Knock out

After my grandmother's funeral I discovered I had a cold... or flu... who knows.

I've been knocking myself out frequently, and fighting tears.

I just start crying, and I don't even know why... at least on the surface I don't.

DH was at work, and I started bawling for no reason... then I looked to the mantle and bawled some more... the sleeping cherub sat, doing nothing really, except reminding me.
And I sat and bawled for a good 30 minutes.

Later that night I just stared bawling again, nothing in particular had happened.
I was just laying down for bed.
And I let go.

My professors are bound to think I'm making up excuses for missing class at this point.
I've only been to class maybe 3 times this month...
I mean, how many people go through this many things in a month?
I lost my baby, I lost my grandma, and then I got a fever of 101F and my nose turned into a leaky faucet.

I'm counting down the days until my doctor appt. on the 3rd.
I'm excited about trying again, because I have to do something.
But I'm also scared. I was scared before, before I lost... And now I'm even more frightened.
And, I know that I'll still be mourning, but I have to do something.
I want a baby, I had one and I will always miss him, but I want to try again.
Trying doesn't mean I'll get pregnant anyways, it just means that I will be moving forward.
I have to keep moving.

I have 2-3 months off school coming up.
I'm going to focus on:
1. Making another baby... and tending to the tree out back that we planted for the one we had.
2. Working on writing (Either more short stories, or one of my novels. I need to get around to publishing something... the stuff I published for free in the university publications does not count.)
3. Home repairs

I need to do something.
I should probably clean my house.
I haven't *really* cleaned it since I started miscarrying on the 4th.
That's a long time for nasties to accumulate.

And thanks to the ladies (Antigone and Marie) who left comments. I appreciated them.
Thank you so much.

Who is it

These past couple of days I have been given to spontaneous tears.

They come without warning sometime. While sometimes they are self induced.

Sometimes they have been for my grandmother.
Sometimes they have been my unborn child that I carried for 3 weeks.
Sometimes they have been for the child I may never have.
Sometimes they are for my lost dreams.
Ultimately they are all for myself.

My grandmother passed without pain. She was happy, welcoming her death.
She saw it as a means to be with grandpa again. They were together for over 60 years.
She couldn't wait. When she woke from her comma for brief periods of time I am told she smiled.
How can I be sad for her passing when I know she's happy now?
Instead I cry for my loss of her. I feel the emptiness, that vacancy in my life. This place that she held can never be fulfilled by anyone else. As I grew she filled that niche, and it will always be her place in my heart.

My baby, my lost one. I hope he felt no pain in his short existence. That he left as peacefully as he was created. I cry for him leaving, for not staying, for me not getting to hold him... but ultimately I cry for myself in the end. *I* will never hold him. *I* will never get to caress his sleeping face, tuck him in at night, feed him as my breast... I have lost. He went swiftly into the night, no suffering in life, no suffering in death. He left quickly... and he's not alone, wherever he is. I am, in heart. Yes, DH is here for me. He loves me. He's caring for me... but he's not the one I want. I want my baby.

But it's so unfair of me to cry for myself. I keep shedding tear, after tear, for *my* loss. I cried for my baby, I cried for my grandma, but then the grief came full circle and I realized what hurt me the most. Not that they had died, but that I may never see them again. Not in this life.
I would not feel their hand in my hand.
I will walk alone.
Both are lost to me, and I want them back so badly.
But grandma is happy with grandpa...
but what about my baby?
Is he with them? Is he alone...
Will I ever see him, this face I keep trying to imagine in my mind. This baby that I never got to hold....

I feel selfish feeling sorry for myself this month.
But I can't help it.

The month started with me losing my baby, and is ended with me losing my grandmother too.
What else horrible can happen before the month is over?
If one more person dies... if I lsoe anyone else...
will I survive?

Sprouting and withering

I planted a cherry tree out in the yard. I wanted to get an apple tree, but Adrien and I debated, and decided the cherry tree would be best.
It stands all alone in the yard, the reminder for a life that stopped before it ever started.

I keep finding myself craning my head out the upstairs windows just to catch a glimpse of the top of it. Next year it will grow even taller, then I won't have to crane my neck out so far.

It's bad when I'm in the kitchen because it's straight out the window, and I just stand there sipping my beverage, or cooking... and I stare out into the yard... right at the tree, and zone out.

I've been distracting myself...
I lost my baby at the beginning of the month, and now my grandmother is terminal. They think that she's only got a few days left... she fell asleep yesterday and hasn't actually woke up since. I hope that she goes peacefully, she's lived a long life... she's still alive, but I can't talk to her, can't hear her voice. My heart aches.

How much can a person lose in one month?

I feel selfish for feeling as if my world is crashing down when my grandmother is suffering, and my baby is gone... but I am suffering too. I feel as if I have lost so much in the last few weeks.

I keep asking myself,

What else am I going to lose? Before this month is over what else will be taken from me?

I talked to my mother yesterday to tell her that my father's mother is dying. My mother changed the subject, after saying that my grandmother lived a long full life, to inform me that she had broken her foot and her car broke down (or something)... and she told me on the phone, "It's been a bad month for me. Well, when it rains it pours."
As if I didn't know that. How does that even compare to my baby dying, and my Grandmother fading fast? How does a broken car and foot compare to death?

Changing the subject:
As I said, I have been distracting myself. I am fixing some things around the house, I am stripping the years of built up paint off the trim, I'm trying to fix some things up before I start TTC again next month.

I find the easiest way to take my mind off of things is to work with my hands.
Not academia, not writing, not painting even... but working with my hands. Crafts, repairs, yard work... something that takes focus, hands on... it allows me to work through the tears and calm my mind. I still cry at least once a day, but the sharp empty pain is getting less the more I distract myself and allow myself to cry.

And so I have been working my body raw since two... three? days ago.
I've lost track fo the days.

What do the days mean to me anymore?
I'm judging them by weekends.

This coming weekend my baby would have been 8 gestational weeks if it had lived.
This Sunday is 3 weeks since I lost my baby.
Time lost that I can't really remember... it's all a blur. A gigantic blur.
It's lost time.

Impressions

I keep getting the impression that everyone thinks I am being irrational because my baby wasn't a "real" baby.

Everyone telling me that it could have been worse, telling me I ill have another baby, telling me it was God's plan...

My mother said it could have been worse, I could have carried it longer, been more attached... I tried to explain to her that I WAS attached to this baby, that it's never okay when a baby dies, that I waited longer for my child and suffered for it more than she'd understand, that it was my baby...

And she had told me I couldn't understand now, that when Am- died she had to grieve for her grand baby...

Am- died ten years ago this year, she was still born on her due date... this was my sister's first baby. My mother never held her, Am- never took a breath... I understand that she was a baby that could be seen. etc... but does that make my baby not matter?

Why doesn't my baby deserve to be mourned? Why doesn't my baby matter?
Why is it okay to grieve Am-, and not my baby?

Everyone seems to be acting as if *I* am irrational for mourning this baby...

but no one else is mourning my baby except A- and I.
No one else cares that this little miracle is gone.
No one is marking it's passing.
No one else is ever going to love it and hold it in their hearts...
because it wasn't a "real" baby.

It might have been an embyro, but in my heart it was a "real" baby...
I waited for it for so long.
I changed my life for it,
I took medicine,
I reorganized my priorities and labored away to make this miracle happen.
I dreamt of this baby for years, suffered through infertility, knew that it might not happen, that it may never exist, knew that if it did happen it may never happen again. And like that it was gone.

I had one week of knowing I was pregnant before the dream came crashing down...

and no one understands what I am going through except for infertility forum friends... because unfortunately infertility comes with increased miscarriage risks. For various reasons... people who suffer to get pregnant almost always suffer at least one loss... usually multiple losses.

I'm just venting here... I am so frustrated because I just keep getting the impression that people think I am being irrational.
That me mourning, grieving my child, is irrational because in their eyes they don't see my baby as a "real" baby... and it's making me sick to the stomach.
As much as I try to make them understand, they can't.
And I know that they won't unless they suffer the same thing...
and I pray to the great spirit that they never do...
because it hurts... in every sense of the word.

People are Jerks

I have to deal with the loss of my emby, and the stupidity of the fertile jerk faces.
Why do people think that my saying, "It could be worse." would negate my pain in any way shape or form? How could losing my child be worse? This is my pain here, my baby, my first born child.
Perhaps I would hurt more if it had been older, yes... but it was still my child and how dare that make it sound as if I am being immature or something for losing it.

How dare they insinuate that my feelings are invalid... what, because it could be worse I should be happy? I should be happy that my baby died now, instead of later down the road?

Even people who have experienced loss remind me that, "It could be worse."
Apparently the whole fucking world thinks that it's okay when a baby dies.
Ya know why? Because it could have been fucking worse.

Fuck them. This was MY worst. Let them lose their fucking baby and then tell me how they feel.
They didn't have to hear the words, "I'm so sorry... unfortunately the numbers are lower." They didn't pour their heart into creating this little being, only to have it fucking ripped away from them.

How is it EVER okay for a baby to die!
Yet they devalue my fucking pain.

Fuck, fuck, fuck!

And they remind me I can have another baby... I wanted THIS baby!
I know I will have another, but this was and will always be my first baby!
My poor baby, to good for this world.

On top of it I have to wait the month out, waiting for my body to "take care" of the miscarriage. I have to wait for my body to start expelling my lining and my baby. It's trying to, I can feel the uterus contracting and it hurts! My uterus feels bruised anyways, and then this pain, and the emotional pain... I feel like I am melting into a pool of despair.

Maybe those damn fertile people don't understand this, but I waited for what felt like forever for this pregnancy. I dreamt about holding this baby, I dreamt of changing it's diapers, feeding it, holding it's body in my arms... I almost believed that this was it.
It wasn't.
My dream baby is gone.
I built this baby in my head before I even conceived it. I called it mine.
I waited and waited for THIS baby, and like that * it's gone.

Why can't I be fertile?
Why can't I have my baby?
I miss him, even though I barely knew him.

Where do we go from here?

I lost my first baby... my miscarriage was confirmed today with my beta numbers going down.

I don't know what to do right now... but I have hope... I start fertility medication next month, so I don't have to be in limbo about that. I will be able to Ov next month... no wondering if it will ever happen.

But I will never be able to forget my miracle baby...
he wasn't supposed to exist... and so he's all the more special.

I don't actually know if it was a boy or a girl... but while I was in the hospital I kept imagining it as a boy for some reason... and thinking his name was Sebastian.... and he's gone now....
He was never meant to be....
And so he never will.

I miss you Baby.

What hurts even more is that no one will know he existed. We didn't tell everyone, only a few select people... should I tell my MIL and FIL that our first baby died? Or should I simply tell them he existed?

How does this work... I can't hold him, or hold a service for him... I can't do anything other than mourn him silently... he's gone, he's gone, he's gone...

I barely even knew he existed... but I loved him and imagined sharing my life with him just he same... and he's gone. he is gone. gone.

Hanging in the balance

I'm still waiting for an answer... forcing myself to stay awake just in case they call.
I feel like I am about to pass out, but I can't. I have to, NEED to, know.
Is my baby still growing?

I sat at my computer and tried to distract myself... I opened my university email.
My professor let me know I won an award for my piece of short fiction; first place in the competition no less.
My story called, "Life Force".. about a woman and her husband and their ordeal with infertility... and the proceeding loss of their son. Strange how that echoes now.

I stick around my infertility forums often enough, and I understand that suffering and loss are often interconnected in this hidden realm. Let's face it, with infertility you usually have a higher chance of miscarriage depending on what causes the said IF. Take PCOS... increased chance of loss. It's as if the suffering isn't enough... life has to give us more.

Ever since I found out I was pregnant I have been terrified of losing it. And now here I am, waiting on a phone call to tell me whether my pregnancy is still viable of not. Am I even still pregnant? Is my baby alive? My little emby?

I should be crying, and I have been off and on... but mostly I just feel disconnected. I am buoyant in this limbo, waiting to find out if I should sink, or rise. When is my phone going to ring?

The ebb and flow

I have physically known I was pregnant for a week...
and now I physically know I may be having a miscarriage.

First time Ov'ing in a year and a half resulted in a pregnancy,
and may end in a miscarriage.

I don't know right now if my baby is alive or dead...
and I won't know for a couple of days...

and all I can keep thinking is, "Why don't you want to stay with me, Baby? Why are you in such a hurry to leave? Please, please god, let it stay a little longer."

They took an ultrasound... it's still in there, but because I'm not far along they can't tell me if it's alive or not... but it's there...

I thought about that ultrasound picture... and I keep thinking I need it. They have to give me a copy (I had it down in the ER, so they didn't print one out for me... not the way I'd imagined my first ultrasound.) I want it, it may be the only picture I will ever have of my first baby.
And I don't know...
I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know.

Can you hear me, Baby?
You'll never know how much your mommy loves you.
Please, please, LIVE.