Closing A Chapter And Moving On To The Next

I have all but abandoned this blog, which makes me sad because it has been such a great way of tracking the milestones in our family and staying in touch with friends. I did go back and add pictures of our summer for my future blog book. I just haven't known what to say in a long time.  It felt dishonest to just keep cataloging the pictures and say nothing of what has been going on in my head.  I wasn't sure I wanted to share or that it was even apropriate to do so on a public forum but I have decided that the experience has been too isolating and that maybe there are other people out there who can relate to what I've been through and who would like to know that they are not alone in their experience.  I've also felt incredibly guilty at the enormity of my grief when I am so keenly aware of the struggles those around me are experiencing on their journey through the thorny path.  I feel guitly that the last few months have been so hard when I know so many people going through things that sound harder. It feels wrong to be so upset by infertility and the pain it causes because I have already been blessed by two miracles.  I may regret this post and remove it.  I don't know.

I was taking fertility treatments, maintaining a very strict gluten free diet and trying all sorts of things in order to have a baby. I knew my chances weren't great and I thought I knew what I was facing if it didn't work out in the end.  I think I had almost convinced myself that my fertility issues weren't that big a deal and that I had dramatized them in my head. I didn't want to feel like I gave up when I feel so driven to bring another child into our family.  The adoption route was not working out and birth seemed like the easiest option.

When discussing the idea of when the soul enters the body with friends recently, one of them mentioned that some of the stem cell researchers she knows believe that at 18 days gestation there is a presence that can't be denied and they won't touch them after that.  I definitely believe that the soul enters the body fairly early on but I can't decide if the idea of the soul entering that early is a beautiful thought or completely horrifying in every way.  The idea of that many children waiting for me on the other side is crushing and comforting at the same time.

You would think that after so many miscarriages I would pretty much know the drill.  I would have thought that they would all begin to feel the same.  It isn't true. This late stage miscarriage and the agonizing weeks leading up to it threatened to push me off a cliff I had only peered over before.  The deep chasm of grief that comes from losing a child is something that I still have only hung onto the edge of.  I have spent a lot of time thinking about the people around me and their experiences. This loss was so tangible and potent that it really knocked me down.  It was a before and after event.  Like I blew a hole in everything I knew before.  My life feels like it will always be categorized into before and after.

I know what it feels like to be angry that the sun still comes up and that people still resume their normal day to day.  The world can't stop for everyone's grief or it would never turn again. I feel ungrateful for even wishing it would stop for a moment because I have a great life.

Time has a way of dulling pain and it has definitely healed many of my previous wounds but this one has left a scar that my life will have to grow around.  It already has begun to grow around it, which I guess is itself a kind of healing. Will I ever be the same?  Probably not, but I'm learning that is okay.

For the first few months I felt like parts of myself had come untethered.  Like I needed to run around and strap all the bits of my heart back down.  The moments in which I felt truly like myself were few and far between and I began tracking them.  Watching the expression on my kids faces at Mary Poppins.  Doing a puzzle with New Fish. Playing in the pool with my girls and nephew.  Now I am starting to feel more like myself.  Spending time drawing and painting with the girls, practicing piano and reading with Red Fish and trying to keep up with New Fish's new OBSESSION with learning to read.  I doubt they even realized what a disruption to our normal rhythm occurred this summer.  We had a very relaxed summer and that was probably good for all of us.  My greatest calling in life is definitely to be the mother of these two special little spirits.  I never stop thinking that.  Other areas of my life have been chaos but the mothering just continues every moment of every day.  I love that.

This week has reached a final climax.  We've been reliving 2007 around here. My Dad had another broken femur in a foreign country and had to be taken by air ambulance for surgery.  My grandmother had another fall and ended up in an ER again.  I lost babies.  And this time instead of my Mom having a hysterectomy (I guess she couldn't really do that again) I had one.  There is a kind of peace that comes with that in knowing that a chapter has closed and I need/get to move on.  I have spent the last week sleeping and feel like I could use another week of sleep.

There is a part of me that thinks that if we are going relive all of the nasty parts of 2007 can't we get a baby at the end of it like last time? 

Dr. Red Fish checking up on me.  She asked the surgeon for pictures of my organs and studied them afterwards.  She is our little scientist for sure.