Sinking....

This week my heart is so heavy. I feel the stress in my shoulders, my neck, my back. Everywhere I look-pregnancy, babies, vocabulary-"conceived, infancy, viable, twin." I really, really hate the word viable. I did everything I could to get the babies there and even though they were textbook viable, they did not survive. We use the word viable all the time and not in the way it is meant.

I had two meetings at school this week. The first one was ok-it was doable. I've come to expect that people will look at me but not really see me. They don't say a word-not even a "hello" or a "good to see you." I am invisible.

My meeting Wednesday was awful. I had to leave, running-sobbing-almost hyperventilating when out of nowhere, a colleague, who was not at all a part of this committee, comes walking in-in the middle of a meeting-pushing her stroller with her brand new baby. Her baby that will always be THE ONE. The one that was due at the exact same time as my Aiden and Sophie. When her baby is one, I should be throwing a birthday party, too. When her baby graduates from high school, I should be getting ready for my twins to go to their choice for college. I know it's not fair to her, but to me, this will always be the hardest. At the meeting is another colleague who is due in 2 weeks. People fall all over her, making sure she has the cushiest chair and water and she mentions she wishes her baby would come "sooner than later." She mentions that her other daughter's birthday is soon and she hopes, for goodness sake, that they don't have the same birthday.

I wonder what that is like. To wish your baby would come sooner than later. I would have done ANYTHING to keep my little ones inside for even one more day.

I left this meeting and cried in the office conference room. Some people followed me but nothing they could say would help me. I just wanted to go home. I asked to go home. I almost called my husband to come and get me. I heard that baby cry and that was it. I can't see it. I can't.

Somehow, I stayed. For this, I am proud. I am proud of the fact that I cried and shook and almost threw up, then I gathered myself, drank some water, and walked right back into that meeting with a new boss that I've never met, with my eyes puffy and my skin blotchy and my hands shaking, and I set some building goals with my colleagues. The colleagues that, overall, don't seem to know that I lost my babies.

I've read so many books and blogs and stories and I know. I know people "don't know what to say" and they "don't want to make me sad" and my grieving makes them "uncomfortable" and they "mean well" but honestly, I am sick of those excuses. I had two children. People still say to me, "When you have your first...." Yeah, catch the trail off there? I had my first! And my second, I guess, while we're at it.

This week just was so hard. And next week-inservice-the whole staff. The students I'm not worried about. The students won't be so awkward about it. They'll say it or they won't. They'll hug me and ask me how I am. They'll probably ask to know what happened and ask if I'm feeling better because-oh, right-I was really sick from the babies and the infection. I didn't feel better from that for a long time, but the grieving part clouded that over.

I have spent the last few months grieving, but it's certainly not over. In 2 months we'll have the one year anniversary of losing my father-in-law to cancer. Then it begins. When we got pregnant, when we found out, our ultrasounds. These dates, they haunt. They follow me. The are yelling at me when I try to turn my back.

In other news, we fired our realtor! The company we were using was a discount selling kind, and it just was not working out. We had so few showings and the realtor was set up to make a commission for doing, essentially, nothing! We were doing it all ourselves. So we went to meet with a dift realtor recommended by a friend (who immediately showed us, grinning and proud, the picture of his 4 children-look how beautiful they are, he said) and we felt comfortable with him and liked what he had to say. So we ended the contract with the old one, and we are cleaning this weekend to have a prof photographer come to take house pictures. We were supposed to have an open house on Sunday, but since we fired the company, I'm thinking that's not going to happen, so now instead we are going to have clean and stage again!

I am trying to stay hopeful that it will sell!

I am looking forward to just getting past the first few days of work-getting back into a routine-working hard and focusing on whatever part of the future that I can still see. Here's to a better week! :)