I am weighed down by guilt lately. Heavy. I don't even have words.
It is incessantly nagging in the back of my mind, what could have, should have, might have been.
The sight of baby girls that are about as big as you would have been makes my heart seize, makes that fragile, broken, instinctual mother inside me curl into herself and try, unsuccessfully, to protect her wounds. Like blaring reminders...IT COULD HAVE BEEN DIFFERENT.
I have nightmares about arguing my agonizing decision with people who will never understand, arguments littered with words like "kill" and "pro-life" that inspire the deepest rage in the pit of my soul. I have dreams about having a baby, but it is a daughter, not the son who is alive and kicking in my belly. She is too small, and I can't see her face, no matter how hard I try.
You have been gone for so long now. So much has changed, will change. It's been a year since your tiny life began, and I find myself longing for those days, the final, beautiful days that came before the conclusion of my old life.
I am not sure where I go from here. Your brother is the only thing keeping me on some kind of designated path, but even that feels all wrong sometimes.
I find myself caught up in the if-only's. If only I had known then what I know now. If only I could change it. I blame myself, still, for your poor little spine. I am so angry. It is my fault, my body's fault, and yet I did not know any better.
People don't understand. It's been 8 months, I should be over it. I should be unabashedly celebrating the new life that is thriving inside me without hesitation. But I am not immune, and I know it. And I will never get my daughter back, and I will always miss her. That is something many people can't quite process, because they did not see her, feel her, hold her. Say goodbye to her.
Sometimes I feel like I minimize your loss even to myself. And then I find myself justifying it--I have your ashes, you were real. You did exist. I am a mother of two, no getting around it. I have every right to miss the one who is not here, even if no one else understands.
I feel a million years old. I want my daughter. I don't want to be this version of myself anymore.
I thought of you and where you'd gone
and the world spins madly on
Sunday, September 13, 2009
Sunday, August 9, 2009
nines
I am twenty one weeks pregnant today. Today, I woke up, went to work. Today, I smiled about the sunshine. Today, my mother felt your brother kick for the first time. Today your brother has been bouncing around in my belly more than usual. Maybe he is saying "look mom, we made it!" We made it, 21 weeks, and nothing is falling apart. We are still here, both of us. Surviving. Today I celebrate that fact.
But I have not forgotten. Today is the 9th again. Seven months ago at this very point in my pregnancy with you, I took a drive to a hospital in another city, I filled out the paperwork, I changed into that hospital gown. Seven months ago, I started to feel the contractions, I got the epidural, I felt you move for the last time.
Seven months ago, you were delivered in your bag of water and my family wrapped their arms around me and one another and we cried around my bedside because you couldn't. We cried big, heavy, crocodile tears, and the nurse whisked you away to prepare your little body.
Seven months ago, my dad returned from his visit to the hospital chapel and wanted to share what he had read...
"Today we weep, tomorrow we rejoice"
Only his voice caught, and he cried, the only time I have ever seen him cry, and I felt that huge, overwhelming pain so intensely in that moment. This hurt, it was hurting everyone, there couldn't possibly be rejoicing in the future. Surely, the world had ended and I would not feel happiness again. This vast, gaping hole in my heart was certainly too big, there was no room! You died, and a very big part of me died with you.
Everything had changed. There is no denying that, at least.
I am not the same as I once was. And sometimes I have days, weeks, of missing that old person, the one who did not know this sorrow, did not have this wound in her soul. Sometimes I feel so desperate to turn back the clock and change things so that everything would have been fine the first time. You would have been just another healthy baby. We would have gotten up and gone to work after the ultrasound, sharing the good news. January 9th would have been just another day.
But I am learning and slowly beginning to accept that without this wound, the gaping hole, that these moments, these milestones would not be so sweet (even if they do come with hints of bitter sometimes). I know that if this baby is born alive, crying, warm on my chest, it will be an incredible moment made even more incredible by the knowledge of what a truly profound accomplishment it really is.
And that, my beautiful, tiny little daughter, is one of your many gifts.
As I look back on these past seven months, the quote from the chapel has never been so poignant Turns out the "today, tomorrow" is not so black and white, but more of a gradual transition. Sometimes the weeping and rejoicing often get intertwined and tangled up and happen simultaneously. But it certainly feels as though the dawn is breaking on that proverbial tomorrow.
Fingers crossed.
But I have not forgotten. Today is the 9th again. Seven months ago at this very point in my pregnancy with you, I took a drive to a hospital in another city, I filled out the paperwork, I changed into that hospital gown. Seven months ago, I started to feel the contractions, I got the epidural, I felt you move for the last time.
Seven months ago, you were delivered in your bag of water and my family wrapped their arms around me and one another and we cried around my bedside because you couldn't. We cried big, heavy, crocodile tears, and the nurse whisked you away to prepare your little body.
Seven months ago, my dad returned from his visit to the hospital chapel and wanted to share what he had read...
"Today we weep, tomorrow we rejoice"
Only his voice caught, and he cried, the only time I have ever seen him cry, and I felt that huge, overwhelming pain so intensely in that moment. This hurt, it was hurting everyone, there couldn't possibly be rejoicing in the future. Surely, the world had ended and I would not feel happiness again. This vast, gaping hole in my heart was certainly too big, there was no room! You died, and a very big part of me died with you.
Everything had changed. There is no denying that, at least.
I am not the same as I once was. And sometimes I have days, weeks, of missing that old person, the one who did not know this sorrow, did not have this wound in her soul. Sometimes I feel so desperate to turn back the clock and change things so that everything would have been fine the first time. You would have been just another healthy baby. We would have gotten up and gone to work after the ultrasound, sharing the good news. January 9th would have been just another day.
But I am learning and slowly beginning to accept that without this wound, the gaping hole, that these moments, these milestones would not be so sweet (even if they do come with hints of bitter sometimes). I know that if this baby is born alive, crying, warm on my chest, it will be an incredible moment made even more incredible by the knowledge of what a truly profound accomplishment it really is.
And that, my beautiful, tiny little daughter, is one of your many gifts.
As I look back on these past seven months, the quote from the chapel has never been so poignant Turns out the "today, tomorrow" is not so black and white, but more of a gradual transition. Sometimes the weeping and rejoicing often get intertwined and tangled up and happen simultaneously. But it certainly feels as though the dawn is breaking on that proverbial tomorrow.
Fingers crossed.
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
the pursuit of happiness
Lately I've been feeling like I need a vacation.
It's not even that I'm very busy, I've just been having this overwhelming urge to just get away from it all. Unfortunately, I think what I am trying to escape from is a state of mind. Not that I am wallowing in sadness or anything, there is just an incredible mundanity in my every day life as of late. I still feel as if I am in a bit of survival mode...one foot in front of the other without worrying much about the direction.
When it really comes down to it, there has not been a lot of joy in my life since you left me. I feel I am just beginning to find the joy in this new pregnancy, but it is hesitant, careful joy that I seem to entertain only here and there, in fear of putting it back on the shelf in defeat for a second time.
The sun came out today for the first time in more than a week and suddenly I felt myself transported back to that moment, the morning of September 9th, sitting on the deck with the sun on my back, shaking with joy and excitement and nerves as I announced your beginning to my mom, who sat speechless on the other end of the phone. I can almost remember what it felt like, that giddy uncontrollable joy unleashed in the pit of my stomach. It was all so new, so unexpected, so exciting. It consumed me.
And after it was all ripped away, I remember sitting in the car with rain on the windshield and tears all over my face, the new normal setting in around me like dead air, and sobbing to my mom, "but I was just so happy..."
Surely I would be happy again someday, even though it seemed impossible at the time. And yes, here I am, halfway through a second pregnancy with a healthy baby, but things are different this time. I don't think I will ever get that kind of happiness back. The more I fall in love with this little being in my belly, the more I worry that he will be taken away from me too. Sometimes I want to cry at the very thought. Sometimes I want to cry because he gets to keep growing and you did not. Sometimes I want to cry because I don't get to have both of you the way I wanted. Sometimes I can dig down through all the protective layers I have built and really feel the loss of you all over again.
I decided to hang up the bunch of clothes that my mom already bought for him this afternoon. Among them, there still hangs the tiny handful of things that are yours: the yellow dress we bought for you on the day we went to the hospital, the pumpkin Halloween costume that I carefully chose in the 6 month size, anticipating how old you would be when the holiday came around. It will never fit him at the right time, and yet I can't bring myself to pack them away. At one time, I thought I would have a 5 month old on Halloween this year, a 7 month old at Christmas, a two month old at this very moment. Today, for the first time in a long time, I wondered what you would be like right now, if things were different. What would we be doing today, in the sunshine?
I spent so much time imagining and expecting you and now the reality that you are gone, you are really not joining me in this life, hits harder sometimes than others. What I would give to have just a moment in that sub-reality I created of "how I thought things would go." There, you are healthy and happy and growing, crying at this very instant, certainly not giving me enough time to write lengthy rambling posts on a blog that would not even exist.
It's too quiet around here.
It's not even that I'm very busy, I've just been having this overwhelming urge to just get away from it all. Unfortunately, I think what I am trying to escape from is a state of mind. Not that I am wallowing in sadness or anything, there is just an incredible mundanity in my every day life as of late. I still feel as if I am in a bit of survival mode...one foot in front of the other without worrying much about the direction.
When it really comes down to it, there has not been a lot of joy in my life since you left me. I feel I am just beginning to find the joy in this new pregnancy, but it is hesitant, careful joy that I seem to entertain only here and there, in fear of putting it back on the shelf in defeat for a second time.
The sun came out today for the first time in more than a week and suddenly I felt myself transported back to that moment, the morning of September 9th, sitting on the deck with the sun on my back, shaking with joy and excitement and nerves as I announced your beginning to my mom, who sat speechless on the other end of the phone. I can almost remember what it felt like, that giddy uncontrollable joy unleashed in the pit of my stomach. It was all so new, so unexpected, so exciting. It consumed me.
And after it was all ripped away, I remember sitting in the car with rain on the windshield and tears all over my face, the new normal setting in around me like dead air, and sobbing to my mom, "but I was just so happy..."
Surely I would be happy again someday, even though it seemed impossible at the time. And yes, here I am, halfway through a second pregnancy with a healthy baby, but things are different this time. I don't think I will ever get that kind of happiness back. The more I fall in love with this little being in my belly, the more I worry that he will be taken away from me too. Sometimes I want to cry at the very thought. Sometimes I want to cry because he gets to keep growing and you did not. Sometimes I want to cry because I don't get to have both of you the way I wanted. Sometimes I can dig down through all the protective layers I have built and really feel the loss of you all over again.
I decided to hang up the bunch of clothes that my mom already bought for him this afternoon. Among them, there still hangs the tiny handful of things that are yours: the yellow dress we bought for you on the day we went to the hospital, the pumpkin Halloween costume that I carefully chose in the 6 month size, anticipating how old you would be when the holiday came around. It will never fit him at the right time, and yet I can't bring myself to pack them away. At one time, I thought I would have a 5 month old on Halloween this year, a 7 month old at Christmas, a two month old at this very moment. Today, for the first time in a long time, I wondered what you would be like right now, if things were different. What would we be doing today, in the sunshine?
I spent so much time imagining and expecting you and now the reality that you are gone, you are really not joining me in this life, hits harder sometimes than others. What I would give to have just a moment in that sub-reality I created of "how I thought things would go." There, you are healthy and happy and growing, crying at this very instant, certainly not giving me enough time to write lengthy rambling posts on a blog that would not even exist.
It's too quiet around here.
Thursday, July 23, 2009
oh, the gravity of it all
I don't shelter myself from babies anymore. Lately, I notice I am trying harder to get little glimpses of them in their car seats, in their parents' arms, in shopping carts and baby carriers. I can't get enough, almost. With each one I contemplate their tiny little features and wonder if this baby will be anything like them, just like I did with you. But there was a time in the not so distant past that even the sound of a baby from across a store would cut through me like knives, tearing at that gaping wound that was struggling to heal and bringing me down to that breaking point, letting that dark, looming sadness right back in like an old friend.
So many healthy babies in this world, and yet mine was not okay. Why couldn't you have been okay? But you had other plans.
Today at work, after witnessing a sweet new family, mom carefully attending to her baby in his car seat, I made a silly statement to the universe, or whoever happened to be in the general vicinity at the time.
"I want my baby now."
My coworker laughed. "You're tired of being pregnant already?"
Already, I suppose. But I will have been pregnant for most of a year next month, and I still have no baby to tend to. Plus, it's not so much that I am tired of being pregnant, as much as I am so anxious to have your brother here safely, healthy, well, alive. I am more aware than ever that I do not have control over this process. And how do I give my trust to my body when I have not quite forgiven it for what it failed to provide for you?
"At least you still have your freedom right now...you can go do whatever you want. After you have that baby..." and then the look, that grave look that means something along the lines of everything changes. You will have a different life.
And what people don't understand is, there was another baby, but she died. And what I would give to be caring for that baby, for you right now, to be living that different life. My freedom? Certainly. My sleep? Certainly. Absolutely anything at all, to have you here, safe and healthy and whole, the way I imagined you.
I know that wasn't how it was supposed to go, but it was more clear to me today than it has been in a long time. I consciously stopped thinking in "should be's" a few months ago, but I wanted so badly to revisit that form of misery today. I should be mothering you right now. I should not even be at work! I should already be "tied down" by that squishy, gurgling, screaming baby.
Of course I am grateful for this new pregnancy, for your growing, wiggling brother who has made a game of pouncing on my bladder every time it gets full. Of course of course. There is no question that I cherish him equally, that I cannot truly wish things were different anymore, because it would mean that he would not exist.
But there was another baby. And you just seem so damn far away lately. There are new people I know that do not even know that you existed (at least not yet). Together your dad and I broadcast your memory with permanent ink in our skin, and there are those silent scars in our hearts, but you are still so...absent.
I guess this is what it will be like. The rest of the world will see my living children and comment on my beautiful family, but to me it will always be incomplete. There will always be someone missing.
What do I do with all this love I have for you? It is so big, so much bigger than I even have room for, and there is nowhere to put it. I ache to hold you again, in a way I haven't in months. But you are just dust and memories and sometimes a presence that is even less tangible than the air I am breathing, so subtle that I could just be imagining it. I want so badly for you to exist in some form, but I don't really know if things work like that. I want to believe it though. I almost have to. You cannot really just be gone, can you?
Your brother is growing so quickly. He is almost as big as you were when I held you. In fact, it was around this time in my pregnancy with you that we first saw you and the world began to slowly unravel. It seems like years, lifetimes ago, and at the same time like yesterday. It is a strange place to be, a healthy thriving baby in my belly and the one who wasn't so lucky in my heart.
People ask me what my plans are now, and I have no answer. Just let me get this baby here first, let me survive this strange cloudy haze of uncertainty, and then we'll talk.
So many healthy babies in this world, and yet mine was not okay. Why couldn't you have been okay? But you had other plans.
Today at work, after witnessing a sweet new family, mom carefully attending to her baby in his car seat, I made a silly statement to the universe, or whoever happened to be in the general vicinity at the time.
"I want my baby now."
My coworker laughed. "You're tired of being pregnant already?"
Already, I suppose. But I will have been pregnant for most of a year next month, and I still have no baby to tend to. Plus, it's not so much that I am tired of being pregnant, as much as I am so anxious to have your brother here safely, healthy, well, alive. I am more aware than ever that I do not have control over this process. And how do I give my trust to my body when I have not quite forgiven it for what it failed to provide for you?
"At least you still have your freedom right now...you can go do whatever you want. After you have that baby..." and then the look, that grave look that means something along the lines of everything changes. You will have a different life.
And what people don't understand is, there was another baby, but she died. And what I would give to be caring for that baby, for you right now, to be living that different life. My freedom? Certainly. My sleep? Certainly. Absolutely anything at all, to have you here, safe and healthy and whole, the way I imagined you.
I know that wasn't how it was supposed to go, but it was more clear to me today than it has been in a long time. I consciously stopped thinking in "should be's" a few months ago, but I wanted so badly to revisit that form of misery today. I should be mothering you right now. I should not even be at work! I should already be "tied down" by that squishy, gurgling, screaming baby.
Of course I am grateful for this new pregnancy, for your growing, wiggling brother who has made a game of pouncing on my bladder every time it gets full. Of course of course. There is no question that I cherish him equally, that I cannot truly wish things were different anymore, because it would mean that he would not exist.
But there was another baby. And you just seem so damn far away lately. There are new people I know that do not even know that you existed (at least not yet). Together your dad and I broadcast your memory with permanent ink in our skin, and there are those silent scars in our hearts, but you are still so...absent.
I guess this is what it will be like. The rest of the world will see my living children and comment on my beautiful family, but to me it will always be incomplete. There will always be someone missing.
What do I do with all this love I have for you? It is so big, so much bigger than I even have room for, and there is nowhere to put it. I ache to hold you again, in a way I haven't in months. But you are just dust and memories and sometimes a presence that is even less tangible than the air I am breathing, so subtle that I could just be imagining it. I want so badly for you to exist in some form, but I don't really know if things work like that. I want to believe it though. I almost have to. You cannot really just be gone, can you?
Your brother is growing so quickly. He is almost as big as you were when I held you. In fact, it was around this time in my pregnancy with you that we first saw you and the world began to slowly unravel. It seems like years, lifetimes ago, and at the same time like yesterday. It is a strange place to be, a healthy thriving baby in my belly and the one who wasn't so lucky in my heart.
People ask me what my plans are now, and I have no answer. Just let me get this baby here first, let me survive this strange cloudy haze of uncertainty, and then we'll talk.
Monday, July 20, 2009
on the other side
It's hard to put into words what the last week has been like for me. A week ago I was anxiously awaiting word from a friend on whether or not they were able to learn the sex of their baby after a follow up ultrasound. I was admittedly stalking facebook, waiting for her update, but when it finally came, it was not at all what I had wanted to see. Mid-conversation with my mom, her words took my breath away. They were having a son, but he was not going to make it.
Right away, there were tears. I scrambled to write something coherent to her, though I knew, I knew so well, there was nothing I could say. That short message that felt so inadequate at the time has blossomed into a week long ongoing conversation that is just...amazing.
Our stories have been paralelling one another in so many ways. She had to make the choice too. She saw the same genetic counselor, the same perinatologist, likely the same ultrasound screen, the same look in the doctor's eyes. She had to make that drive to the only city in the state who would allow her to let her precious son go. She had the IV, the epidural, the horrifyingly uncomfortable labor and delivery bed. She had those wonderful, terrible, heartbreaking moments with her tiny baby. She had to leave him behind.
And six months ahead of her, I felt it all again. I felt all of those moments more clearly than I have in a long time. And I hurt with her, for her, for us.
But I have been happy to be able to be there for her in a way that most other people can't. I know I can't do much, but being there to say "yes, I felt that too" is reassuring for both of us. I just wish she didn't have to feel it, that big indescribable pain and everything that goes along with it.
How strange it is to be on the other side. How strange to be the one who survived, who is still surviving, somehow.
I have so much more to write, there are words bouncing around in the back of my head all the time, but right now I don't have the power to organize them the right way.
Right away, there were tears. I scrambled to write something coherent to her, though I knew, I knew so well, there was nothing I could say. That short message that felt so inadequate at the time has blossomed into a week long ongoing conversation that is just...amazing.
Our stories have been paralelling one another in so many ways. She had to make the choice too. She saw the same genetic counselor, the same perinatologist, likely the same ultrasound screen, the same look in the doctor's eyes. She had to make that drive to the only city in the state who would allow her to let her precious son go. She had the IV, the epidural, the horrifyingly uncomfortable labor and delivery bed. She had those wonderful, terrible, heartbreaking moments with her tiny baby. She had to leave him behind.
And six months ahead of her, I felt it all again. I felt all of those moments more clearly than I have in a long time. And I hurt with her, for her, for us.
But I have been happy to be able to be there for her in a way that most other people can't. I know I can't do much, but being there to say "yes, I felt that too" is reassuring for both of us. I just wish she didn't have to feel it, that big indescribable pain and everything that goes along with it.
How strange it is to be on the other side. How strange to be the one who survived, who is still surviving, somehow.
I have so much more to write, there are words bouncing around in the back of my head all the time, but right now I don't have the power to organize them the right way.
Thursday, July 9, 2009
the 9th again
Today is six months. Six months since we said goodbye. Can it really have been half a year already since I held you, since I let you go? The significance of today rushed in early this morning, as I was getting ready for work. The tears hovered in the corners of my eyes, but I did not have time for them then.
Work was too quiet, far too little distraction, and the tears continued to spring up in unexpected moments of silence with a persistence that they haven't had in months. I was barely able to get on top of them, and I realized that I was feeling that weight again, the gravity of everything that has happened, everything I am missing.
I am trying to shake myself free of this weight, as I should really be rejoicing. We found out this week that your sibling is, in fact, a brother, and so far, he is healthy. He flaunted his beautiful spine and healthy brain, and while I am beyond thrilled that I will have the honor of chasing after him as he makes use of those fully functional legs, I feel as if I am grieving the loss of you all over again.
If I am in fact capable of making a healthy baby, why not you? Why couldn't you have had a healthy brain and a beautiful spine too? There is still so much guilt there.
We always imagined we would have a daughter first, and we did, I just never realized it would be like this. I didn't know that we would never get to raise you, that we would have to say goodbye without ever getting a chance to know you. I never dreamed that I would be telling your brother about a sister he will never meet.
I miss you.
Work was too quiet, far too little distraction, and the tears continued to spring up in unexpected moments of silence with a persistence that they haven't had in months. I was barely able to get on top of them, and I realized that I was feeling that weight again, the gravity of everything that has happened, everything I am missing.
I am trying to shake myself free of this weight, as I should really be rejoicing. We found out this week that your sibling is, in fact, a brother, and so far, he is healthy. He flaunted his beautiful spine and healthy brain, and while I am beyond thrilled that I will have the honor of chasing after him as he makes use of those fully functional legs, I feel as if I am grieving the loss of you all over again.
If I am in fact capable of making a healthy baby, why not you? Why couldn't you have had a healthy brain and a beautiful spine too? There is still so much guilt there.
We always imagined we would have a daughter first, and we did, I just never realized it would be like this. I didn't know that we would never get to raise you, that we would have to say goodbye without ever getting a chance to know you. I never dreamed that I would be telling your brother about a sister he will never meet.
I miss you.
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
resurfacing
I don't know what it is--maybe all the writing I've been doing, maybe all the thoughts that seem to be constantly zipping through my head, maybe the hormones that are pulsing through every inch of me--but the grief has been resurfacing a bit this week.
All week I have been feeling uncomfortable in my body. Stir crazy, almost, except that I can't escape it, it follows me everywhere. I get incredibly angry at the tiniest things, just like the early days. The house is a disaster and needs to be unpacked, cleaned, vacuumed, and yet I can't bring myself to be remotely productive. I did 2 loads of laundry today (well, more like 1 and a half) and justify to myself that at least I accomplished something.
And then I read and remember and cry, and yet I can't cry as hard as I want to. And then I get angry at myself because there is the new baby fluttering in my belly, and I should be rejoicing in these moments, cherishing them, because next week we learn whether this baby is healthy, and the world could easily come crashing down again, just like that. The wait is agonizing, because do I even really want to know? Certainly if there is bad news to be heard, I would rather pass.
I am tired. Pregnancy is wearing me out, even though I have had an easy one so far, and I am frustrated since I went through all of this not so long ago and all I got was a tiny box of ashes and a big gaping hole in my heart. I want to scream at the next person who tells me how much my life is going to change, how hard it's going to be when the baby comes. I doubt it will be worse than giving birth to a dead baby. I want to tell them that I will gladly, enthusiastically, give up every second of my free time to tend to a screaming baby with a fully functional body. Don't talk to me about hard times until you have held your child's cold body and lived to tell about it.
And since I have been spending so much time wasting my day on the internet, I came across someone who just received a poor prenatal diagnosis and has decided to carry to term. Which is, of course, a completely admirable choice that I respect totally. But then I read all the comments, everyone commending her for making the "right" choice, for being so brave, and I started to get angry. While it may be the right choice for her, there is no overall, black and white, right and wrong about the decision that was handed to her (us). And why is it that those people who choose to carry to term, no matter what the outcome, are celebrated and praised for their bravery and strength, while the rest of us, the ones who make the other choice, are quiet, usually giving few details about our situation for fear of being judged by even our closest friends and family? What is THAT? Are we not equally strong and brave in making the choice to let our sweet, much loved babies go? What is the right choice for one person may not be so right for the next, and it often shocks me that so much of our society is so small minded that they cannot fathom such a basic concept.
I am getting to that point in my healing where I want to be a voice, I want to make people understand, I want people to realize just how common it is. And at the same time, I wish I didn't have to. I wish I was nursing a 6 week old, not knowing that it all could have been different.
Maybe a shower will wash some of this insanity out...
All week I have been feeling uncomfortable in my body. Stir crazy, almost, except that I can't escape it, it follows me everywhere. I get incredibly angry at the tiniest things, just like the early days. The house is a disaster and needs to be unpacked, cleaned, vacuumed, and yet I can't bring myself to be remotely productive. I did 2 loads of laundry today (well, more like 1 and a half) and justify to myself that at least I accomplished something.
And then I read and remember and cry, and yet I can't cry as hard as I want to. And then I get angry at myself because there is the new baby fluttering in my belly, and I should be rejoicing in these moments, cherishing them, because next week we learn whether this baby is healthy, and the world could easily come crashing down again, just like that. The wait is agonizing, because do I even really want to know? Certainly if there is bad news to be heard, I would rather pass.
I am tired. Pregnancy is wearing me out, even though I have had an easy one so far, and I am frustrated since I went through all of this not so long ago and all I got was a tiny box of ashes and a big gaping hole in my heart. I want to scream at the next person who tells me how much my life is going to change, how hard it's going to be when the baby comes. I doubt it will be worse than giving birth to a dead baby. I want to tell them that I will gladly, enthusiastically, give up every second of my free time to tend to a screaming baby with a fully functional body. Don't talk to me about hard times until you have held your child's cold body and lived to tell about it.
And since I have been spending so much time wasting my day on the internet, I came across someone who just received a poor prenatal diagnosis and has decided to carry to term. Which is, of course, a completely admirable choice that I respect totally. But then I read all the comments, everyone commending her for making the "right" choice, for being so brave, and I started to get angry. While it may be the right choice for her, there is no overall, black and white, right and wrong about the decision that was handed to her (us). And why is it that those people who choose to carry to term, no matter what the outcome, are celebrated and praised for their bravery and strength, while the rest of us, the ones who make the other choice, are quiet, usually giving few details about our situation for fear of being judged by even our closest friends and family? What is THAT? Are we not equally strong and brave in making the choice to let our sweet, much loved babies go? What is the right choice for one person may not be so right for the next, and it often shocks me that so much of our society is so small minded that they cannot fathom such a basic concept.
I am getting to that point in my healing where I want to be a voice, I want to make people understand, I want people to realize just how common it is. And at the same time, I wish I didn't have to. I wish I was nursing a 6 week old, not knowing that it all could have been different.
Maybe a shower will wash some of this insanity out...
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