I sang...

Today, I sang.

Let me back up.

Today, I enjoyed the weather. I ate well again. And I went to the gym after work. I simply walked on a treadmill. I walked because I want to walk in a March of Dimes walk, for Patrick, and I don't want to die while doing it. LOL! I did a little over 2 and a half miles (the March of Dimes walks are 4 miles).

Then, after going and getting food with Will, I drove home. And did something I've always loved, but haven't done in a long time. I drove, and I sang. I drove out of my way, and sang some more.

I sang some country, some rock, some sad songs, some happy ones.

But I sang, louder, harder, longer, than I have in a long time. It wasn't that weak ass singing I've been doing lately, the stuff that makes me cringe when I do it at Karaoke and sound like a asshole.

It was true, good, deep singing. It was the singing I did before, and during, my pregnancy. It was singing that I haven't gotten CLOSE to since I lost him, that every time I attempted, I started to cry.

That was some good stuff.

We took the plunge...

Will and I joined a gym last night. We start tonight, fun! It's been a few years since I've been a gym-goer, but I used to LOVE it, so lets hope I love it just as much this time around. I'm decided to say screw my doctor, and wait 2 cycles before we TTC again. I'm not waiting a MINIMUM of 8 months, nope, sorry. I'm not one of those women who can't get through a doorway (sorry to sound mean, but) I've seen larger women than I deliver healthy babies, and after our loss, we're more ready than ever to actually TRY. Now if only I would remember to temp every day, I'd be golden... Think of me tonight, as I'm spending my first session with the personal trainer... I'm scared!!!

The wait is killing me....

I broke down and called the high risk OB who delivered Patrick, today. I am tired of the waiting. After a few transfers, I was told that the genetic testing is not back yet, but should be in the next few days. I can call at the end of next week to get a copy of that. The autopsy results take a bit longer, so they are having me schedule a "post loss" follow up in 6 weeks to make sure those are in by the time of my appointment. BUT that would be the first week of June, and they don't have the schedule yet, so they're calling me back tomorrow to get it scheduled.

I just want some answers, people. Is this so much to ask??

I'm just plain pissed...

Today was my 4 week follow up, and I must say, what a crock of shit. I most definately need a new doctor. To make a long story really short, he told me I'm fat. Oh, sorry, "unhealthy and overweight", and that due to this, not only could it have been a factor in losing my son (bite me) it also leads him to think that he does not want me pregnant until at LEAST the end of the year, and that's depending on how much weight I lose.

I just lost my son halfway through my pregnancy, the pregnancy where I even ASKED about my weight, and I was alright, and now you're going to suddenly tell me I'm too fat to get pregnant, wait 8 months and ask again if you drop some weight, fatty? I just LOST my SON? I have babies on the brain constantly? And you want me to wait 8 months "at least"? HAHAHAHA

Bite my fat arse, and find a new patient, cause I'm sure as hell finding a new doctor.

Now if only AF would show up and let me know that things are working a bit more normally down there, I wouldn't even have needed a dang followup to tell me that everything else is fine. Ugh.

Just a thought....

There’s something to be said about a cloudy day. Most people would complain, I disagree. Just light enough to see outside, no sun to blind you. Things seem clearer, to me, when it’s like this.

I’m not talking about a gray, nasty day, but one where the sun’s out, just hidden by clouds. But you know it’s there, and you can still feel its warmth…

Can kind of apply to all aspects of life, can’t it?

I’m tempted to go out tonight. But I know when the time comes I’ll doubt it… I really don’t want to lose it in public, especially if Will’s not there. I depend on him a lot, these days. Seems like sometimes, he’s the only one who understands how I feel. He lost Patrick, just as I did. It’s a little sad how all of this has seemed to bring us closer together. I feel more secure in my marriage than ever. (Even though the depression would make me think otherwise, at times).

And on that note, I definitely feel for anyone who’s suffered depression, true depression, in their lifetime. You always say you’re depressed, but when it actually happens to you, you’ll know it, and it will suck royally. Because there’s no logical explanation for how horrible you feel, which only brings you down farther… I’m just glad that my bouts with it have been easy enough that I can acknowledge it and not let it ruin me.

This is going to be a long day, I can already tell.

An interesting thought....

I read something on someone's blog today (and if it was yours, I'm keeping you anon., don't worry) :o) talking about being scared to get pregnant again, and how people just pop up and say they're ready to try again very soon after a loss...

It made me think a bit, and here's the conclusion I've come to (mind you, this is also considering the fact that I'm starting to chart and will start temps tomorrow, to start building a database for when we are given the go ahead to try again).

I'm not ready to have another baby.

But I wasn't ready for Patrick, either.

As scared as I am of what could happen the next time, I know if I let fear rule my life, there's a lot of things I would never have done. Including getting pregnant with Patrick, or holding him as he was passing, things that blow my mind still that I was able to do.

I'll never be ready, fully. I'll always have a scar on my heart, and I'll always mourn him.

But I also refuse to sit around waiting until the "perfect" opportunity comes along, because itnever will. So, I'm charting now, to try to figure out when my body's back into whack (and let's hope it gets there) and then when the doctors say we can, we'll try again. It's all we can do.

As sad and shocked and lonely and upset as I can feel at times, I also refuse to live in the past.

R.I.P., little man. Mommy and Daddy love you to bits.

P.S. The "trying" is the fun part, anyways, right? Hehehe.

An interesting view...

Someone posted this, this morning, on www.thebump.com, on the Miscarriage/Pregnancy Loss board. She said it was a previous post from a while back when she'd experienced her loss, and I don't know who the original author was, but they hit the nail right on the head.

A short time ago it was announced on the evening news that there is an epidemic of obesity in my country. An "Epidemic", according to the night time news is 1 in 4 people. So that means anything that is a challenge health wise, bringing suffering must be an epidemic, right? If that's the case then I can confirm that in the western world we have a miscarriage epidemic.

Miscarriage is one of the most common and significant losses in a woman’s life, yet no one talks about it, no one openly discusses it and certainly no one understands it. Especially when it comes to understanding the devastating grief that goes with it.

When you become pregnant you enter a big club for women. Its a subculture. You are accepted into the club with open arms. But when you loose the baby youare no longer a part of this club and you can no longer "fit right back in" to where you were before you were pregnant. You are in limbo. There's no where to go.

At 14 weeks gestation I lost my baby. In fact I painfully gave birth to my dead baby on the bathroom floor, only to be told by friends "you can always have another one" and "yeah but you're a positive person, you'll get over it."

One friend said to me two weeks after I lost my baby "are you all okay now, back to your old positive self?" Was she kidding? Just because I'm a positive person doesn't mean I don't feel grief. (Where DOES that misconception come from?)

One woman I spoke to about it even tried to talk me out of my grief saying "yes but look at all the positives that have come out of it, I bet you're stronger now."

Positives? What's positive about a baby dying in your body?

One social worker friend who I was close to for over ten years didn't even call me when I left a message and told him what happened. He said later he was busy.

It's enough to drive you insane.

And the bonus line that Doctors and care providers love to give "Its very common." So are car accidents but you would never put your arm around a car accident victim and say "Don't worry its very common." You would feel like a right twit. But people don't seem to mind saying it to a woman who has just had a miscarriage. In fact people feel justified because it was not a "real" baby. It was just a bit of blood.

You see a woman connects with that baby from day 1. She imagines a giving birth to a beautiful baby who loves her, and whom she can love. She imagines the bond and the love with her from the moment she finds out she's pregnant. She imagines a 5 year old running around the house, sharing each others lives, sharing each others love. Pregnancy is the promise of a best friend who will never leave you. Its a happiness you can only liken to childhood joy at Christmas time, or being in love for the very first time. Its the most emotionally uplifting time of your life.

When the child dies, whether at 2 weeks of pregnancy or at 18 weeks, that happiness she felt becomes replaced with a crushing loss and heavy sadness. Its not only been taken from her, (often without any answers from medicos as to why) but the physical signs of a death has occurred right in her own body. The blood she experiences for almost two weeks is the blood of the death that has occurred in her own body. The death of the best friend.

The blood is frightening and so is the prospect of facing the world again with this devastating loss. And knowing that she will never get the right support, so she chooses to keep this a secret. This is accompanied with, (Often) crushing feelings of guilt. "What if I hadn't bent over to pick up the spoon that dropped on the floor", "what if I hadn’t stood up for so long at work, "what if I'd had the low fat biscuit instead of the full fat one" etc, etc. The mental hounding is unbearable.

You see the more people express their lack of support, the longer she grieves and the harder the grief is to accept.

The good news is that society can have a big influence on a woman’s healing and emotional recovery. Other people around her have the power to help her, and that’s a great thing. And you will be amzed at what a little thing does to help. Such loving and kind words at a time of loss has the most profound feelings of healing and acceptance. Its the difference between "not knowing how to get through this" and "gee maybe I can get through this after all." Thats the power that supportvie actions have on a woman who has just had a miscarriage.

Lets look at the healing power that we can have for her;

Firstly if a woman you know has had a miscarriage:

Don't try to talk her out of it by always talking about the positive things that have come out of it. Accept her feelings after all that blissful happiness has vanished and been replaced with loss and grief that has changed her as a person its so profound. There's nothing positive about loosing a beloved baby.

Don't Avoid her. She may feel totally rejected. If you are uncomfortable just remember it’s not about you; its about her. It’s her loss and you don't have to feel uncomfortable just because it’s a womens issue.

Don't try to "cheer her up." It will only appear worse and she will feel as if you are not really understanding her or wanting to let her be herself. She doesn't need "cheering up" she needs love and to talk about whats happened.

Don't give her advice. The last thing a grieving woman wants to hear is what she "should" do, or what she "must" so. It will feel like you are shutting out her deep feelings of sadness.

Don't say "yes but at least you have other children." The other children aren't the problem, the loss her new child is the problem, she wanted her new one just as much as she wanted the others. Each child is unique.

Don't say "well at least you conceived straight away, not many couples can do that." Whether it took her five minutes or five years to conceive she's still experienced a huge loss that has profoundly changed her life. She is now a different person.

The best thing that you can do is:

Support her and ask if there is anything you can do.

Send her flowers to acknowledge her loss.

Write a simple message on a card "sorry for the loss of your little baby."

Offer to help her honor her baby in the form of a plant or a candle.

Ask if she needs practical help such as housework or running errands.

Ask her what date the baby would have been born, then around that date send her some flowers to say you are thinking of her.

Take her out and celebrate her baby’s life, no matter how short it was it still touched her deeply.

Treat her miscarriage like you would the death of a loved one in her family- because the baby was a loved one who has indeed died.

And the best thing you can do to start changing how societies view of miscarriage; acknowledge it openly and talk about it with her.

Together we can make a significant change to grieving women and help them recovery and feel happiness again. Just a gentle support, a loving message, a phone call to say hi will be appreciated in ways she may not be able to express. Never underestimate how good your love can be

I'm not as bad as it sounds...

I know there are a lot of people worried about me, after the things I posted yesterday. Let me be clear I'm pretty lever headed about the whole thing. I don't break down and cry every 5 minutes, I'm not going to kill myself, I'm really, truly ok. I mean, what other choice do I have? Let it consume me, and think all those things I talked about yesterday, all the time, every day?

I'm no stronger than anyone else, emotionally... I'm just strong enough to make the choice to move forward.

The things I said yesterday were things that DO go through my mind. When people tell me they're here for me if I need to talk, those are the things I WANT to say. The problem is that I also don't want to say those things out loud. They're pretty dark, pretty morbid, pretty disturbing. That was just a vent from the dark part of my soul, right now.

But really, 95% of the time, I'm doing ok. Have no fear. I don't give up that easily. I will move forth, and soon be pregnant again. I'm still determined to have enough kids to take over the world. ;o)

Make a choice, they said....

In a discussion today about contractions, someone had the nerve to suggest to me that mine maybe weren't as bad as they could have been Given that Patrick was so small. And it got me thinking. About all the things I can say about the whole situation. That I haven't said. Maybe in my head, but not out loud. And here's my well thought out response to that.

Fuck you.

Physically, they were the same, if not worse than a natural labor, because of the drugs.

Mentally? Well, let's see. Take a woman, tell her she's going to have a little version of her in, oh, 7 months. Let her listen to the heartbeat, the heartbeat coming from INSIDE OF HER. Then, halfway through, tell her oops, nope, sorry, baby's not ok. Make the choice.

Make the choice to kill your child.

Sure, it was the best choice, given the circumstances. Sure, it's better than going in one day and being told your baby is no longer alive.

Yeah, right.

Make the choice. Make the choice to end another human being's life. Make the choice to shake up his world, his once cozy home. To surround him by moaning, yelling, tightening. We have no idea how a baby processes pain, Mrs. Oliver. We don't know when, for sure, he'll die, Mrs. Oliver. But make the choice. To sit yourself in a hospital room and wait to deliver your baby. He can't talk. Take whatever drugs you need, Mrs. Oliver. As much as you want, drug yourself, drug the baby. Let random people walk in every hour hours and jam pills so far up your fucking most private of areas, that you've got bruises on the surrounding areas.

Make the choice. It's the right choice. But no one said it was the easy one.

Sit in a hospital bed, staring at your husband, asleep, your husband, who helped you create this life, knowing he'll never understand what you do. Knowing that his heart will hurt as much as it possibly can, and being thankful he won't know how much worse it can get.

Sit at home the night before, feeling little kicks to your bladder, knowing your child is in there, and make the choice to force the baby out.

It's for the baby's own good, they said. What about mine? What about the fact that I have to live with that choice every god damned day of my life, however long that may be?

Take your tiny little son from the nurses, Mrs. Oliver. Only hold him out in front of you, like he's some foreign object, because he's too small to cradle fully in your arms. Feel his body jerk as he desperately tries to gasp for air.

Stare death right in the fucking face, and beg for its mercy, beg that somehow you can give your life for this tiny little baby's. You don't know what pain is until you've truly looked death in the eye and said take me, and meant it with every fucking ounce of your being.

Feel your heart break as you feel life slide right out of you, and know in your heart that it inevitably means death.

Hold something in your hands that was INSIDE YOUR BODY only a few moments ago. Look at beauty in its purest form and have it stolen away from you. Feel its warmth drain away, like a flower wilting, but so fast, too fast.

Watch your husband only look at his son, because he can't hold him. Because it's just too painful. Your father in law break down sobbing worse than a child at the sight of his grandson. Your mother, running from the room because her grandson is dying right in front of her and she can't do anything to save him, or to save the sanity of her daughter. Understand, finally, how much your mother loves you, because it's how much, and more, you love this tiny little man in your hands.

With every tiny jerk and gasp he makes, feel another part of your heart break away, even though moments ago you thought it was already gone.

Pick up your baby, YOUR SON, and feel him so cold, like ice, through two blankets. So cold you could scream, so cold you instinctively hold him closer to warm him. So darkly colored because, guess what? HE'S DEAD. Refuse to leave your dead son laying anywhere but in your hands for as long as you are there, because you hope and pray that every minute you hold him, somewhere, somehow, his soul feels that much more love coming from you. That if you don't put him down, this won't end, you won't have to walk away.

HOLD YOUR DEAD SON IN YOUR HANDS AND THEN TELL ME ABOUT PAIN.

Be a woman giving birth to life, but make her watch it die. Be a woman, having to make a choice to kill her baby before a deformity does.

Be a mother, without a child to hold anymore.

I want to talk about it, so badly, I want to SAY these things, instead of just thinking them, or blogging them. But this is shit that pulls you to a place most people can't understand. Nor do I want them to.

So fuck you, my shit didn't hurt. The pain of contractions hurts, to a degree, but the pain of waiting for your child to die makes the rest 10 times stronger.

And for those of you wanting me to talk about it a bit more, get it out, you say? If you thought you understood an ounce of what I am going through, maybe you'll rethink that now.

I appreciate everyone's concern, but the worst part of this is knowing that no one can really understand where I am at, mentally, even if you've been through this exact same thing, because it's different for everyone.

And I hope that anyone reading this never truly understands anything I've said here, because I wouldn't wish it on anyone.

I'm still amazed.

It's like a light switch, that some unseen force controls. One minute, I'm fine, the next, I am miserable. I'm dealing well with losing Patrick but not with the lack of answers. I want to be around people and laugh again, have fun, but the minute the opportunity is presented to me, I go into panic mode and can't fathom actually leaving the house. But then I've done my hair and makeup more in the last few weeks for work than I have the rest of the time I've worked here.

My poor brain just needs a break, I think.

I'm back on my diet, but not sticking to it very well. Baby steps, right? I need to start working out but there's a lack of space at our house and since Chicago gets SNOW IN APRIL, walking is not yet an option. This weekend is supposed to be nicer, perhaps I can start then.

Just feeling a lot lately like my life has no purpose. At all.

Spinning brain...

I flip between happy and sad so quickly right now, it's unreal. I'm frustrated because I want so badly to see friends and whatnot, yet the idea of being out in a group scares me. I think it's just too much. I don't want people to ask me, "How are you doing?" in that sad voice. I don't want to have to explain anymore that no, I'm not pregnant anymore. Just like that. 3 weeks ago I was heading off right now to have my first ultrasound. I was so excited! How does it go so quickly? Why was this stolen from me? Who the fuck did I piss off?

I feel like I've hit a wall...

I started to feel a little down last night, and attributed it to the fact that no matter how hard anyone tries, my going out with the girls on a Thursday night just is not a good idea.

I'm starting to wonder if I'm wrong.

All day today I've felt like there are tears just under the surface. The more I wonder why I feel this way, the more frustrated I become. The more frustrated I get, the more I want to cry. It's a never ending cycle. I've never felt this down in my life, and it's scaring me. A lot.

Please, please, please let this pass. Before I lose my mind, or have to call my doctor and admit how I feel and be sent to a freaking shrink.

No offense to anyone who seeks therapy, I've been in therapy before. Until I told her to go to hell, because she told me all my problems were my mom's fault.

That kinda turned me off to therapy, lol.