I am numb. This week has undoubtably been one of the worst I have had to endure. It ends in grief and shock. In the midst of my own grief, I cannot even attempt to comprehend the murders in Newtown.
I spent part of yesterday in the clinic with a friend. I couldn't cry and in all honesty, I really couldn't even speak of the horror that was unfolding on the television sets and my cell phone that the world was witnessing with us. I immediately am taking back to my college years, the ones I spent most of working towards being a teacher. I had wanted to teach for years....until I was sick one morning and witnessed the horror on the news that is the Columbine tragedy. I spent countess hours, weeks, and months struggling with it and it ultimately led to my decision of dropping my teaching degree and working toward other achievements.
I finally am able to weep. It was the same line I have heard several times in my life that hit me in the gut of my soul. "Emergency rooms were ready and waiting for the victims. We had all of our resources awaiting....and noone came."
I am not going to get into gun control and mental healthcare at this moment...that is another blog for another day. Today I am grieving. I am grieving for my lost children. I am grieving for my lost family members and friends. I am grieving for two of my best friends, who are at the moment, fighting for their lives. I am grieving for the 27 families....even the shooter's. Their joy...their lives...their souls are forever wounded with a huge hole that will never be healed.
Two of my best friends are fighting with terminal health issues...something I know way too much about since I was diagnosed with PCOS and then later Ovarian Cancer. It is something I have not been able to talk about. I just do what I have to in order to survive. But I would do anything to take these life-threatening health issues away from them. I cannot imagine my life without them. The are my rocks and my strength...they are why I am here today. I am numb and exhausted...and frustrated. I am grieving silently because one is wanting to preplan her funeral after the holidays. So her loved ones don't have to do it when she is gone. I believe everyone should do that, but it makes everything that much more real. Her disease is incurable but can be treated to prolong her life...
Today, I am going to offer her my support as she does that next month. I am going to wail and weep in silence over the next few weeks so I can attempt to be her rock. I am pushing her to go to the best clinic in the world to get the best treatment. I want her here as long as I can keep her here...and I am willing to push as much as I can to make that happen. My heart is broken and my soul devastated. I have to be the strength she needs to move forward with decisions to protect her and her family in the time of grief. I have to be honest when she asks me questions about wills, living wills, power of attorneys, and funerals. I have to do it with hope, even though I am well aware of her prognosis and even with organ transplants that her life will most likely be cut short. I have to hold her hand and put my arms around her to comfort her. She is terrified and frustrated. She is sick and in pain. She is very much needing support that she is really not receiving from others. I have to compartmentalize and do my best to make sure she is very much loved and knows it despite that I am grieving.
My other friend...I still am unable to talk about him and his health issues. I am heartbroken and maybe soon I can actually speak what I need to in order to get it out.
But today, my heart and my thoughts are for my friends and for those in Newton. Those precious children and families. That grief-stricken community. I just can't begin to really process it.
Sunday, December 16, 2012
Monday, December 10, 2012
11 years
I spent most of the day trying to deal with other things that needed my attention. That couldn't wait another day. But in the back of my mind and overflowing in my heart, I ached you, my precious angel baby M. In my limited spare time, I cried. In my appointments, I was transported back to December 10, 2001. Alone. Scared. Tremendous pain, first physical, then emotional. The roller coaster ride of emotions that seemed to have left me paralyzed with joy, fear, pain, and grief a matter of minutes.
I wonder what you would be like...a boy or girl? Who would you look like...me or my ex-husband? I wonder what your personality would be like and what hobbies you would enjoy. I wonder if you would be starting the pre-teen attitude. I ache to tell you how much I love you. I ache to hold you in my arms. Would you love me as much as I loved my mother....
Sadness overwhelms me. At age 11, I was motherless. My mother (and father) wanted me so badly....but I only had her on this Earth 10 years of my life. All I knew at that age was sickness and death....and grief and sadness. I have no doubt that your young life would have been drastically different from mine, but I guarantee that you would have known unconditional love and you would have been accepted for you, even when my motherly instincts would try to change you. You would have been the center of my world...along with your siblings.
Instead, you are the center of my world with your siblings in such a different way. I wake up daily with the hope it was all a bad nightmare. By the time I close my eyes to sleep, I think about you...usually with a tear or two streaming down to my pillow. I strive to be a better person because I know if I allow my grief to swallow me up, I would be useless. It would be so easy to slip into and so difficult to escape. I have been there, it wasn't a nice place and I was so ashamed to be there because I felt I was disappointing you and your siblings in some way.
Every year, I ache to do this with you on this Earth...every year, I grieve because I can't. Some day in another time and place, I will be able to say this to you, face to face.
Happy 11th Birthday, my darling angel child. I hope that your grandmother is celebrating with you and giving you the love I am not able to give.
I wonder what you would be like...a boy or girl? Who would you look like...me or my ex-husband? I wonder what your personality would be like and what hobbies you would enjoy. I wonder if you would be starting the pre-teen attitude. I ache to tell you how much I love you. I ache to hold you in my arms. Would you love me as much as I loved my mother....
Sadness overwhelms me. At age 11, I was motherless. My mother (and father) wanted me so badly....but I only had her on this Earth 10 years of my life. All I knew at that age was sickness and death....and grief and sadness. I have no doubt that your young life would have been drastically different from mine, but I guarantee that you would have known unconditional love and you would have been accepted for you, even when my motherly instincts would try to change you. You would have been the center of my world...along with your siblings.
Instead, you are the center of my world with your siblings in such a different way. I wake up daily with the hope it was all a bad nightmare. By the time I close my eyes to sleep, I think about you...usually with a tear or two streaming down to my pillow. I strive to be a better person because I know if I allow my grief to swallow me up, I would be useless. It would be so easy to slip into and so difficult to escape. I have been there, it wasn't a nice place and I was so ashamed to be there because I felt I was disappointing you and your siblings in some way.
Every year, I ache to do this with you on this Earth...every year, I grieve because I can't. Some day in another time and place, I will be able to say this to you, face to face.
Happy 11th Birthday, my darling angel child. I hope that your grandmother is celebrating with you and giving you the love I am not able to give.
Sunday, December 9, 2012
One Day Away
I am so exhausted... And sick... And I tore my leg to hell few weeks ago and I am still having issues just standing on it. I know that at some point there will be surgery but that can't happen right now due to other health issues.
I dread tomorrow. My second was lost 11 years ago. It is also one of my best friend's birthday. She doesn't know that she shares it with my second baby. I had no idea I was pregnant. My father-in-law was dying in another country and my father was fighting for his life. I had multiple surgeries on my hands and arms and I had to drop out of college and take care of my father... Amazing since I couldn't even take care of myself. Shocked that I had to walk away from my passion and face more illness and death.
I hadn't been feeling well and I had decided that it was all due to stress and my world falling apart. Little did I know that my world would crash around me.
It was the beginning of the end for my relationship and marriage. It would take almost 3 more years for it to end, but by the end of 2001,everything had changed. I had changed.
The last straw to completely knock me out was waking up that morning to me hemorrhaging. I went to the er. Immediately, I found out I was miscarrying.
I laid there, stunned and alone, staring through the hot tears streaming out of my eyes at the ultrasound of my 6w2d baby. There was no heartbeat... No movement. The more I tried to get Baby M to flutter, the more hysterical I became. My blood pressure went through the roof and the bleeding was starting to concern everyone in the room. Immediately they start working on me. It was wrong all a blur and all I remember after that point was signing the consent forms for surgery and the D&C. The last words I heard was that if they couldn't stop the bleeding that they may have to start taking my reproductive organs.
I woke up. Empty and alone. My husband was away at school and couldn't leave because of finals. I still had all of my reproductive system but there was already irreparable damage done. And no baby.
I learned of Baby M, saw the lifeless little bud on the screen, and had a D&C in a matter of hours. All I could feel was devastation and the tight grip on holding my ruins of my life together slipped into a deep dark depression. I could no longer be the strong one in the house.
I dread tomorrow. My second was lost 11 years ago. It is also one of my best friend's birthday. She doesn't know that she shares it with my second baby. I had no idea I was pregnant. My father-in-law was dying in another country and my father was fighting for his life. I had multiple surgeries on my hands and arms and I had to drop out of college and take care of my father... Amazing since I couldn't even take care of myself. Shocked that I had to walk away from my passion and face more illness and death.
I hadn't been feeling well and I had decided that it was all due to stress and my world falling apart. Little did I know that my world would crash around me.
It was the beginning of the end for my relationship and marriage. It would take almost 3 more years for it to end, but by the end of 2001,everything had changed. I had changed.
The last straw to completely knock me out was waking up that morning to me hemorrhaging. I went to the er. Immediately, I found out I was miscarrying.
I laid there, stunned and alone, staring through the hot tears streaming out of my eyes at the ultrasound of my 6w2d baby. There was no heartbeat... No movement. The more I tried to get Baby M to flutter, the more hysterical I became. My blood pressure went through the roof and the bleeding was starting to concern everyone in the room. Immediately they start working on me. It was wrong all a blur and all I remember after that point was signing the consent forms for surgery and the D&C. The last words I heard was that if they couldn't stop the bleeding that they may have to start taking my reproductive organs.
I woke up. Empty and alone. My husband was away at school and couldn't leave because of finals. I still had all of my reproductive system but there was already irreparable damage done. And no baby.
I learned of Baby M, saw the lifeless little bud on the screen, and had a D&C in a matter of hours. All I could feel was devastation and the tight grip on holding my ruins of my life together slipped into a deep dark depression. I could no longer be the strong one in the house.
Saturday, December 8, 2012
As Long as My Heart Beats...
I have been trying to type this post for weeks. I am still unsure if I can get what I think and feel on black and white. I have been trying to decide where to go from here on my blog. Believe it or not, it is just as difficult to express this to humans standing next to me as it is to type it out. A lot has happened in the last few years. I've moved and have had numerous things go on...some good, some bad. I have grown in a lot of ways....came to terms, so to speak, about a lot of things I wanted in life, but my body or God (or both) have decided to rebel against me and want other things. This time of year, though, brings out the grief in me, moreso than the other times during the year. Most of the deaths that have affected me to my core have happened around (and on) Christmas, Thanksgiving, and New Years.
I am content. Content in the aspect that I know my time with some family members are limited and I have a golden opportunity to bask in the love before life completely falls apart. I am content in the fact that there is no way that I can afford to medically enhance the chances of becoming a mommy. There is no way...not enough money in the bank and no insurance. It makes me sad that it looks like I will never join the ranks of having a living child on this Earth. It grieves me in actuality, but it is something that I have had to come to terms with as my body changes with time and the effects of illnesses.
I cannot change the fact that there is little I can do to make myself become pregnant and deliver a full-term healthy baby. I cannot change the journey that God has given my body. I cannot change that I have always and will always desire a child...a family. It is out of my control and out of my reach.
I know you are questioning just how content I am...even when my desires are not, and possibly will never be, fulfilled.
It was unhealthy for me to be where I was...to try to will and wish my precious time away for the life that I desired so badly. It literally paralyzed me in so many ways. I stopped writing. I stopped playing music. I stopped composing music. I stopped listening to music. I stopped being around friends and family that had children or were expecting. I stopped laughing and basking in the joy that is life. I stopped. My world stopped. I could see the Earth spinning as I was paralyzed with grief and an unhealthy fear. My soul was dead while my body played the cruel joke and continued to live.
I couldn't tell you what it was that made me realize that I was wasting my life on something I cannot change alone. I can't tell you the day or the moment that I realized that I am still alive, in spite of everything that was happening to me and that I was wasting so much precious time on the hope that I would be a mommy. In some ways, that desire still brands me and makes me so raw that I have to fight back to reality.
Whether I like it or not, the reality is that short of a miracle, there will be no children that I can call my own.
I can embrace what is my life...what my love and passions are. I can embrace the children that are in my life and deserve my love and attention. I can embrace my loved ones before our time together is cut way too short. I can and will embrace the memory of the babies I carried and lost...They would not want me to stop living. They would want me to embrace and live life...in a way they couldn't.
There are times the grief and sadness hits me. Today is one of them. It comes out of nowhere, like a train barreling full speed around a corner with no whistle. It knocks me down to my knees and takes my breath away. I can be in the bathroom or I can be in store with crazy Christmas shoppers around me. I don't have time to prepare for it. It comes to me whether I like it or not. It visits me in my dreams. In those moments, I can't look or think about anything children. I can't even look in the mirror to see the grief-stricken woman with tears down her face.
Instead, I picture my children. How they would be if they were on this Earth. How my life would be with them running around. What they would look like and what their personality would be like.Then, the guilt and anger hit me. I go to deep, .dark places. Places I could curl up in and just drift away in hopes of being with my babies. I dream of the day I can hold them again....meet most of them for the first time and tell them, ensure to them, that I love them and have always loved them. I have never forgotten about them or went a day without thanking them for being in my life for their brief moments.
I fight my way back, though, to a place where I can survive without putting my mental and physical self at risk. I fight my way back because it is all I know how to do. I fight my way back because the other options are not good enough.
I have only a select few in my life that know about my losses or anything about this. I do not talk about it. I do not open the subject up to others around me because I know where it will lead. I have friends that desire to be closer to me and a possible relationship on the horizon...yet, I have no words to tell them how I feel. I have no way to communicate that I am broken in ways they don't understand and that the slightest uncaring meanness can rip me open even worse.
It is a never-ending battle with grief and infertility as long as my heart still beats.Some days it is so much easier than others. Today is not one of those days.
I am content. Content in the aspect that I know my time with some family members are limited and I have a golden opportunity to bask in the love before life completely falls apart. I am content in the fact that there is no way that I can afford to medically enhance the chances of becoming a mommy. There is no way...not enough money in the bank and no insurance. It makes me sad that it looks like I will never join the ranks of having a living child on this Earth. It grieves me in actuality, but it is something that I have had to come to terms with as my body changes with time and the effects of illnesses.
I cannot change the fact that there is little I can do to make myself become pregnant and deliver a full-term healthy baby. I cannot change the journey that God has given my body. I cannot change that I have always and will always desire a child...a family. It is out of my control and out of my reach.
I know you are questioning just how content I am...even when my desires are not, and possibly will never be, fulfilled.
It was unhealthy for me to be where I was...to try to will and wish my precious time away for the life that I desired so badly. It literally paralyzed me in so many ways. I stopped writing. I stopped playing music. I stopped composing music. I stopped listening to music. I stopped being around friends and family that had children or were expecting. I stopped laughing and basking in the joy that is life. I stopped. My world stopped. I could see the Earth spinning as I was paralyzed with grief and an unhealthy fear. My soul was dead while my body played the cruel joke and continued to live.
I couldn't tell you what it was that made me realize that I was wasting my life on something I cannot change alone. I can't tell you the day or the moment that I realized that I am still alive, in spite of everything that was happening to me and that I was wasting so much precious time on the hope that I would be a mommy. In some ways, that desire still brands me and makes me so raw that I have to fight back to reality.
Whether I like it or not, the reality is that short of a miracle, there will be no children that I can call my own.
I can embrace what is my life...what my love and passions are. I can embrace the children that are in my life and deserve my love and attention. I can embrace my loved ones before our time together is cut way too short. I can and will embrace the memory of the babies I carried and lost...They would not want me to stop living. They would want me to embrace and live life...in a way they couldn't.
There are times the grief and sadness hits me. Today is one of them. It comes out of nowhere, like a train barreling full speed around a corner with no whistle. It knocks me down to my knees and takes my breath away. I can be in the bathroom or I can be in store with crazy Christmas shoppers around me. I don't have time to prepare for it. It comes to me whether I like it or not. It visits me in my dreams. In those moments, I can't look or think about anything children. I can't even look in the mirror to see the grief-stricken woman with tears down her face.
Instead, I picture my children. How they would be if they were on this Earth. How my life would be with them running around. What they would look like and what their personality would be like.Then, the guilt and anger hit me. I go to deep, .dark places. Places I could curl up in and just drift away in hopes of being with my babies. I dream of the day I can hold them again....meet most of them for the first time and tell them, ensure to them, that I love them and have always loved them. I have never forgotten about them or went a day without thanking them for being in my life for their brief moments.
I fight my way back, though, to a place where I can survive without putting my mental and physical self at risk. I fight my way back because it is all I know how to do. I fight my way back because the other options are not good enough.
I have only a select few in my life that know about my losses or anything about this. I do not talk about it. I do not open the subject up to others around me because I know where it will lead. I have friends that desire to be closer to me and a possible relationship on the horizon...yet, I have no words to tell them how I feel. I have no way to communicate that I am broken in ways they don't understand and that the slightest uncaring meanness can rip me open even worse.
It is a never-ending battle with grief and infertility as long as my heart still beats.Some days it is so much easier than others. Today is not one of those days.
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