One Month Later.

I’ve written this post a couple of times. The first time around, it was really angry. I thought — I can’t pivot from shelf set-ups and Valentine’s Day with kids to straight up anger. I just can’t. The second time, it was a mess. Really… just all over the place. When I read it back to myself, it didn’t even make sense and I questioned my BA in English. So here’s a try for the third time around.

On January 12th I was told our baby didn’t have a heartbeat. Most people try to avoid having a conversation with me all together, but some ask so, how are you?

How am I? The short answer: I’m fine. The long answer…

I am devastated. I’m grieving a future that I’ll never experience.

I’m sad that my pants fit. Imagine that? Imagine, that your jeans being able to button or your winter jacket zipping with ease brings you to actual tears? Imagine, losing 10 pounds in two weeks and being bitter? That’s how I am.

I’m annoyed that I still have a bruise on my wrist from the IV. It’s faint now, almost the color of my actual skin, but not quite. It’s just enough of a mark that every time I look down, raise my arm, my sweater sleeve slides up, or I write… it reminds me yup, it all happened.

I’m enraged that now, two weeks later, I still have physical pain and have now developed an infection. One that I have to take a heavy dose of doxycycline for — pills that I cannot swallow so I have to crush up and hide in food like I’m trying to trick a dog.

I’m gutted that I’m still bleeding. The blood is an insult and just not what I was assured of when they said “do the surgery — it’ll be one and done”. One and done. This is not one and done. But then, what happens when there’s no more blood? At least right now I have some proof that my baby was here. When the blood is gone, I’ll have nothing.

I’m growing indignant when I walk around my house. From the pre-natals on my side table, to the palmer’s cocoa butter in the bathroom, to the clear tote of newborn clothes near the washing machine, to the crib/toddler bed I tuck Eva into every night that I planned on using again — to the flowers on my mantel that I was graciously sent after the surgery… that are now dead. It’s all a constant reminder that something was very much expected and alive and then just turned unusable and died.

I’m furious when instagram shows me ads for baby things I probably hovered over for a few more seconds then I should have: clothes, the doona, a RIE wooden platform and ramp. I’m broken when Facebook shows me my daily memories. Five years ago, this week, Lola was a newborn. Three years ago, Eva was two months old. My teeny babies looking at me. I can still feel their little bodies on my chest and now I don’t get to have that feeling again.

I’m defeated that my comfort shows — Friends, Gilmore Girls, Dawson’s Creek — are now nothing more than shows that bring me painful reminders of times in my life that were different. Reminders of morning sickness, lazy afternoon naps, going into labor, bringing babies home, maternity leave, and feeding newborns.

I’m shattered that more than a handful of my friends are pregnant. Not because I don’t want them to have babies (I do). But we were going to have babies together. And now they will and I won’t. Those babies, but also our friendships, are forever constant, physical reminders of what I lost.

So, that’s how I’m doing. I’m a messy basket case experiencing something between grief and depression. Teetering the line, no doubt, and reluctantly functioning in between my multiple daily breakdowns. But I’m getting out of bed each day and my doctor told me that’s the goal. So, since the bar is — getting out of bed each day, I’m fine.