Olympic Dreams…

{ August 19, 2008 @ 8:04 pm } · { Uncategorized }
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I was watching Olympic coverage of gymnastics tonight, and saw Shawn Johnson win the gold. She is 16 years old, and when she won, they panned to her parents in the audience. Her mother was overcome. She cried into her husband’s arms, who was also obviously moved. She was so, so proud of her daughter. They’d mortgaged their house more than once to keep their daughter in gymnastics, and here was the pay off. They see their successful daughter up there, accepting her gold medal, so beautiful and proud. I cried too when she won, and when I saw her mother crying. I wept because I will never see my beautiful daughter on any stand, not kindergarten graduation, not the Olympics, nothing. I will never weep with pride as I watch her become her own woman and succeed in her own right. I am heartbroken all over again when I see these momentous occasions celebrated, adoring parents watching over with pride. It’s just so unfair.  All of the ’should have beens’… will never be. I am so, so sad for that. I miss her so much.

countdown…

{ August 18, 2008 @ 10:00 pm } · { Uncategorized }
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So, it’s the 19th now… Less than a month to go. I thought I might be pregnant this month… that would have been a nice distraction. I wasn’t.  I will get my period right around her birthday next month, which is going to be pure hell. The joy of grief, topped off with wretched PMS, which has intensified this whole year.  Yay. Things are up and down. I’ve learned not to expect anything… I’ve learned to just ride the wave and try to keep my head above water, hold my breath, and know that soon, I’ll be able to breathe again. Sometimes, there are great rests between waves, and for that I am thankful. Other times,  like now, there is hardly time to catch my breath, before I must hold on for another ride. WTF, I wonder. Why now? What’s different from last month? Why is this so fucking hard now, but not last month?

Another woman has joined our club… someone on my normal board (read: non-loss).  She was around 24 weeks, if I recall. She had a girl.  Whenever this happens to someone in my online world, I always go back and read all her other posts, pregnancy related. I read her initial pregnancy announcement.. her hopes, dreams, purchases, look at the nursery pics… and read all the posts that begin “when the baby comes…”  And then it’s almost a surreal jump to the now, after the baby has died.  The posts are few and far between, because who can openly grieve on a board full of women all holding their babies? I send private messages with all the hope and empathy I can muster. I feel awful and devastated for this new family who must know this pain.  I can hardly believe it happens again and again… babies die all the goddamned time, all around us. I always think I’ll feel better when someone joins the club; less lonely or something. I never, ever do.

I began sharing Isla with anyone who would listen a few weeks ago.  An older fellow at the pool, a mum I chatted with on the street, etc.. No  way am I going to let my daughter’s death be another sweep under the rug and forget about it.  She was real, she was a baby, and she died. Deal. Amazingly, almost everyone I shared her with also had a story of a relative, friend or colleague who has also experienced a loss. Imagine that. I never would have learned that about any of them had I not shared. Now our babies’ stories have been exposed to the world, put out there, acknowledged and grieved. I almost want to shout from the rooftops “I had a baby and she died! And you cannot pretend it didn’t happen because you “just can’t imagine” or you “could never survive that”…

That’s another thing that drives me fucking batty. People telling me how strong I am. Like I had a say in this? I didn’t sign up for it! And this grief thing didn’t come with a manual, so fuck off. And  god help the ones who say they couldn’t handle it. Well, wouldn’t that be nice? If we could just “choose” not to handle it? Ha, sign me up! I’d LOVE to not have to handle this. You COULD and you WOULD handle it. Because you wouldn’t have a choice. NO one decides to handle their baby’s death for pete’s sake. It is thrust into our laps as our babies are ripped out.

On my loss board, we’ve been talking about infant loss / miscarriage sympathy cards. Or rather, the lack thereof.  It disgusts me that there is SUCH an obvious lack of availability of these cards. There are 50,000 tacky floral “sorry about your grandma” cards, but not one fucking baby loss card? Does Hallmark actually think babies don’t die? That women don’t miscarry? Fuck that boils my blood.  Do they think that if they don’t make these cards, that babies won’t die? That notion is laughable to me. I did find one card, in a small town flower shop. It had a cherub on it, sleeping, and the caption was something like gone too soon… I couldn’t believe it. My first thought was that the owner must have lost a child, to have the insight to actually stock it. Like the pregnancy book I read with the chapter on stillbirth/neonatal loss..the author must have lost a baby too…

It’s such a dirty secret that babies die.  And I actually laugh at the world for thinking that by not acknowledging it, or by turning a blind eye to the numbers  that they can deny it’s existence. Not so, I’m afraid. It lurks all around you… a friend, colleague, family member.. someone near most everyone has been touched by the death of a child. They DIE, just like grandmas and grandpas. And their parents deserve to be comforted just as much as the families of old people who die. Why shouldn’t there be cards for infant loss? I’m disgusted with our society for ignoring it, and thus keeping this awful tragedy something that is suffered mostly alone. Bereaved parents are essentially ostracized from normal life, relationships and society because burying your children isn’t normal. It’s horrifying, and most people can’t handle it. So they turn a blind eye, and  don’t handle it.  And it fucking sucks.

wining

{ July 28, 2008 @ 7:07 pm } · { Uncategorized }
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So, a glass and a half in here, so no guarantees on any kind of clarity or put-together-ness here. At least I’m correcting my spelling mistakes.  Sometimes when I’m bored, and when I’m not, I surf over to blogs from normalworld. Blogs of friends and acquaintances who are living normal lives, with normal, expected ups and downs. They’re bittersweet. Part of me enjoys the escape from my new reality; a chance to bob in the light waters of a normal existence. It’s fun to imagine myself in their shoes……. what if I was doing a blog on how to make a foam floral wreath? What if I did a cooking blog, showcasing foods I’d made? What if I had pages and pages of all the wonderful things I’d just bought for my new baby? But, no. That was the sweet. Here comes the bitter: I get to blog about my dead baby. Harsh, yes. So what? It’s not any less true, is it? She’s not any less dead, if I use euphemisms like ‘passed away’ or ‘went to sleep’… she’s dead. Period. I get to write about how I managed to get through the mall, the swath of newborns and 10 month olds without dying a little more on the inside. I didn’t have to call my husband 3 times to help me through a “rough patch”. I didn’t have to squeeze Evan 6 times and tell him how much I love him, just to feel him, and know he is alive, with me. Nope, no experimental cooking blog for me. I hate this new life. I hate that it’s forever, and I hate that I will always, always miss her. I want her here with me.  How can this be too much to ask? How can this be real?  A year ago, I was finishing up work, buying cute baby things, enjoying my last few weeks as a mother of one, actually feeling sad at the thought of not having Evan all to myself… what a joke. We are planning some special things for Isla’s first birthday anniversary. More on that later. Now I just feel like sinking. Could use a good dose of Fuckitol.

Bereaved parent’s new normal…

{ July 24, 2008 @ 7:43 pm } · { Uncategorized }
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Sigh. I am so tired. Found this at my favourite (?) infant loss community online. Pretty much describes what life’s like lately.
*******************************************************************************************
This is now what “normal” is…

Normal is having tears waiting behind every smile when you realize someone important is missing from all the important events in your family’s life.

Normal for me is trying to decide what to take to the cemetery for Birthdays, Christmas, Thanksgiving, New Years, Valentine’s Day, and Easter.

Normal is feeling like you know how to act and are more comfortable with a funeral than a wedding or birthday party..

Normal is feeling like you can’t sit another minute without getting up and screaming, because you just don’t like to sit through anything.

Normal is not sleeping very well because a thousand what if’s & why didn’t I’s go through your head constantly.

Normal is reliving that day continuously through your eyes and mind, holding your head to make it go away.
Normal is having the TV on the minute I walk into the house to have noise, because the silence is deafening.
Normal is staring at every baby who looks like he is my baby’s age. And then thinking of the age she would be now and not being able to imagine it. Then wondering why it is even important to imagine it, because it will never happen.

Normal is every happy event in my life always being backed up with sadness lurking close behind, because of the hole in my heart.

Normal is telling the story of your child’s death as if it were an everyday, commonplace activity, and then seeing the horror in someone’s eyes at how awful it sounds. And yet realizing it has become a part of my “normal”.

Normal is each year coming up with the difficult task of how to honor your child’s memory and her birthday and survive these days. And trying to find the balloon or flag that fit’s the occasion. Happy Birthday? Not really.

Normal is my heart warming and yet sinking at the sight of something special my baby loved. Thinking how she would love it, but how she is not here to enjoy it.

Normal is having some people afraid to mention my baby.

Normal is making sure that others remember her.

Normal is after the funeral is over everyone else goes on with their lives, but we continue to grieve our loss forever.

Normal is weeks, months, and years after the initial shock, the grieving gets worse sometimes, not better.

Normal is not listening to people compare anything in their life to this loss, unless they too have lost a child. NOTHING. Even if your child is in the remotest part of the earth away from you - it doesn’t compare. Losing a parent is horrible, but having to bury your own child is unnatural.

Normal is taking pills, and trying not to cry all day, because I know my mental health depends on it.

Normal is realizing I do cry everyday.

Normal is disliking jokes about death or funerals, bodies being referred to as cadavers, when you know they were once someone’s loved one.

Normal is being impatient with everything and everyone, but someone stricken with grief over the loss of your child.

Normal is sitting at the computer crying, sharing how you feel with chat buddies who have also lost a child.

Normal is feeling a common bond with friends on the computer in England, Australia, Canada, the Netherlands and all over the USA, but yet never having met any of them face to face.

Normal is a new friendship with another grieving mother, talking and crying together over our children and our new lives.

Normal is not listening to people make excuses for God. “God may have done this because…” I love God, I know that my baby is in heaven, but hearing people trying to think up excuses as to why healthy babies were taken from this earth is not appreciated and makes absolutely no sense to this grieving mother.

Normal is being too tired to care if you paid the bills, cleaned the house, did laundry or if there is any food.

Normal is wondering this time whether you are going to say you have two children or one, because you will never see this person again and it is not worth explaining that my baby is in heaven. And yet when you say you have one child to avoid that problem, you feel horrible, as if you have betrayed your baby.

Normal is avoiding McDonald’s and Burger King playgrounds because of small, happy children that break your heart when you see them.

Normal is asking God why he took your child’s life instead of yours and asking if there even is a God.

Normal is knowing I will never get over this loss, in a day or a million years.

And last of all, Normal is hiding all the things that have become “normal” for you to feel, so that everyone around you will think that you are “normal”.

********************************************************************
Oh how achingly true this all is. Reading it just brings so much of what I expertly suppress every day to the surface. My loss is everywhere. Everywhere. Today coming back into Canada from the US, Tim mentioned that we have to pick up passport renewal forms, 3 of them this time, as Evan’s never had one. I looked at him and said “not four” and he said “I know, I was thinking it too.” There are just so, so many reminders of the fact that our daughter is not here every single day. It’s exhausting, feeling them, attuning to them, wasting energy on them. We are being reminded over and over again that she’s not here, nor will she ever be. We’ll never be that perfect family of four. Even if we do go on to have another child, we’ll still never be it. We’d then be a fractured family of five. There is no win. I used to be so relieved when families I’d known who’d lost would conceive again, as though I thought they were ‘fixed’. Oh, the naivete. What I wouldn’t give for a dose of that right now.

God I’m missing you tonight, my beautiful girl. Every second I feel your absence, a gaping, empty hole in my life where you should be. There are so many things I do that I shouldn’t be able to. Spending hours online, staying up late, getting drunk camping with friends. None of this should be my life right now. I should be on maternity leave, with my vibrant 10 month old, pushing you on the swing at the park, splashing with you in the bath, singing you songs goodnight. My body should be providing milk for you, I should be buying you fuzzy pajamas for fall. All of this is so wrong, so confusing and messed up. I have learned to ‘get by’ in the world every day; survive, if you will, but I have not learned how to live again. How to desire, or want or thrive. I am basically existing. All I think about every second of every day my sweet baby is you, and how incredibly unjust it is that you’re not here. You were an innocent child, whose life was taken before you had a chance to take one breath of sweet air, hear our voices tell you we love you, feel our hands stroke your newborn soft skin, feel a gentle kiss from your brother, who was so excited to meet you. How can any of this be real? How can it be forever? How can I possibly go on to lead a ‘full’ and ‘meaningful’ life, as I’m promised I will? Oh baby girl, I ache all the way through for you. I am wrung out, there is nothing left. Nothing but pain. I am so tired.

Ten Months Today.

{ July 15, 2008 @ 8:09 am } · { Uncategorized }
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So, here we are. I thought of it first thing this morning. Actually, last night, while reading The Shack in bed. I remember 10 months ago, thinking how I hadn’t felt any kicking in a while… having 2 strong iced teas before bed, and got one little kick. Enough to suffice for the night. The next morning, still nothing, so off we headed to the midwife. She found the heartbeat right away, then expressed how scared she was (uh, thanks?). So off for an NST… lots of things right off the bat, that now were so obviously pointing to something being wrong, that I completely ignored, or denied. Now they are huge, then they were just oddities. Babies didn’t die. Especially not mine. The heart rate that didn’t vary by stimuli, the inability to get a reaction from her, or movement. The heartrate dipping into the 30s. How could I have been so naive? I shake my head now at how utterly clueless to the possibility of something being ’seriously’ wrong I was. I thought she was just choosing not to react to the stimuli… I can hardly believe how clueless I was. Truly.

There is so much to say on an anniversary like this, and not enough words or time to say it all. What more do I really need to say though, besides I miss you baby girl, every second, every day and god dammit I’m just so sorry. :( I love you so much. We all do, and wish you were here with us, getting to know your amazing big brother, who would be so good to you.. feeling sand between your toes, grass between your fingers, wind in your hair, sun on your face. None of it will ever be, and I am so sad about that.  There is not enough sadness in the world to fill the hole in my heart where you are. God I wish desperately you were here with us.

xoxoxoxox mommy.

the fifteenth

{ July 12, 2008 @ 10:03 pm } · { Uncategorized }
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is coming up again. 10 of them since my daughter died. So she’d be 10 months. Well established on finger foods… cheerios… baby mum mums… I’d have finished making baby food by now. She’d be well into the 12 - 18 month old outfits.  When I try to gauge how the time that has passed feels, it is contradictory, in a way. Ten months is nearly a year, a length of time I thought would surely send me in leaps and bounds through the grief process. Yet, it is really nothing at all. It is a drop in the bucket. I still think of Isla a thousand times a day. I am still reminded constantly that my life is not how it should be; that there is a huge part missing. I remember initially, in the first 6 weeks, wondering and desperately seeking answers from anyone who’d been there, as to when I could expect to feel better. When would I not hurt so much, and feel so sad, and done with life. The answers I got were varied. Some books said the “average” recovery time for the loss of a child is anywhere from 2 - 10 years. I was devastated all over again. Ten years? Of feeling like this? No, I could not endure that. Maybe I’d be one of the ‘lucky’ ones, and get out by 2 years. Some grief experts said never. That you never stop mourning or grieving your baby. That blew my heart apart too. So here I am, nearly 10 months now. I am still so very raw. I think I do a good job of functioning on the surface. I can smile, laugh and play with Evan. I can socialize with friends, even enjoy wine and a night out. To the untrained eye, I’m sure I look pretty ‘normal’, and you wouldn’t even know the loss I’ve endured. But it’s there with me. Always there with me. Sitting right next to me, reminding me not to laugh too hard, or enjoy that drink too much. Because, after all, my baby died.  So life for me will never be happy as it was, ever.

And that is a loss I will grieve until I die as well. There is nothing as lonely or alienating as watching a happy mother enjoying her baby, without even an inkling that something might go wrong. I remember that naivete. How I long for that now.  Now that hindsight is 20/20, I fully appreciate that naivete, and resent it in others. The best days of my life have already occurred. I will not ever be as happy as I was when I was pregnant with Isla, no matter how many more pregnancies I am blessed with.  I remember picking Evan up from playschool on his first or second day (early September) and treating him to an afternoon of pure fun; McDonalds, a new toy, splash park, etc. I did this because it was one of the last times it would be just him and me.  I was 37 weeks pregnant, 2 weeks from losing my girl. I nearly cried as I looked at him devouring his nuggets, wondering if I’d ever appreciate him so purely again, and embrace the intimate bond we have, before this new life blessed us. I don’t think there’s ever been a time in my life where everything felt so ‘right’ and I felt so complete. I was blessed, and I knew it.

Now my afternoons are almost always just Evan and me. And they are not like they were that day. I love him fiercely of course, and am completely aware of how precious his life is, but it is not the same. It never will be. Everything is different. Every single facet of my life is changed now.  My patience wears thin easily, I lack ambition to be a ‘good’ mom to him. I don’t relish life and embrace watching him grow up. Now I constanty worry that something equally tragic will befall him. Now that I know how easily life can be swept away. Even the life of a precious child. Never like in the movies, with all their happy endings. I had to turn CSI off when a woman delivered  early in the police car, due to an accident. I knew there would be no way the baby would die. It just isn’t Hollywood. I changed it before I had to see the happy ending.

It’s like I’m wearing tinted glasses, that change everything, just a little, forever. No one else can see through my glasses, and even if they try, they see a different reality than I do.  Like a hint at what it’s like, but without the depth of despair and hopelessness. I can’t explain how grief is for me, or how it feels to bury your own child (or cremate, as we did). And truly, I don’t think they want to think about it much. Why would they? It is the worst thing that can happen to a mother. And it happened to me. And I DO feel lonely, isolated and alienated most of the time.  God damn this life. Selfish as it may sound I know I should be grateful for life, knowing how precious it is, and I should appreciate the life I’ve been given. Why did this have to happen? What is the point of going on when my entire reason for being here is no longer here?
I miss you so much Isla.  God I hope you know that. I hope on some weird spiritual level that you know how much I love you, ache for you. Even when I can’t bear to look at your pictures, or talk about you, or when someone asks if Evan is my only child and I say yes. I hope you know it’s not out of lack of love that I sometimes don’t include you, but to save myself some anguish and pain from loving you so much, and missing you so desperately, that I cannot help but to steal myself a reprieve from the agony once in a while.  I think you already know this; you must, but I have to put it out there anyway.

Ten months. A drop in the bucket. I miss you so much baby girl. The hurt has not gone away at all, not in the least.

xxx ooo -forever.

mommy.

Without her as long as we were with her.

{ June 30, 2008 @ 7:33 pm } · { Uncategorized }
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Today is June 30th. Nine and a half months past my loss. Isla has been gone nearly as long as she was with us. This is so sad to me. It’s like she’s even more gone now. Even further away from us, from me. I’ve been blessed(?) to be part of a loss web board that is filled with beautiful, eloquent women who sadly are suffering losses similar to my own. I am finding as time goes by, I am able to see some beauty in things, and see beyond my pain. I can’t explain it very well right now, there are many distractions around me and I’m not alone, which I prefer to be when I blog, but I wanted to put this out there anyway. Here is what a fellow bereaved mom, Amy, had to say that just blew my mind:

“I came to a huge realization a couple weeks ago when recognizing both the beautiful/soft side of grief as well as the raw/painful side of grief. By allowing both these sides of grief into myself, by acknowledging I have both within me, I found peace with my grief. It felt good not to battle grief anymore. I no longer felt dread or fear towards my grief. My grief, in all it’s forms, is within me, a part of who I am now. I also think by feeling and acknowledging the soft side of grief, it allows me to have “good” days without the guilt.”

I really don’t even know how to articulate how exactly this describes where I desperately want to be. I see hints of the possibility for this kind of clarity and acceptance, and ability to integrate the loss into my life in a meaningful way, but it’s fleeting, and unpredictable. I realize that Amy may well not always feel this way, and that grief-bursts still wrack her soul, but the fact that it’s there at all gives me hope. Hope that I one day will not dread and fear my grief so much. That I won’t spend so much time and energy trying to outrun it, only to have it catch up with me in bed, when my mind and body are captive, and cannot run anymore. I want to be able to embrace my loss, and accept that the pain I feel in my heart is my daughter, and it is okay, even good, to feel this. Feel her. Know her. Be with her. Love her. I just want to be able to get to a place where I can do these things without the crushing, searing pain of loss. I imagine this is something that comes with time, healing and insight, but I eagerly anticipate it just the same.

A friend of mine (another bereaved mom, who lost her newborn daughter) gave me a poem that is strikingly accurate in terms of my grief journey. It is written to a bereaved mother, mourning the loss of her daughter. I will add it here when I get it out of my car. The poem’s similarity to my own grief experience knocked the wind out of me. The fear of facing grief, the dread in dealing with another grief-burst. Feeling fearful of a ‘good’ day, as it means a bad one is just around the next corner, waiting to pounce unexpectedly.

It’s been some time since I blogged, but I think of my blog all. the. time. I think part of the reason I write so infrequently is due to the fact that blogging about Isla is facing her, facing what happened to me, reliving it all again, and hurting. It is hard for me to accept (though I know it intellectually) that facing it all cannot make it worse. In fact, I usually feel better afterwards. Yet somehow, by avoiding, and distracting myself with inane pastimes instead gives the illusion of happiness. I am still so scared of the power of my grief, the strength in my emotions. When I grieve Isla actively, when it pours out of me, I am not in control, and the pain is deep and black. When I refuse to wade into it, I am in control, and that feels safe and predictable; nothing like grief at all.

I am working towards finding a place where I can have the happiness, but also have the sadness, and be okay with it. I’m obviously not there yet, but I think it’s coming.

right back to the start.

{ May 21, 2008 @ 7:04 pm } · { Uncategorized }
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Fuck. Today started out like any other day. By the time we got our asses in gear, and headed out to playgroup (parent attended) I was feeling pretty good. Today the kids got access to the gym, so that was great, E loves the gym. Sitting around enjoying everyone’s company when all of a sudden….. in walks a family with their son, and their newborn baby girl. Wow. Probably not a week old, with hair just like I’s. Head shape even similar. I mean, how different are newborns anyway? Swathed in pink, sleep deprived parents, big brother running around. It was unbearable. While everyone oohed and ahed over the newborn and how beautiful she was, for a newborn, I clung to my son for life. I plunged into the water table with him. Then dinosaurs at the sand table. Whatever he wanted. With my back turned the whole time. At one point, the leader even came near me holding the baby, and I completely averted my eyes, and stared at the toys I was ‘playing’ with. I think I almost caught a glimpse of her looking at me like.. ‘what’s the matter with you? I’m holding an adorable newborn baby girl, and you don’t want to see?’. I prayed the baby wouldn’t wake up and cry that unmistakable newborn cry, but of course, she did. And, of course, mom breastfed her. I nearly crumpled to the ground. 8 months, and I can still barely hold it together. What the fuck have I been doing all this time? Faking it? Distracting myself with mundane meaningless bullshit? Who gives a fuck about any of it, new vehicles, new golf clubs.. getting into photography.. it’s all just expensive distractions… from the reality that I’m fucked. My daughter is dead, all I want is her back with me, and I can’t have it. So for the rest of my life, I get to distract myself from it so I can function for the sake of my son. Not something I would bother with if he didn’t exist. I barely find the desire to be here as it is. I find ‘living’ SUCH an effort now. I hate getting up in the morning. I hate being needed by my son. I hate having commitments to the world; playschool, relatives, family, crap, crap, crap. I would really just like to crawl into a hole and die there. If E ever dies, I guarantee this is what I’ll do. I don’t know what I’d do about my husband though, because I love him dearly, and know it would devastate him. But, I think sometimes, he’d be better off without me. He is strong, ambitious, smart and able. I am a crutch. I hold him back. It would probably be a blessing in the long run, to be without me. He has so much potential to succeed in the world and I hold him firmly back in my own agony. I suck.

8 months… and counting

{ May 20, 2008 @ 5:28 pm } · { Uncategorized }
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So, mother’s day. My wonderful mom remembered me. She wished me a happy m day on the phone, but didn’t mention my daughter, or how hard the day might be for me. But she sent me a card, and it was perfect. She knew. I miss her. :(  I miss my mom.  My son is a bit ‘off’ this morning. Colour is off a bit, seems lethargic, limpish.. I can’t believe how bad I freak out when he’s sick. I am sure something’s wrong, serious. I can’t even just accept that he’s got a but.  He rarely gets sick, so when he does, it should be no surprise, yet every time, sends me into a tailspin of worry, dreading the worst..that this is the beginning of cancer, or he’s on the brink of a fatal asthma attack… I am truly a prisoner of my own crazy mind sometimes. Just a few moments of peace and clarity today, please.
8 months. Here we are. 3/4 of a year gone since my daughter was born and died… Yesterday we went out for lunch, to blow off steam, as it had been a wretched day, and naturally, we get sat in a section with one other family who has, yes, you guessed it an 8 (or so) month old baby girl. Wow, we must have really misbehaved in a prior life. Agony. Now I think of all the things she’d be doing at 8 months. Lots of table foods, she’d be my son’s biggest fan, he’d adore her. We’d all hang out on weekends, cheering him on at soccer and Tball, swimming altogether. She’d have the most adorable baby clothes. Seriously, something I’ve looked forward to about motherhood since I was about 10 was buying baby girl clothes. Sundresses, sandals, tights, buckle shoes, shiny black ones. Hair  barrettes, pony tails, frilly bonnets, the whole works. Gone. Had it, but now gone. She wasn’t even cremated in anything cute. Just what the hospital had on hand, as we weren’t expecting any of this.
So this month was wonky in terms of ttc. I fully expect, based on my history, to ovulate by day 14. By day 18 or so, I still hadn’t. Dtd as required, but no temp rise… don’t know why,. probably too much estrogen, probably too fat to ovulate without clomid… now I not only have only one child, I likely won’t have another. I did get  a rise today, but so many things come into play. Hot bed, off timed temp… but in the hotel, on the day of the expected rise, we had the ac on, so maybe I was colder than I would have been? I don’t know. I never know. I keep track because I need some control in my life, and I guess to ensure that I ovulate at all. Weight watchers … yeah… lets save that for another post. There’s enough bleakness here for one day. I’m glad it’s raining.  I love bad weather. The windier, rainier, darker, the better. Sunny days are way too happy for me.

perspective

{ May 13, 2008 @ 5:04 pm } · { Uncategorized }
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So, I found another bereaved parent’s blog. I don’t think I’ve ever read a more eloquent, hopeful, painful or beautiful thing, in my life. I remember reading a similar blog a few months ago. Similar in love,  pain and expression, but it was heavily Christian, filled with scripture and other religious leanings I could not relate to. This one however, is more spiritual, more accessible to the secular mind.  I am humbled and awed by this woman’s ability to see so much goodness in the world around her, amidst her unbelievable loss. It forces me out of my ‘poor me gutter’. Not that I don’t feel worthy of grief, or mourning, but rather, it forces me to see beyond my own experience, and realize that tragedy is everywhere, Everywhere. My coping mechanisms are only somewhat decided by nature. They are also decided by me. While I do feel quite sad very often, I wonder how capable I am of stretching beyond the comfort zone of my walls. Is it in everyone to find hope and beauty the way this woman has? Or are we assigned a certain ‘way’ of being at birth? In her posts, I see a desire to be that way; to embrace life, and not take a single second for granted, yet my thoughts automatically trickle back to their old familiar streams of resentment, hate, bitterness and poor me.  I can say the words, but can I mean them? Truly, in my heart? I don’t know. My husband is an existentialist, and firmly believes our destiny to be in our own hands, while I tend to believe certain forces may be at work to steer us in certain directions, not necessarily religiously so, but more spiritually. By his way of thinking, I am absolutely free to become less bitter and more embracing of the world, in all it’s beauty and pain. But I just don’t know. If I say it, but don’t truly believe it, what’s the point? How can I *believe* it? How can I *know* it to be true for me? That’s my struggle. It’s like proving God. I *want* to believe in a creator, a being to pray to etc, but I *can’t*. It’s not part of my belief system and I can’t just start believing. And I resent that. I seem to resent so much, and be filled with so much anger and spite, I can hardly stand myself. I have my first grief session tomorrow. My issues with depression and anxiety go beyond grief, so I am more nervous than I would be were I only seeking grief counselling. For years, I’ve struggled with issues related to my mental health, and I am *finally* Finally reaching out for help. I’m scared at what she’ll uncover, what I’ll have to deal with, what I’ll have to delve into, and subsequently deal with. I’m an expert at putting issues at the back of the drawer, and now I’ll have to dig them all out. I’m scared. I’m hopeful, and relieved that I’ve finally done it, but I’m scared.