All over the place

Oh my gosh, you guys. I am SO all over the place. I am just seriously so...I don't even know. These holidays were hard. Not anyone, not even my mom brought up Sophie and Aiden. I guess part of this is my fault for having some sort of expectation. At my large family gathering, my grandpa's wife, who only ever talks about her own family, actually got out pictures of her brand new great grandson. That's when I walked out and had a major meltdown outside. I just feel so often like I am battling this all on my own (in real life).

I struggled, like so many of you, with the whole Christmas season approaching. I decided to put up the decorations and go Black Friday shopping like usual, but I also added something new. I made a whole tree just for Sophie and Aiden. Here it is:

A letter S and a letter A at the top:

It felt good, in a way, to have a way to honor them. Now that I know that I will be the only one (besides you all, of course), I should be less disappointed in the future.

So, besides the holidays, I am going crazy with this new pregnancy. I feel so many things all at one. I feel like such a fake. Fake excited. But fake not. Just fake, fake, because I don't even know what it is that I feel (besides terrified, I'm pretty sure about that).

Every day I think something has gone wrong. Haven't felt nauseous in a while, must be over. Or if I don't get up enough in the night, something must be wrong. I am trying so hard. SO hard to stay positive. I have written a few blog posts today that won't be published where I've imagined what my life will be like once this new baby is born, healthy and alive and (hopefully) full term. I sometimes will sneak onto Ba.by Cen.ter and I won't post, but I'll read the forums and pretend like I care about what they care about. "My boobs are so biiiiig!" "How will you announce it on facebook?" (um, I won't). "When should I tell my family?" (I'm thinking...after the baby is born) "Is it too soon to register?" (um, DUH. of course it is too soon-wait until after the baby is at least, oh, born!).

I have to get rid of these toxic thoughts. How do I do it? How do I trust that this time will be ok, and believe that?

I don't know. I feel so lost. And so scared. And I can't talk to anyone in real life about it. My husband is very busy trying to figure out what entry to re-do for his certification (he's decided to try it again-I'm proud of him, but it takes a LOT of time). I think he barely thinks about this pregnancy. My mom is just so excited that she doesn't seem to think I should be worried about anything. See, I am my mom's rainbow baby. She lost my sister, Mary, at full term to stillbirth. So, if anything, I thought she'd be great support. But she's just giddy and joking and just happy and I wish I were there. I wish I could do anything but feel sick when she talks about picking names.

Ugh.

Please, please don't get me wrong-I am so thankful-I have NEVER been so thankful to be expecting again-to have this miracle of life within me. I know, deep down, that it makes me happy and gives me hope. I do not for one second take this for granted. I don't want you to think that I am missing that fact. I just wish I could take this gift and KNOW, fundamentally and permanently, that I will have a living child in 7 months.

Last night, I had a dream for the first time that I was a mom to a new baby. Never once did I dream about that when I was pregnant with the twins. In this dream, I was pouring formula into a bottle and I didn't know how much to put in-I kept asking all these people around me, if you had this baby, how much would you put in? All of the people looked at me funny and then I realized that the baby I had in my arms wasn't the only one. There were two more. I was in a hotel room or something and I was so scared because I had no idea how to be a mom and especially to three babies! Only at some point I realized the other two that I wasn't holding didn't really need to eat. At the last part, my husband came in and said, "Oh! We had the baby! Is it a girl or a boy?" and I was mortified because I didn't even know! So I lifted up their clothes and yelled out, "It's a boy!"

I think some dream analyst would have a hay-day with that dream. Talk about messed up! Yikes. I woke feeling really confused and groggy and at the same time wondering if it was a good sign to have a living baby in a dream.

Well, yeah, like I said. I am all over the place.

Sigh.

One for Two

I really, really wanted both.
I thought I could have both.
I thought this year was going to turn around for us.
I thought maybe we'd catch a break.

7:15 ultrasound. We saw a heartbeat. Only one baby. Measuring right on at 6 wks 6 days. Graduated from fertility clinic to MFM. Got an ultrasound picture that I'm not really sure what to do with. It kind of freaks me out.

8:35 receive scores. 269 out of 275.

Lots of swear words.

I hate this. I hate seeing my husband disappointed. I hate that he is the hardest working person I know and that he deserves this so much and he doesn't get it I hate that he is sad. I hate it. I hate it.

One for two.

Thanks for waiting with me.

A re-do

I'm not sure if I've mentioned this before, but I feel often lately that my life is eerily some sort of creepy re-do of last year. 2008-2009 were horrible years for us, obviously. Starting in 2008 because that's when my father-in-law was diagnosed with lung cancer. It went like this:
Nov 2: Rudy dies from complications from lung cancer
Nov 5: Funeral and, oh, right, begin clomid (what was I thinking? obviously I wasn't!)
Nov 21: discover hubby has missed getting his national board teaching certification by less than 10 points (this was a huge deal-we paid a lot of money for the process and he was so proud and we were both SO sure he had passed)
Dec 6: find out we're pregnant
you know the rest just goes downhill from there

Now...
Nov 2: one year anniversary of rudy's death
Nov 2: find out we're pregnant
nov 20: yes, on the same day-have ultrasound to check for growth AND receive the scores from the re-do that hubby took to receive his national boards

It feels like my life is on a rewind, back again, screech to a stop, do that over. I am so totally aware that you can't "do over" a pregnancy/a child/a birth, but if I sit back and pretend, I feel like my life is completely repeating itself (in an eery, unwanted way).

So the "what ifs" begin.

What if it's all going to be great this time?
More importantly, what if it's truly a repeat?

I am so beyond nervous for Friday. I have no reason to think it will be anything but good news for the ultrasound, except that alarming statistic about how often a fetus implants and then doesn't grow. Boy, I love statistics.

I am SO beyond nervous for my husband. I can't explain how much I want this for him. This excitement, this pride, this honor. There is no way to get you all to understand what a devoted, hard working teacher he is. It is beyond control how hard he works. I work nowhere near as hard as him. He deserves this so much. He needs it.

Here I go again.

Begging. Who am I begging, exactly?

The Universe? God? Since when are they involved in these small details?

Did I mention that for this retake of the test hubby took he had to turn all of the stuff in exactly during the time that I was in the hospital on bedrest? During the two weeks between the time my water broke and I gave birth. It is burned into my brain. My lying there, watching bad TV and knitting (BEGGING) and Brian working on his laptop, trying to get it done.

It's so much agony. So much pain. So much disappointment.

Too much.

Now it's a do over. What will happen?

What if it's neither. No heartbeat. Fail the test.

Or maybe just one for two? (do I get to pick?)

Could we even get two for two? That seems like a LOT for the universe to hand me.

Have I mentioned that I am nervous.

Praying for peace, for calm, for strength, for patience...

7 months.

Aiden and Sophie were born 7 months ago.
How can that be? Just HOW CAN THAT BE?

This is the time of year when I remember that I dislike winter in the midwestern United States. By 5:00 pm it is midnight dark-so pitch black that you feel like it is time to go straight to bed. I come home from work and feel like I should just plain go to sleep. It doesn't help that 1)I am semi-depressed because I come home and feel like I should have SO much to do and instead I have nothing to do and 2) early pregnancy makes you pretty tired.

Next Friday's ultrasound seems like a thousand years away. How much do I hate the word "viable?" Well, as any mom of premature labor, it's all about getting to "viability." Only in this case, we have to see if the pregnancy is "viable" first before you can even get to "viability." It doesn't seem real at all to me that I am even pregnant. I am tired, and super hormonal, and my breasts are sore, and I have headaches, and I get a little queasy here in there. Got that. But it's already so different from how it was with the twins. I was SO sick with them. I was obnoxiously tired. This time I feel like my uterus is already stretching out. Only, maybe that is a bad sign. Who even knows? I only can talk about this with a few other baby-lost mamas-I can't really tell anyone in real life. I could, but I guess I don't really want to. I am afraid I won't get the reaction I want-and the funny part is, I don't even know what reaction I want!

I feel like I just want this so, so badly. Well, duh. I know we all do. We are all begging. Please, please, please. Let us get pregnant. Let us keep that baby. Let that baby's heart continue to beat. Let them stay inside long enough/don't let them stay inside too long. Let the birth go smoothly. Please, please, please. If only it worked, right? The begging? I wish it worked.

It's Friday night, and it's 6:30, and it's so dark and cold and I am already in my pajamas. Blogging. Reading. Going to bed.

confession.

I'm pregnant.
Probably you guessed since I was all, "blahblahblah-one follicle-blahblah" and then didn't bring it up again.
I, like others, am struggling with blogging about it. I could so, so, definitely use the support-above all, I am terrified-but I don't at all want to hurt anyone out there. We are all going through so much. I know it's a little easier to hear news like this when it's another babyloss mama, but it's still not easy. Especially when there are issues with IF, etc. etc. I never, EVER expected this to work this time. It look so long the last time.
For now, though, I just wanted you that have been wondering to know. I'm a few days past 5 weeks along. Very, very early days. I really shouldn't put this on the internet. I don't know if there's anyone from my real life that has somehow found this (besides one person I know that reads this, hi J!).
I'm very nervous. About everything. Reading these blogs has been SO helpful to me, so amazing, but the one thing it has also done is make me hyper-aware of all of the things that could possible go wrong. So many things.
I am trying so very hard to focus on staying positive. Telling myself that I (we) will be ok. That not every bad thing can happen to me. To not take every thing I read about and apply it to me.
It's hard.
But I'm trying.
I have an u/s to see if there is a heartbeat on 11/20. Until then, I am a complete psycho, watching the toilet paper and hoping that somehow this will be ok. My emotions have been going crazy, I've been going back to reliving a lot of the twins' birth/death. I'm trying to stay on track. Trying to be positive. I promise, I am thinking every positive thought that I can muster up. Please help think them for me.
xxoo

My house

I hate our house.
I come in and I see the stove where I burned my pregnant belly on. I see the drawer where I held all the diaper coupons. Move the basement where I would sit and daydream about trying to navigate the stairs with two babies. I remember getting my brand new laptop computer, taking it downstairs and making silly videos of ourselves as parents.
The upstairs is, by far, the worse. The bed where I would lay each night, reading books about pregnancy and parenting, surfing the net for baby stuff, watching episodes of Gilmore Girls and One Tree Hill to relax at night since I should "take it easy."
The room.
THE room.
That damn room.
That we painted dancing green.
That I sat in a glider, listening to lullabies and reading aloud whatever book I was reading to the babies.

The stove that now I don't even feel like cooking on.
The drawer that has toothpaste coupons.
The basement that is so empty. Void of personal photos. Void.
The bed where my water broke. Where I laid for two weeks, pleading with God. Trying to bargain. Begging him to watch my husband so he could see how good of a dad he would be. The bed where I spent weeks after the babies were born, bleeding, hurting, sore, tired, empty. So, so empty. Surfing the net trying to find someone with whom I could connect.
The room.
That damn room.
That we repainted white (3 coats).
That I won't go in. That closet that is stuffed with maternity clothes and a maternity pillow and random things of the babies that I couldn't part with.

I hate this house.
And no one wants to buy it. No one knows. They don't know how much I want to be out of here. They don't understand the pain I feel when I am here. That it's the one place you're supposed to feel comfortable and I hate it more than anything.

I suppose I can't really run away from it. That the pain is inside of ME not in this place. It's the memories, not the actual rooms and paint and walls that is the problem.

But I want to be gone. I want to go. I want to start over someplace else, hope for a happy us someplace else.

We called the realtor cause we've had no activity lately. He says the only we can do is drop the price. Well, we so would if we could. If we had planned on moving. If we had saved money for that. But we hadn't and we didn't. So we are stuck here. It's quickly approaching winter and soon the market will be slow. Slower than it already is.

One of my friends from school just sold her house.
I am so irrational. All I could think was, She doesn't deserve it! She's only moving because she wants a bigger house! She doesn't NEED it. I NEED it.
First of all, that is so irrational, and I know this.
Second of all, I don't NEED it. I feel like there's a part of me that would be comforted by starting over, by having something to focus on that's a sure thing.
But in life, we don't get what we deserve. People get hurt for no.good.reason. Bad shit happens. And just because it did doesn't mean that I get a free pass in whatever comes next, ya know?