Signs and Symbols

So. I have always been a little envious of other loss mamas who see signs/symbols that either remind them of their little one or perhaps even feel a communication through this sign. Butterflies, ladybugs, dragonflies, etc.
I have desperately wanted to dream of Aiden and Sophie.
I have tried so hard to open my eyes nice and wide to look around to see any possible way that they are in my life (in a symbol/form).
When we came home from the hospital empty handed, it was the beginning of Spring here in the midwest. It seemed as though each time I would go outside, there were two robins in my yard. I kept telling myself it was the twins, watching out for me. I would get so excited when I would see 2. I would scream with glee and call my husband out if they came to sit on the railing of the deck.

But, the thing is, a lot of times there were actually 3, and I just ignored one. I'd look out and convince myself that there were 2, and one had just flown away.

I don't know. I guess I just wanted so bad for it to feel like a sign.

On the other hand, and I know for some people they just don't understand, but I am completely arachnophobic. Not like, I jump if I see one and use the vacuum to suck it up. But-completely frozen in place, can't move, lose control and can't even go close enough to the spider in order to suck it up with the vacuum.

I mean, the definition of a phobia is an irrational fear of something. So, duh, I get it. It's not rational.

But I have always felt like seeing spiders is like impending doom. I feel like they mean something bad is going to happen. In reality-spiders come in when it's going to rain, when the weather changes, etc.

I also have nightmares. It's almost always the same one-in my dream I'm asleep in bed and the spider is hanging from it's web from the ceiling, twirling down toward my face.

Now-and this is funny looking back, in fact I lose myself in giggles when I tell the story in real life-but I actually gave my husband a bloody nose during one of these dreams. In my sleep, I was so scared of the spider, that I grabbed a pillow and swung it from one side of me to the other, and whacked my husband HARD in the nose with my fist. Yikes!

Anyway, yesterday I was sitting on the floor playing with the baby, and a giant (for me-I know there are bigger) spider crawled ACROSS MY HAND. Normal people might be a little grossed out. I screamed and almost dropped A, she started crying because she was scared (which made me feel quite bad) and I went up against the wall. The carpet in my basement is dark and a little long and I need to find that spider!!! I needed it to be dead. I couldn't find it, and Brian was still at work, and I just started crying in hysterics.

I feel like a moron even typing this. I know it must sound so stupid.

But it shakes me up. I wonder to myself---what is coming???

I guess I just feel like the symbolism in my life is negative, and I'm wishing for more positive symbols.

I guess, really, I just keep waiting for that other shoe to drop. I would like to come to some acceptance that A is here to (hopefully) stay. See, I still can't even write it. A is alive. She is here. She is staying. Will it always feel like saying/writing that is some sort of challenge to the Universe-I feel like I am mocking, daring. I just want to believe it. I want to know it.

Where are they now?

Ok, well, after the last post I lost 3 followers (perhaps it was my trashy mouth!?) and got 4 e-mails reminding me that being a conservative does NOT equal being closed-minded. Oops! I re-read it and I suppose you could get that I was insinuating that, but I didn't mean it! I just meant that I am liberal. And I dislike people who are closed minded (although I find them fascinating and a challenge!). Not that I dislike conservative people because they are closed minded. I'm actually conservative in some ways, too, I just find myself agreeing more with the left. That's all! :) Didn't mean to offend.

This week was my "real life" friend Julie's daughter's 1st birthday. In Heaven. :( My husband and I drove to the cemetery to leave her a pumpkin and some balloons and as we were pulling away the balloons randomly came apart and flew off into the sky. I told my friend that her daughter absolutely needed them right that second for her party up there.

I then started to think about some of the stuff that we tell ourselves/say to make us feel better. I mean, what a lovely thought, right? I love thinking about balloons making it to Heaven. I love thinking about all our babies playing together, having cupcakes and wearing party hats and chilling with their great-grandparents.

I'm not really going anywhere with this, I don't think, I just don't know if my "old" self would have thought this-I believed in Heaven, but I guess I didn't think much about what goes on there. I haven't studied the Bible thoroughly to know and I can't find scripture that says explicitly what babies are like in Heaven (i.e. do they get new bodies? they couldn't stay so little/fragile-what about baby embryos that are miscarried?) and my pastor friends agree that they go there, though they don't exactly know what to tell me. I think I remember hearing once that everybody gets a new body there-a perfect, healthy one at the "perfect" age.

So, I believe what I want. That they are happy, and free, and giggling and having birthday parties with their friends and all of my relatives and I'd like to think that maybe they are NOT watching me-I don't want them to see me sad, and perhaps that sad that Avery got to stay and they didn't? (though I do find comfort sometimes when people tell me I have angels watching over me)

But then-I feel like they can't feel sad. I want where they are to be perfect. I think scripture does say whether or not they can watch us on Earth, but again, I've never really studied the Bible or gone too deep into any of it.

Actually, while I say that I want to sincerely apologize right off the bat for offending anyone out there reading this, because I know I sound like a total moron who knows nothing about religion but wants to believe in it. I mean, it's not quite that bad, but I know I probably sound stupid.

Ok, so my point is, what do you all think? Tell me!!!

Faking It

Ok, so.
I love this place. I love this blog. I love this community.
I mean, I know none of us realllllly want to be here, because the ticket in is the worst thing possible. But since we didn't get a choice, we really are lucky.

And I've been thinking lately about how sometimes I think I seriously don't know who I am anymore. I mean, which me am I?

Are you confused yet?

So, I'm not really "out" about my blogging life. I mean, I have a private blog where I post more pictures of A and little things about her life, and I have written about grief there, but it's for my family members and in the beginning when I would start to write about how I really felt, they all thought I was suicidal and were calling to make sure I was still alive. They couldn't handle how dark my thoughts were then.

So I found this. I found here. And I could write possibly the darkest thoughts ever, and people would say, "Hey. Been there. You're not crazy." and most of the time, that's really all we want to hear, right?

So that's how it's been. I blog here for what I really need, and I "blog" there for my family to see a little of what grief is like and some more pictures of A.

Until I started adding a bunch of BLMs to facebook. My mom called and said, "Who is that girl named Brianne that posts on your wall all the time? She seems so nice! Her baby is so cute! How do you know her?"

And I was all...um.....uh.....well, you see.

I seriously imagine that's what it felt like back in the day when it was NOT cool to go online to try to find dates! Ya know, when everyone on the internet was a creepy stalker and really a 60 year old 500 pound man child molester sitting on the computer smoking and eating microwave burritos.

I didn't want to lie. BUT I didn't really want to say, um, well, I met her on the internet? I don't exactly know why-mostly because my mom is kind of old (hehe) and she'd be like, what? who?

And seriously, does she stalk my facebook or what, my mom? I mean, geez!

So I don't even remember what I said. Something like, "Oh, she's my friend from California. You don't know ALL my friends, mother!"

Then I won an AMAZING piece of art from the talented Franchesca at Small Bird Studio. I didn't really want to post a picture of it on here because it is of my last name. Although, I'm not really sure I can even pretend that I'm anonymous on here anymore, anyway. But people are instantly drawn to it and always ask me where I got it.

Why can't I just lie, again? So I say, "Um, well, I won it in this blog contest and well, ya know, and the artist, she uh, she lost a baby, too, and um."

I'm a freak. I've been "out" with my husband since the beginning. I think he never thought it was strange (or at least never told me) because he was so glad that something helped me, he saw how excited I was when I get blog comments and so he wasn't going to question anything. And even this year when I found out we were going to California next summer and suggested maybe meeting one of my BLM friends, he thought that was a great idea! But my mom, my friends, I think-they will think I'm nuts.

So that's one part. Then there's the part of how I'm not sure I feel like I'm being entirely real on here, either! I mean, don't get me wrong-my feelings are real. I'm not exaggerating; I'm not sugar coating. But there is a lot more to me! I'm funny! I laugh a lot! I have interests!

And you guys....I swear! A lot! I have a problem! I walk around my house saying "Bitches and hos!" for NO REASON. There are no bitches and hos here. But I like to say it. I enjoy the word douche.bag ( I think it can be adapted to many situations).

I'm obsessed with the Gilmore Girls. I want to move to Stars Hollow. (It doesn't actually exist-I know this). I'm a sucker for Lifetime Movies. I wanted to be one of the "Friends".

I watch CNN all the time-I love politics and I'm super liberal and get really mad when people are not open-minded.

And I watch Dexter and True Blood! How opposite from the Gilmore Girls! I listen to Eminem AND Phantom of the Opera AND Michael Jackson. I love to scrapbook. I love to read. I love to go to the movies. I love to drive as fast as I can with the music as loud as I can. I'm constantly getting yelled at by my husband because I forget to turn the music down before I turn the radio off and it blasts him when he drives next.

I LOVE to clean. I get totally nuts when there is any sort of clutter at all. A great day for me is re-organizing drawers and closets.

I'm a good teacher. I am on every committee there is. I love the kids.

Bitches and hos! I like to end sentences with a random word. Like a comma, yo. "It's so nice out, yo!" or comma, bitches. "That was such a good movie, bitches!"

I had a verbally/emotionally abusive father. My sister is really my half-sister, which we didn't know until we were 25 and 32. She's cold and stand-offish because my dad was a (get ready for it) total douchebag. I"m oversensitive and cry too much for the same reason.

I don't know.
I don't know why I just typed all of that. But it felt good! I'm both of these people, but I feel like I'm separate. I'm not just. I don't spend all my time grieving.

But I don't swear on here. And I don't tell anyone else my "real" feelings.

I think it's ok. It's ok, right?

Support Needed

I was hoping for some extra prayers/support for some blogs I follow.

One of Sonja's quads, Liam, who is a 28 weeker was just hospitalized with RSV. She's hoping he recovers quickly and that his 3 siblings don't have it as well!

Rebecca has a close friend (Tiffany) who has been there for her through the loss of her baby. Now, her friend's son suddenly died at 4.5 months old-so, so horrible. THEN, and this just makes me sick to my stomach, someone left a horribly cruel comment on Tiffany's blog, so she had to make it private. People seriously just sicken me. At any rate, you can leave support on Rebecca's blog.

I posted to the LFCA, but in case you don't read that, I thought I'd ask to send you there as well.

Escape

Things have been going overall pretty well around here! My maternity leave is going by so quickly-but I can't complain because I got so much extra seeing as how I'm a teacher and Avery was born in the summer. We took some pictures on Sunday since she turned THREE MONTHS old!!!

Otherwise, we have been staying busy. I've been having some crabby, hormonal issues with going back on bcp and menstruating and all that fabulous fun so I've been a little tense, and quite honestly, sometimes a little depressed. But nothing I can't shake off with a smile from the little one or a nice talk (cry) with the husband.

There is one thing, though, that I can't escape. It's that damn ptsd. I've seen a psychologist for it, as it was the absolute worst during weeks 21-28 in my pregnancy. I did everything I could to change the bedroom at my old house-painted, turned the bed, got all new sheets and bedding, threw away the clock that was on the wall-everything that triggered that moment when my water broke.

But now, I live in a new house, and the stress of the pregnancy is gone, and still sometimes I fall into bed at night, turn over onto my side, and I can hear the pop. I have to stop, and tell myself-this isn't happening. It's over. It's the past. But to some extent the damage is done, and the events start to replay in my mind...the drive to the hospital, that nurse, "Please note that half of the stomach is soft, half is hard."

I can replay the whole thing, event for event. My time on bedrest is sort of blocked out until 2 weeks later when I wake up in labor.

I'm thinking it's time to go and talk to someone about this again, but honestly, for me-it just hasn't helped much. Maybe I just need more? But I talk a lot about it with my husband and certain friends, and write about it here, and honestly, getting to know someone new and paying all that money-I'm not sure it's worth it unless I'm pretty sure it'll make something better.

Could it be the cliche that I just need more time? I'm not sure.

I hope all is well. Sending thoughts up to my friends who are still fighting like mad to get/keep those rainbows. Love to you all. xoxo

Still?

So, starting when I lost the twins I became extremely...how to put it...distracted, I guess? For the longest time, I couldn't even read a book. Books are my FAVORITE things! I used to read at least a book a week-anything and everything. But I lost my concentration. It became super hard for me to pay attention to anything-basically I could randomly surf the internet and sleep, and that was about all I could accomplish in those first few awful months.
When I went back to work last fall, I felt so different than before. So distracted! I know most of it my students didn't pick up on-but I also had way less patience. I blamed it on leftover grief, ttc, and later my very stressful, risky pregnancy. I had so much anxiety that my mind was somewhere else. I let SO many things drop at school-things I loved to do, committees I was on, extra-curriculars I loved to do with the kids. I put off doing my work and would just surf stupid websites during my prep time. I didn't design anything new (yawn! how boring!) But I didn't figure it'd last.
But, here I am, and I have my darling baby and the stress of pregnancy is gone, and there's no TTC in my near future, and I'm even off work, and I'm still SO distracted. My husband, who teaches in the same school district in which I work, will come home and want to vent, or bounce ideas off of me (we both teach the same subject, so my program feeds into his) and I can't even listen to him. He gets so annoyed with me because he thinks I just want to do something else-but I really just can't do it! I can't focus-I lose concentration-I feel....well, sometimes I feel dumb. Dumb because a lot of times I don't even "get" what he's talking about because it doesn't...I don't know, register or something. And I know so much about what he's speaking and I used to feel so much passion for it!
Does that make sense? I just still feel so weird and I'm wondering if I should mention it to my doctor? Do you all still have this? Is it just me? Will it eventually go away?
I have made a decision to only use the internet when A is napping. I am SO bad about it. Sometimes, while I'm feeding her, I'll open the lid of the dumb lap top and just click aimlessly. Why? No clue. Because I can't sit still! Because I get "bored" feeding the baby? WTH? So I had to put the laptop in the other room. But my brain constantly is looking for something to do. A distraction. Something I can "click."
Ugh. Advice?