30 DOC/CYNA combo challenge: In Rememberance

Hello Readers!


Today I am doing a combo challenge mani, half accidentally. I started out doing this mani with the 30 Days of Color Challenge prompt in mind, which is "hearts/love", but as I was thinking about it I realized I really wanted to do a gradient background, which fits perfectly in the Challenge Your Nail Art current prompt, which is "gradient". So It's a double post today!

This mani represents a very tender sentiment for me. Right around this time of year is the anniversary of the loss of my sweet tiny baby. I always like to do some form of artwork to commemorate and honor those babies that I lost about 3 years ago. Last year I made a series of pastel paintings:

This was before I was into nail art; I was really into pastels and pastel portraits at the time so it seemed like the perfect medium.

To explain the significance of the images in the paintings and on my nails today, I suppose I need to tell you the story behind them.





In February of 2014, I was about 9 weeks pregnant and so excited. For the last two months I had been picking out names, buying a van (because this baby was to be our third, and we needed a bigger car), and dreaming of pink baby clothes. T We didn't know the baby's sex, but we already had two boys so we were hoping for a little girl. My baby was going to be born in September; the same month I was born. I wondered if we would share a birthday. I packed my whole family into our car to go to that first pregnancy appointment where we would be getting to see the first glimpse of our baby on the ultrasound machine and hear its little heartbeat for the first time.

I'll never forget the empty look on the ultrasound technician's face when she wasn't able to find it. In five minutes, I went from the highest of highs to the lowest of lows. I had what is called a "missed miscarriage"- my baby had passed away weeks ago but my body hadn't figured it out; it was still nurturing that little bean as if nothing had happened. The months that followed were without a doubt the most painful in my life.

I was reminded of the opening scenes from the Disney Classic, "Dumbo", where his mother, Mrs. Jumbo longingly reaches for the bundles Mr. Stork is delivering to all the other animal mothers; of the sorrow on her face when no package is delivered to her. My heart was broken because I knew the baby that I had loved would never be arriving to me.

After you have a miscarriage, you are supposed to wait a few months to get pregnant again to allow your body to heal. During that time, we decided to go on a family vacation to Disney Land. This might sound a little strange, but planning that trip down to every minuscule detail helped give me hope in the future and helped to get me through the difficult journey of losing my pregnancy.

While on our vacation, on the final night we stood together and watched the fireworks over Sleeping Beauty's castle. At some point in the show, Dumbo flew across the sky as a recording of Timothy Mouse cheered him on, "You can do it Dumbo! You can fly!" Tears sprung to my eyes and I felt peace; I felt that whatever happens to the babies who never get to be born, where ever my baby was now, she was ok. She was free and she was happy.

Shortly after we returned from Disney Land, we conceived another child. I was overjoyed, but it was not to last. After just a very short week, I lost that baby too.

They say in the pregnancy loss communities that a baby born after a loss is called a "rainbow baby". The symbolism is that miscarriage and loss are a storm, and the rainbow is the symbol of hope and healing that appears after a storm. After my second loss, I did go on to conceive my rainbow baby. She is beautiful and wonderful and will be turning two years old this spring.


So, with the "why" I created this mani out of the way, I suppose I should get into the "how":

I started with painting my nails alternating blue and pink. The symbol for pregnancy loss is a blue and pink ribbon, and I decided not to put the actual ribbon on my nails but to instead represent the colors in the ribbon. I used a sponge to do a gradient on each nail as a background. (PS- I almost forgot to mention that the Revlon "Cardshark" is my un-used polish for the 30 DOC challenge)

Apparently I don't have a picture of the Bundle Monster plate that my elephant comes from, so this pic is from the Bundle Monster website. It's a plate from the fuzzy and ferocious line.

The tiny rainbows come from this Bundle Monster plate from the most recent blogger collab collection.

And finally, the little hearts come from yet another Bundle Monster plate, from the original holiday collection.


And after that very sappy post, I will direct you to other ladies who are participating in the 30 Days of Color Challenge this week: