yet. I have orders to finish... but soon.... very soon :)

Hugs
Tina