Avoiding Social Media

 I'm not obsessed with social media but I enjoy getting online and catching up on what is going on in the lives of people I've crossed paths with. I think part of it makes me feel like a normal, social person. And, when people share news, I really appreciate that a bit of their joy sneaks into my day and leaves a small but lasting impression. When we lost Landon and I entered the few hours of peace and strength that I would experience, I shared a brief update with Faceboon not because I felt obligated it wanted to hear from people but because I had been so happy to share my joy with all of those people during my few months, and I knew inevitably people would notice, and wonder, and some would be brave enough to ask. And that was siny a conversation I knew I wouldn't want to have later. 

I nannied until just after I became pregnant and the mother of the girls was pregnant with her third. I knew previously that The day Landon was born was the day that she would be induced. Obviously this wasn't on my mind in the hospital, but sure enough the next morning the annoumcemt came through via text before we were even discharged. And of course, there were a million "reply alka".  Mike watched, waiting for me to fall apart, but I surprised us both. It truly didn't bother me. I knew then that I wouldn't be the person that shrinks away from all things baby and pregnancy related because of my grief. I knew I had that kind of strength and, 99% of the time, that has been the case. 

Now, though, I am noticing that I have shrunk away from social media. Today is Thanksgiving and while I usually take a lot of pictures to share and spend time looking at everyone else's, though I had no intention of avoiding social media, I did. This didn't occur to me until I laid down and started playing on my phone to get my eyes tired. I saw more than one holiday pregnancy announcement and I was overjoyed as always. However, my heart sank a little with every family photo. I realized that because this is a family holiday, social media no longer served a purpose other than making me realize for the first time that all of my friends have children, that everyone my husband works with (for the most oart) has children, and that we are, quite frankly, falling behind. There are going to be peoe that see this and tell me "it all comes in time" and "you can do things on your own schedule" and to those people I say- "I know"!! And for the most part I agree. But really, we haven't done shit on our schedule. We started trying to get pregnant in December of 2010. We were pregnant in May 2014. And yet here we goddamn stand, Thanksgiving 2014,Christmas around the corner, no baby and no kicks. And no matter how optimistic I am I accept on some occasions that it just ain't happening. We don't get pregnant on our time. We don't have babies after we get pregnant on our time.  And while I whole-heartedly agree that everything happens for a reason and one day I will hold my sweet baby in my arms, quite frankly, that doesn't fix my fucking empty womb or my cold and empty arms. I am thankful, I am blessed, but I am a mother with no child and some days, I just say screw it all!  I will crawl into my shell and have a pity party. And on the rest of the days I will have to do lists and homework and dinner to cook and I will tell myself that I'm not avoiding anything, that I am just too busy and fulfilled for social media or group texts or big announcements and I will go abouty merry little way. 

Change of seasons.

Including my last couple of posts, I have been having a hard time. For about a week I was really having to fight to pull myself up out of a slump of depression. I did well to keep busy but I even shared with Mike the other day that there have been a handful of moments every day where I am nearly brought to my knees. It took me a bit to realize that these moments typically correlate with liking at myself in the mirror. Be it when I'm getting ready for the day or as I pass it on my way in or out of the bedroom. I should be, as I like to say, heavily pregnant by now. I should be "out to here" with baby. But it's just flat flabby gut now. I have figured out that the struggle is because of the sudden "extreme" winter weather. This is absolutely my favorite time of year. When I was pregnant I thought many times that if you had told me at Christmas I would be ready to pop the next time we celebrated the holiday, I would never have believed it. I guess because it wouldn't be true! But I looked forward so much to being pregnant through the holidays. Copious amounts of food and close family gatherings and all of us knowing that next year we would be celebrating our child's first holiday season. This was supposed to be our last season just the two of us and now we not know if that will be true or not. So now I'm doing all of these things and going through the motions knowing that a part of the season isn't here. It's hard because I have always felt the magic of Christmas and the holiday season down to my bones. Now, while I do feel some excitement, that magic is gone for the first time. I'm just so damn empty sometimes. We were so close, ya'll. We had our family and our dream come true and now it's all gone. And the worst part of thinking about trying again is the tense back-and-forth between optimism that now we know I can become pregnant and the reminder that it took three years and a round of Clomid after one failed IUI for that to become a true statement. And that doesn't even begin to open the can of worms that will be pregnancy after loss should we ever get to that point. It's easy for me to think of the logistics of pregnancy but when I start to think of myself, it's just a complete disaster. 

So I am up while Mike sleeps waiting to see if it's going to snow just a little before I go to sleep. Wish my luck that a little snowflake lands on the ground and gives me a little bit of the magic back. 

All the feelings.

My baby boy has been on my mind all day. I really could have sat all day and cried in my bed. But I didn't, and I'm proud of that. But I have been reliving little moments and feelings in my head. Until I lost a child, a part of me, I have never felt so much emotion when remembering. Every feeling is just as strong as it was when it happened, in real life. Which is a pretty strong reminder that this is my real life. This isn't some fantasy I had where I finally fell pregnant and then tragically lost it. This isn't a nightmare. This is real life. And they are real feelings. 

I remember how I felt when I saw this shirt hanging in Motherhood Maternity. Mom to be, 2014. That was me! It felt so good to wear this shirt. And then I remember coming home from the hospital and knowing there was a hamper full recently-worn maternity clothes. My mom and dad were at the house with us- they wanted to be with us and help us. A few years ago I had ankle surgery and they came to take care of me. Bed-ridden, I hated asking for help. I did all that I could then. But August 20th, when my mom asked what she could do for me, I asked her to do my laundry. And she started sorting it there in my living room, and shook out this shirt and I told her "that is why I wanted you to do the laundry". I hate the pain that flashed across her eyes when she realized se was washing maternity clothes that were no longer appropriate for my empty body to wear any more. Or maybe it was more the pain she knew those clothes would bring me when they so recently brought such joy. I would find that shirt and some other clothes folded up in Mike's man cave weeks later. She knew I would find them when the time was right and I could handle it. Mothers know these things. 

I remembered today, too, the feeling I had the very moment I realized my water had broken. When it was no longer an embarrassing accident but now a cause for concern. I saw the pink blood in the puddle on the floor. I calmly dressed. I waited for Mike to say I should call the nurse's line. It was a cold morning for August in Texas. 

I relive the way it felt when I laid in that bed in the hospital, holding my husband's hand and knowing our sweet baby boy laid sleeping on the sheet beneath my waist. The cord hadn't been cut. We were together, the three of us, physically for the first and last time. We all were one. That's my favorite moment and the one that I hated leaving the most. Some days I still long to be in that bed with the two loves of my life. But here I am, nearing three months without him, crying in my bed and blogging about how I lost my baby. 

And there's not really anything to say that follows that, is there? 

A Thank You

I am sitting in the man-cave, which now houses the glider that was once in the nursery in an attempt to spread the items out enough that we can move on without letting go. I've just rocked this sweet boy to sleep and it occurred to me that I need to say a special thank you. 

Early last year we had dinner with our best friends. When Mike went to use the restroom, he saw the strategically placed positive pregnancy test on the counter. After becoming sure I wasn't upset (the jumping up and down cleared that up quickly) they told us that this baby was all of ours. Months later, we recieved orders to move to Texas, and they were to stay in San Diego. We were happy to be getting closer to one family but distressed about leaving another. The year has been a rough one but our friends welcomed this joy and we welcomed ours in a different way. When we lost Landon, we flew back to San Diego to find comfort in our family there.   There was a little concern that this little man would be salt in the wound and while, yes, I cried watching my sweet husband feed him and snuggle him, knowing he would never feed or snuggle our Landin, I was overjoyed to feel such love for this little kid. And while I may have teared up a few times, having this baby, all of our baby, in the walls of this house as well as our hearts has been an experience like no other. So my thank you is to my best friend. I know you worry about the pain you know is there, but you will never understand how great of a gift you have given me. You have given me a love so strong that it makes me long for the love I am experiencing in a different way with my own son. I love yours so much that somehow I understand that the painful way that I love my own is a beautiful, perfect love. 

Thanks for having sex and making this cutie. And thanks for sharing him!