Thoughts….

Day 39 of my cycle and no period and 2 negative HPTs.  I got all excited because I was queasy and my breasts hurt (still do actually) and I’m tired…damn universe, she’s such a bitch.  I’ve never gone this long without a period (except when I was pregnant).  My guess is that I didn’t ovulate last month because of the flu.  I had the flu the same time I should have ovulated and I thought that I didn’t get a positive OPK because I tested too late (because I was sick with the flu).  It is what it is, right?

I didn’t get invited to a baby shower and it really hurt my feelings.  I wouldn’t go – actually, my best friend is coming into town and I couldn’t go – but that doesn’t mean I don’t want the invite.  I think, because this was an accidental pregnancy, the person thinks I’m judging her.  I’m not.  I don’t have the energy to judge.  It just hurt my feelings.

Also, Hubby’s cousin is pregnant and everyone thought it best to hide it from me until there was no possible way of hiding it from me any longer as she showed up at his mother’s house when we were there this past weekend.  Thing is, I already knew.  I had known for a while.  Facebook does not hide secrets well.  But what if I hadn’t known?  They would have just sprung it on me 5 minutes before she showed up?  That doesn’t seem fair.  I just want people to be honest with me and let me deal with the situation.  Anyway, it hurt me more than I can explain to them so I didn’t.  It made the visit with L more awkward then it needed to be because L didn’t know that I previously knew she was pregnant so she’s holding pillow over her stomach trying to hide it.  Finally, I said something about her being pregnant and she was more open about it.  She wouldn’t even get up to hug me.  I cried all night because I hate the idea that his family thinks I’m too crazy to deal with L and her pregnancy.  Thing is, L is probably one of my favorite people in Hubby’s family.  She’s the most similar to us in our views – both political and religious and when I was there getting ready to go to CHOP, she was really comforting and kind.  Everytime we visit she makes an effort to stop by and see us.  The whole situation just made me feel alone and isolated and really uncomfortable despite the fact that I know the family was only trying to spare my feelings.  How do I explain that?  I’m open to suggestions.  Do I say anything or just let it go?  I feel like such a leper anyway because his family never asks me about how I’m feeling or how things are going for us.  I guess they are afraid of the answer.  This, coupled with the lack of invite to the baby shower, made me feel even worse.

Finally, I’ve spent every minute of every day since we went to the adoption information session trying to figure out how to come up with the money we need.  I’m at a loss.  I told Hubby I wanted to wait until January to try and work something out but I can’t stop thinking about it.  I just don’t know if we can get anyone to cosign on a loan for us – if we can even get a loan. 

As a result of all of this…in my head, there is a constant voice on a continuous loop that keeps saying, “let it go, it’s over, there is no way you are going to have another baby, just let it go, the boys were it, just let it go and move on.”

God, I’m tired.

Neverending Grief

So last nights’ “Grey’s Anatomy” was all about grief.  One of the main characters, “George,” ended last season by getting hit by a bus and was unrecognizable until minutes before the finale ended.  The premiere showed “McDreamy” unable to repair the damage to George’s brain and the decision is made to call his mother and find out if he is an organ donor.  The hospital is collectively devastated.

The voice over talks about the 5 stages of grief, which I think all of us lost baby parents can agree, doesn’t occur in stages but waves, each one overlapping the other at various times and intervals.  I’ve accepted and bargained, felt guilty and angry, hell, I’ve even denied it happened (then of course, I wake up).  Each character was supposed to represent the various stages of grief.

But the phrase that resonated most with me was something that the character “Meredith” said.  She said:

“The minute you think you’re over it, it starts all over again.”

That’s where I’m at.  I went to the bathroom at work yesterday and sat in the stall and cried.  I hadn’t done that in months – cried at work.  I’m even out of practice.  Used to be, I could cry looking down, with my head in a horizontal position and not ruin my eye makeup…yesterday, mascara was all smeared.  I’m still so mad, still so sad, still so angry.  I want to scream as loud as I can, “what did I do to deserve the death of my little boys?!!??  What?!!?  Why did this happen to me?!!?”  After 18 months, just when I think I’m okay, the grief starts in again.  Nothing new has happened, it’s still the same loss, I’m still the same me I was after the boys died.  Why am I not getting any better?

The difference between me and the characters of “Grey’s Anatomy” is, the accident wasn’t real, their friend didn’t really die, they get to yell “CUT!” and it’s over.  I don’t.  There is no “CUT!” for me.  This is going to be my life forever.  I’m going to always grieve, the boys will always have died, this is my life.

I’m overwhelmed by that fact.

The Fraternal Order of….

“There’s a special fraternity for those of us who’ve lost spouses and children.” – Joe Biden, Ground Zero, 09/11/2009

Yes, I can tell you what I as doing eight years ago when the families of 3,000 men, women and children were initiated into that “special fraternity.”  I worked for an elected official in Los Angeles – a place that truly believed they were next in line to be attacked.  It was a long and scary 48 hours.  Until March 2008, September 11th, 2001 was the worst thing that had really happened in my life.  It will be a defining moment for my generation.  Yes, I had lost loved ones but it was always a “good” death.  Not surprises, not traumatic deaths, usually an end to some long-suffering illness.  No, September 11th was my first real brush with overwhelmingly senseless death.  Sadly, it wouldn’t be my last.

Now, I’m obviously a much different person.  I belong to that “fraternity” Vice President Biden spoke of – he and I can share in the secret handshake.  I looked at the families of those that lost their loved ones that day and I sympathized.  Several months after 9/11, I shook hands with a woman whose husband was a firefighter who died that day.  I felt horrible for her but I couldn’t understand that level of grief and pain.  I can now.

We are out there, members of this “special fraternity” who have had children die.  You can’t tell us from the rest of the world.  You can’t see the pain we hold in our hearts.  You can’t know the tears we cry at night…or in the day…or all the time.  Only difference is, we don’t have a pool to stand at and read the names of our babies gone too soon.  So instead we write about them.  We write about our pain.  We write about our hopes and dreams for the future even though it doesn’t hold the babies we so desperately wanted and loved.  We read each others thoughts and help fellow “fraternity” members get through anniversaries, due dates, additional losses, failed medical procedures, inconsiderate family members, and unkind friends.  We treat each other – total strangers – with compassion and love because we are members of this “fraternity.”

I guess my point is this.  I hate that I am a member of this “fraternity.”  I hate that there are those of you reading this who belong too.  I’m sorry for the people who lost loved ones eight years ago today for they were someones’ child just like my boys are my children.  But I am grateful everyday for the kind and compassionate words I receive both from my real life and bloggy friends.  I’m thankful to be able to read others words and know that I am not alone.  I’m honored when others read my words and feel comforted.

But I would give anything to be able to turn in my membership pin….

As Popeye Would Say…

So I need to put this out there in the universe (who has been so gracious and kind to me these past 18 months…that’s sarcasm, just in case you were wondering…):  I can only do what I can do, you can accept that or not.

This is in response to a teeny, tiny, select group of people who seem to think that after 18 months, I should be fully capable of attending a baby shower, holding an infant or, for that matter, being in the same room with an infant.  I can’t talk about your perfect pregnancy in detail, I can’t look at ultrasound pictures.  I can ask you polite questions, I can watch your tummy get bigger, I can cheer you on when your due date arrives.  I can only do what I can do.

I need you to understand that it’s not jealousy.  I want another baby badly, I think I’ve made that clear on this blog and it’s very aggravating when people stand upwind of their husbands and get pregnant.  But I also still miss my boys.  I know you think that I should be okay after 18 months but I’m n0t.  I will be eventually but I’m not there yet.  Your ultrasound pictures? They bring up that day in the hospital when the Dr. S said, “I’m so sorry but I’m not seeing a heartbeat.”  You can’t imagine that pain and I hope you never find out.  That’s what I see when you email me your ultrasound pictures.  Your baby shower?  I can’t do it.  It’s not that I never got one.  I just can’t go and see all the tiny little outfits that my boys might have worn but now, never will.  If I hide your profile on Facebook because I can’t read any more posts about how sick/cranky/tired/whatever you are because you’re pregnant, it’s only because it would never occur to me to complain about something I loved, miss and desperately want back.  I rubbed my tummy, I sang to them, I gleefully looked forward to morning sickness because that meant I was pregnant.

I am what I am right now and I can only do what I can do. 

You can take or leave it.

Secret Garden Meeting August, 2009

For those of you who don’t know, The Secret Garden site is for parents of lost babies to go and write about their children.  Oftentimes, we don’t get to talk about some of the things we want to because we don’t have anyone to talk about them to.  This month’s Meeting topic was something that Hubby and I thought about on Sunday in anticipation of starting the adoption process.

If you created a bedroom for your baby tell us what it was like.

We had planned to have the boys stay in our room until they were older.  Our bedroom at that house was huge so we thought a “co-sleeper” on each side of the bed would be perfect.  Then Baby A died.  We decided that we would turn the corner of our bedroom into a nursery for Baby B.  We got a crib and a changing table that Hubby put together for me to look at while on bedrest.

Did you have it ready for them before they were born?

Yes, eventhough Baby B died at 22 weeks, his changing table and crib were ready, his Winnie the Pooh pictures and decorations were on the walls.  I had folded all of his nightgowns, onsies and diapers into baskets….I thought I had more time to make up his bed and I had a baby shower coming up so I didn’t buy any linens…

If so how did you cope coming home to it without your baby?

Not well.  I came home to look at an empty crib.  I remember laying down on the bed, in front of the empty crib and changing table and sobbing to the point that I leaned over and threw up in the trash can.

Did you pack it all away?

I had to.  We were in the process of buying a house when Baby B died.  We closed on the house a week after we lost him so all of the “nursery” had to be packed up and moved with no baby.  I made Hubby take down and move the furniture and the car seat and all of their baby clothes to the new house.  I didn’t want the movers to touch any of their things.  It wasn’t rational but I didn’t care.  I took one night when Hubby was at karate class and packed all of the onsies and nightgowns people had bought me or given me, the tiny little Tevas that Hubby at gotten me to cheer me up when A died into storage bins.  I cried so hard and so loud that my neighbor heard me and came over and held me for an hour. 

What is your baby’s room now?

In the new house, we put all of the baby stuff into what will be the nursery and shut the door.  We bought the house 18 months ago and I haven’t been in there since.

If you are trying to conceive again, or are pregnant again how do you feel about setting up another room before your baby is born?

Since we have been talking about adoption, I know that we have to have a place for our baby to come home to so I know it will have to be done for the homestudy.  I worry about that.  How am I going to face walking in there and looking at things that should have been the boys?  I’m hoping that I can call on friends and family to make it something fun and joyful.  I think with more people there, I won’t be tempted to look at the sadness but focus on the happiness.  Since, we are also still actively trying, I have also thought about that.  I have it in my head that I won’t put a nursery together until I get passed 22 weeks.  Then the baby will have lived longer then his/her brothers.  I don’t think that’s reasonable because I know I will be excited about another baby and want to make up a nursery since I really didn’t get to that for the boys but I know that I will be terrified too.  I don’t know.  I guess I just want to find out…

The Joy of….

I recently wrote to someone that I have lost my joy.  The joy I used to have for life is gone and I don’t know how to get it back.  I have brief moments of happiness but other than that, I am an emotional wasteland of pain, anger, jealousy, rage, fear, and disappointment.  I have things that I am very grateful for (like Hubby, doggies, and my wonderful friends – both physical and bloggy) but that’s not the same as joy.  I feel like a candle whose light has been snuffed out and can’t be relit.

I sobbed last night in therapy, begging the therapist and Hubby to tell me what to do to feel better, to not hurt, to get my joy back, to have some peace.  I will do anything, just tell me what to do, I said.  We talked a lot about negative and irrational self-talk aka the mean, nasty voices that I hear telling me that the boys were it, I get no other children, I’m broken and defective – you know, the good stuff.  I’m supposed to counter that with “a dispute.”  So if my head tells me, “You are never going to have another child,” I’m supposed to dispute that with, “I will have another child.”  I’ll try it.

The therapist really latched on to the idea of adoption.  She ran with that idea, offering to help us find resources and contacts and then she alluded to the fact that she didn’t think I was emotionally capable of conceiving and carrying a child in my present state and that we might need to take a break while exploring adoption.  That really hurt.  Prehaps it’s true but it still hurt.  I sort of shutdown at that point.  I’m not willing to give up the idea of getting pregnant and carrying a child right now.  Hubby and I agreed to keep trying while exploring the possiblity of adoption.  Her comment sort of overshadowed any excitement that I was feeling for making the decision to try to adopt and left me feeling sad and hurt (thus, possibly, proving her point that I am an emotionally fragile mess that needs electro-shock therapy). 

Along those same lines and possibly providing more evidence for Therapist’s theory, was the fact that I got a message last night from IAC (Independent Adoption Centers) that the information session we signed up for was full.  It wasn’t full when I signed up for it 5 days ago on their website but it is now.  Yeah, no idea how that works.  We are on the wait list for that session and signed up for the October 3rd session.  I was so upset and disappointed that I had to have Hubby return the call out of fear that my anger and snippiness towards the “keeper of the babies” would harm our chances of sitting down with these people.  Again, probably not the rational response the rest of the world would have but I’m starting to understand that not much of what goes on in my head these days is rational.

I’m an irrational, joyless, emotionally fragile lostbabymama and at this point, I think we can safely say, I’m not even surviving anymore….I’m in real trouble, aren’t I?

I’m Trying….

to be hopeful.  I know it doesn’t seem like it but I am.  I promise, I am.  It’s so hard because you aren’t in my head.  You don’t hear the things that I hear – “I’m broken, I’m defective, I can’t make a single good egg that won’t result in a dead baby, I had my babies and now that’s it, I don’t get anymore, my body betrayed me and the boys died” – you don’t hear that.  I do.  Daily.  Almost hourly, if we are being honest.

The therapist wants me to be able to visualize having a family in a positive manner.  We had the whole discussion again about being positive and if I think I won’t get pregnant, then it will be become a self-fulfilling prophecy and I won’t get pregnant.  I’m not not having a baby because I’m emotional stunted.  I’m not have a baby because I have a genetic condition in which 2/3 of my pregnancies end in miscarriage.  I’ve been trying for the last 3 months to get back to where I was when I got pregnant with the boys.  We were finally free of money troubles, living in a nice place, I had lost 15 pounds….I’ve been working to get back to that but I’m starting to get frustrated because I feel like my attitude isn’t going to change the genetics.  That’s where my hopelessness stims from.  I cannot see the light at the end of the tunnel and I don’t know what is going to make me see that light.  I’m willing to try but…

And it doesn’t help that I am already grumpy from fucking fertility meds that I was so HOPEFUL would produce extra eggs with the correct genetic material.

A Harmless Walk….

I went to my usual therapy session last night without Hubby (he is in Denver for his cousin’s wedding) and I didn’t talk about the boys upcoming birthday.  I didn’t feel like it.  I didn’t want to.  I’m tired.  I feel like a toddler throwing a tantrum and screaming, “NO! NO! NO!”  Yes, I realize that by not talking to my therapist about something this painful, I am cheating myself.  I actually felt like I betrayed her because we just chatted about how I was getting along without Hubby, all the while, I was thinking about the boys and how much I miss them.  I just couldn’t talk about them yesterday.

I have been walking with my friend M after work most days (when it doesn’t storm or something else doesn’t come up unexpectedly).  I figure the long hour walk in addition to boot camp will help me manage stress and get the weight off faster.  And I really like M.  It’s like the beginning of a romance, you still don’t know a ton about the person but you want to get to know them more but you don’t know if you should ask them out again or what for them to ask you out…(really, I don’t want to date M – she’s married, I’m married, I like boys, she likes boys…it was just a metaphor).

Last night she was detained at work and sent me a quick text that she was bailing on our walk.  I thought, “I’ll take the dogs to the park anyway.”  The puppy NEEDS to walk in the afternoons lest no one in the house sleeps until he has played himself out (he’s a 6 month old lab/boxer mix, he has energy to spare).  We leashed up and took off.

We took our usual course up the street to the park and onto the track.  As I got to the track, I saw two women in pink T-shirts (important later) with a stroller…whatever was crying in the stroller was little….maybe 3 months old and….SMACK!  I’m reduced to tears.  I immediately turn around and head back to the house, tearing streaming down my face.  Grief and anger and sadness strangled me as I drag the dogs back towards the house.

As we started to cross the street, I looked up and damn, if they weren’t right behind me.  “What the fuck!” I thought,  “I’m practically running from these woman and they are chasing me with their living, breathing, healthy pink baby!  I crossed the street like the lead actress in a zombie movie…dragging dogs, looking behind me, tears streaming and wait!  What’s that?  They continued straight.  I took a deep breath, blew it out and wiped my face with my pink T-shirt (I know…sexy).

I got to the house, put the dogs in the backyard and went out front to get the mail.  Guess what?  Here comes the Pink T-shirt ladies and the stroller from around the corner.  Apparently, they did a loop just to pass my house!  I tried to smile and be polite as they both said hello.

“Looks like you got the memo about it being pink T-shirt day!” says Fertile Myrtle’s friend.

“Shit,” I thought, “she’s talking to me, now I’ve got to be witty.”

“I sure did.  Tomorrow, I’m thinking blue T-shirts.  Sound good?”

They both laughed their fertile laughs and walked on.

I turned, new tears coming down my face and headed back to my baby-less house.

I hate this.

Poem

My friend, T, she’s my sorority sister and one of my people.  She’s lost 2 little girls (at separate times,  no less).  She sent me this in response to my last posting.  I thought I would share.  I’m thinking that I will take some of the suggestions and finish their baby book with the ultrasound pictures and the cards – maybe find a box to put it all in.  I can do this when Hubby is out of town next week…I haven’t heard from J, I will keep you posted as to what she says…if the answer is no, I might make a plea to all my crafty and creative readers to help me with this….

My Child

You left this life too soon, my child.
Your arrival to our family was greatly anticipated.
We cherished the opportunity t o share our love
And watch you grow and become your own person.
But you were taken from us too soon.

We will go on without you, although it will be difficult.
You will be missed and loved for as long as we live.
May we be together on the other side of this life.
A star will always shine brightly in our hearts for you.
Thank you for blessing our lives even so briefly.

Goodbye, my dear child!

Hiding

I’ve been hiding.  I admit it.  Except for a few select people, I don’t want to be around anyone.  I’ve been bad about returning calls, answering emails, accepting invitations.  I’ve used the excuse that I’ve been busy with work – which is partially true.  With several people being on vacation, I have been busy but that’s not the total reason.

I’m tired of hearing about this person is pregnant or that person just had their baby…it’s hard on me.  As much as I want to be that person who can rise above all of the pain and grief that I still feel and be happy for someone else…I can’t.  And honestly, I am too tired to pretend anymore.  If that makes me a bad person, that’s fine, I can live with that.  I’m protecting myself and while I hate that some people’s feelings are going to get hurt, I’m too sad and too broken to care anymore.  Congratulations and call me when it’s over.

And I realize that separating myself from people is not good.  I get that.  Particularly with the depression looming over me.  But honestly, I am tired of being the only person at the party with no kids.  I swear to God, if I hear one more person say, “I went off birth control and got pregnant the next month!”  Guess what?  So did I.  The boys still died.  Or I just love when the conversation drifts to, “oh and when I was delivering…”  Just once, I’m going to pipe up and say, “really? I don’t remember that but that could be the massive amounts of morphine that was coursing through my veins so that I would actually NOT remember delivering two dead babies…”

See, probably shouldn’t be around people anyway….