Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month - October

We don't have to remember our babies,

We will never forget. 

One thing positive that has come from my losses is the wonderful support I have gotten, not only from friends and family (even those who I rarely spoke with beforehand), but from an awesome group of ladies that I have come to know and hold dear to my heart.  We've never met outside of the Internet, but they are my family now, as we share a bond that not many can understand....we are mommies to sweet angel babies.  It's not a group anyone would chose to belong to, but it sure is helpful and inspiring to know these women and they have become my greatest support.  We can talk about anything and everything for weeks, months, even years, and we understand each other's pain.  We know that months down the road, we are still healing, physically and emotionally.  We all know the pain is still there no matter how long ago the experience.  We all know that there are days that seem better... and days where you somehow relate a car insurance commercial to the loss of your little one and fall to pieces.  I could not be happier that I found the wonderful group of women that I have to go through the journey with, but at the same time, it is really sad that broken women, women who are hurting and struggling to make sense of things, women who are grieving, women who are trying to get their bodies medically back on track....are the ones who have to band together to support each other; to give themselves when they need giving.  This subject needs to become much more talked about and out in the open.  The loss of a baby is just as hard, if not more difficult, than the loss of a parent or friend, in that we have to go through the physical healing.  We have to go from being with, growing, and loving our children 200%, counting down the days until our face-to-face meeting, dreaming of our lives to come, which have changed forever with this little blessing - to being empty, hollow, heartbroken, overwhelmed, grief-stricken, and struggling to find a way to accept that which we cannot change.  The constant reminders, the worry, the fact that there usually are no answers, the fact that OUR bodies did this somehow...it's a long road.  We need the support that anyone else is afforded from the death of a loved one.  We want to talk about our babies and know our babies were cared for and loved by not just us, but by everyone.  They were real, precious angels.  

Here one day and gone the next? How is that possible?

07/05/2011 

Well, how could I sleep at a time like this?  I can't, so here I am trying to clear my head so that maybe my racing thoughts will settle down enough for me to get a little sleep before I have to be at the hospital.  I was so exhausted I got about an hour, I guess, but then I woke up and the world hit me smack in the face.  I am so lost, so scared, so pissed, hurt, confused....I just don't know what I feel, or what TO feel.  I feel the wall going up because if I let these emotions overtake me, I will have a breakdown.  I cannot believe this is happening to me again.  Everything looked so good, and then this!?!  I just heard the heartbeat 2 days ago before I went to bed, and now I find out that sometime between then and now, the heartbeat stopped?  I've literally spent three months, exhausted, nauseous, and throwing up, rarely leaving my bed or the house, just hoping to make it through each day...and this is the payoff?  I have given up my hot baths, haven't lifted anything, I've taken my vitamins, ate as healthy as I could through gagging and nausea (and managed to lose 5 pounds), and did everything humanly possible to have a good outcome...I always do.  I don't drink, smoke, or take medicine of any kind, other than the prenatal vitamins and other vitamins I have taken for the last 3 years in my quest to have a baby.   

My kids have basically fended for themselves because I've been too sick to function, half of their summer is gone, and all for nothing...AGAIN???  I missed most of my son's first year of t-ball, including going to the second to last game of the All Stars play-offs, because I have been so sick and can't go outside in the heat.  Then there is Hayley who has to learn at such a young age what suffering and grief is?  Beyond all else, it kills me that she is so hurt by it and that I can't take that hurt away.  She is the most awesome, caring, and kind daughter a mother could ask for, so why does she have to keep suffering...and on her birthday TWO years in a row???  365 days in a year, and it has to happen NOW???  REALLY???  At least I pushed the doctor to check me before Hayley's birthday "gender viewing" next week.  I really didn't believe anything would be wrong, but then, maybe subconciously, I did?  At least with my history of bad luck and always being in that 1% category (yes, again there was a 1% chance of a loss this far, and a 1% chance of a missed miscarriage, and a 2% chance of having three in a row...lucky me), I always have my blinders on my emotions.  Of course, I was attached and loved this baby to no end, I could not wait until New Year's, but I never let go of the what if's, and never would have until he/she was safely in my arms.  It's the way my mind and body have learned to function after all the BS that seems to keep happening to me.  Better to be prepared than blindsided, I guess.  

I have to somehow prepare myself for the pain and stress of labor, but the ultimate goal is no longer to push for the baby I've been longing to hold for over three years, now it is to deliver a stillborn...medically speaking....a miscarriage.  How do you do that?  How can I accept this?  Why is this happening?  Hopefully, as of tonight, it will be over, since that is the only outcome I am allowed...I just hope it goes fast.  Will I have at least a little luck and be able to tolerate some sort of pain medication to help me through, seeing as I am hypersensitive to practically everything?  I have to somehow figure out how to respond or what to do.  Do I look at the baby?  Can I live with myself if I don't?  Will it haunt me forever if I do?  Could I find a memorial photographer that would help me on such a short notice and would take pictues of a baby the size of a "large naval orange?"  I know my doctor will be emotionally removed from the situation and would not recommend any of it, but I really don't give a rat's ass because this is MY life and MY baby, AND had I listened to her, I may have gone weeks without knowing my baby had died.  Anyway, I am practically ghost writing at this point.  I don't even know if I should post this, but then, maybe I will.  I feel better just getting it off my chest and maybe can get an hour or so of sleep now.  Thank you all for the support and I'm sorry if my words seem harsh or insensitive...they are just me and how I feel.  I have no one to talk to right now, and I can't talk without crying anyway, so here it is. I don't want pity, just understanding.  I love you all very much, even if I don't say it often.  I'm really a big softie, I just have a really hard, protective, outer shell.  This is killing me.