Some pictures :)

One of my best friends in the whole world sent me this bracelet for mother's day:  It is SO beautiful.  I wear it every day.  It makes me feel closer to my babies and reminds me that I AM a mother, no matter what :)

Also, here are the beautiful keepsake urns that the funeral home gave us.  The blue one is Aiden, the pink is Sophie.  We decided to keep them in their memory box.

And, one last picture of Mr. Louis, my other baby (fur baby, perhaps?)  He kinda looks like a muppet monster :)

Almost a Mother

Today I went to see my mom and her husband, and my sister and nephew.  We were out shopping and we were checking out.  I had asked my mom to buy something and split it and then right before she paid for her stuff, I slipped it in her pile, trying to be sneaky (this is a common joke-me trying to get her to pay for stuff for me :).  Anyway, the checkout clerk thought this was funny, and he said sarcastically, "Happy Mother's Day" referring/joking about the fact that it is Mother's Day, but my mom was buying ME something.

Anyway, I laughed and my nephew, who is 6, says out loud:

"Well, Aunt Christy was almost a mother."

I wanted to die.  Crawl in a hole.  I wanted to scream.  He is 6, I kept saying to myself.  He has no idea. He is 6.  You can't yell at him.  What would I yell?  Why would I yell?  I hate this anger.

I quietly walked out and sat in the cry and began to cry.  He looked at me a couple of times and I could tell he was confused.  He's 6, He's 6, He's 6.  He's just a kid.

The fact of the matter is-I need to learn to deal with this.  I need to learn that people are going to say things that are going to hurt, to sting, to make me feel empty to my core.

The thing is-THE THING IS!  I AM A MOTHER.

Yes, it is different.  Yes, I should have my babies here on Earth, but I don't.  But it doesn't change the fact that I am a mother to two babies.  And I'm not crazy, I know that my nephew has no idea, and I'm not even insinuating that anyone would think otherwise.  It's that I need to say this, write this, think this, because it is hard for me to believe, to really, truly believe.

I am a mother.  I will always be a mother.  I am.  I am.

Getting out of bed

is not so appealing when you're getting up so you can go pick up your babies ashes from the funeral home.

:(

UGH

I spent the whole morning emailing back and forth with one of our friends from France, trying to find a decent, super cheap, hotel in Paris (ha!).  I was really having a good time-researching, asking, figuring.

Then the phone rang.

SNAP back into reality.

It was the funeral home saying that that ashes of my babies are ready to be picked up.

Now I'm numb.  The phone has rung twice since and I haven't even looked to see who it is.  

I am so sad.

I'm a list person

I am a list person.  At work I have separate to-do lists:  one for home, one for school, one for French club, and one for the committee I facilitate.  It makes me feel good to scratch off something that I've completed.  When I found out I was pregnant, I had lists everywhere.  Things to do before the first trimester's over.  Things to do once we found out the genders.  Things to do before we go to the hospital.  Obviously, I never got to finish all those lists.  My personality does not respond well to this-I hate leaving a list with things not checked off.  I found one of these lists today.  It was pretty straightforward:  get carseats installed, learn how to swaddle (this always has really confused me), pack hospital bag, write down important numbers to call, etc.  A part of me wanted to save this list and use it for the "next time."

Brian had a colleague from across the state call tonight and after she said she was "sorry" she asked, "So, will you have other kids?"

Um, excuse me?  Not even my VERY best, closest friends have asked me such a blunt question.  And really, would you assume that we've even decided that?  I mean, we know we want a family.  Oh my, do we ever want a family.  So bad that it literally aches.  But I just gave birth 3 weeks ago.  I'm still bleeding.  We are reeling from the grief that hit us out of nowhere.  So, to answer that question, I guess I'd say, "I hope so."

I was talking to a very good friend of mine today about how I had an instinct throughout my whole pregnancy that something was going to go wrong.  Clearly, I didn't foresee my babies dying.  But the entire time, I was nervous.  Too nervous.  Things went wrong, warning signs, that I brought up and was reassured that they were normal.  But I had a feeling deep down.  Even when I was just barely pregnant.  Each time I went to the doctor to hear a heartbeat.  Each ultrasound.  Every single time I used the bathroom I checked the toilet paper.  Never once in 24 weeks was there blood on the toilet paper.  I continued to check.

A week before my water broke, I passed my mucous plug.  I called the doctor.  They said they weren't too concerned, discharge changes and gets thicker, but well, I should probably put the number to labor and delivery in my cell phone.  

I went home and cried all night.  Even then, I knew something was wrong.

When my water broke, I knew it was over.  I prayed the whole 2 weeks I was on bedrest, I thought all positive thoughts, I visualized putting babies in cribs in nurseries.  No matter what I did, no matter what anyone said, there was a nagging way, deep down.  It reminded me of what I had known since the beginning.  That the pressure I felt wasn't "round ligament stretching."  That the pressure I felt like the baby was down low wasn't normal.

My friend tonight told me that her biggest dream for me is that the "next time" I will know from the beginning that things will be perfect.  That I can spend every minute of that pregnancy knowing that I will have a living baby at the end of it.

So, being the list person that I am, I am going to make one right now.  This is a list of affirmations that I will look at and dream of and hope fore.  It is a list of what I hope for my life.  It is a short list; compiled of only one item.

1.  I will conceive and carry a baby to full term that I can love for the rest of my life.

Distractions...

I know that you can't run away from grief.  There's no escaping it.  But I also know that sometimes I just need to distract myself from it!

I've had a pretty good weekend, overall.  I'm crying less and less and each day brings a little more hope.  Brian's mom had a rummage sale this weekend and it was good to be out of the house and be around people.  We had an amazing talk with Brian's aunt.  Each time I really talk things out, it makes me feel a little sense of peace.  Mostly the only problem was that there were some really, really pregnant people that came.  This just makes me sad because Brian and I had all sorts of plans to hit rummage sales this spring to find baby stuff.  I know that we will do this someday, and that helps.

Also, we have found a new, quite random distraction.  We have been going to the casino!  :)  Don't worry, we make a really low spending limit and we only pay penny slots :)  It's just the excitement and all the people who don't know anything about us, and the fact that we're getting out of town and no one knows we were there.  We don't spend any more money than we would going to the movies, and if we started to, we'd stop (for those of you that really know my husband and his view on finances, you know this is so true).  We only play side by side, we hold hands, we people watch, we drink free diet coke :)

The distraction that I'm really hoping to gain is getting healthy.  I know this seems twisted, but since this all happened, I sort of felt like I wanted to punish my body. After 6 months of only drinking water, and eating healthy, and resting, I wanted to rebel against the body that let me down.  I just wanted diet coke and didn't want to take my vitamins and wanted to eat horrible junk food.  This is not that surprising, since I'm an emotional eater as it is.  But as I come out of this haze, I realize this is not the way to do it.  I need to take care of me in order to 1) help with grieving and 2) be ready to conceive again physically once we are ready emotionally.  Maybe I'll try to keep this updated with my progress to keep some accountability.  Hmmmm.

Love you all!

I promise I don't really hate..

It recently occurred to me that a lot of you might still be reading this.  I want to tell you that 1) I love all of you  2) I don't really hate anyone and 3) you can totally comment on any posts I make or even ask me questions-I'm totally willing to answer them!

  I hate feeling this bitterness/jealousy that I do towards people but it's awfully short term, like a ping, and then it's gone.  I can still smile when I see a new baby or a pregnant person, and while it makes me feel so much pain as well for what I've lost, I don't wish this sadness on anyone!

Today I read my school email and there was an invitation to a baby shower-the one that my name should have been one.  It was so surreal to read it-like, where's my name?  Of course, they can't just not have the baby shower for the other people just because I don't get to have it!

The other thing that I'm afraid of is that my friends are going to be afraid to tell me good news, i.e. they are pregnant.  Of course, this is hard to hear.  But in NO WAY because I am not happy for you.  Of course I am!!!!!  I just am still sad for myself.  A good way to do this might be in an email, perhaps, so I can cry tears of happiness and sadness and then pull myself together to congratulate you :)

While I was in the hospital someone said to me, "Oh, honey, you're young.  There will be other pregnancies."

I know this was meant with kindness, but it tore me up.  I wanted this pregnancy.  I simply know that this was not God's plan for me-and while I don't have to like it, I have to accept it.  I need to focus on figuring out how that can make me stronger, give me purpose, figure out how I can use it to make our life better and stronger.  I have two angels up in Heaven that are looking down on us and are anxious to give us a little brother or sister someday.  I have an AMAZING husband and wonderful friends, a great job, a beautiful house, an adorable puppy and lots and lots and lots of things to be thankful for.  There is NO reason why this happened to me-there's person that deserves this.  However, it did happen, and we are going to power through. We're going to use this to give our lives purpose.  We are going to live for our tiny sweet little babies.