First Ultrasound (with pic)

Well, we officially have a little baby on board :-)

We went in for our first U/S this morning at 6w4d and saw our little baby. And heard its little heartbeat (120bpm). I think it's impossible not to tear up when hearing your baby's heartbeat. It is just amazing.

With all the myriad emotions running through my body I can still appreciate just how incredible it is to be blessed with a little life growing inside me. I am so humbled and so grateful.

My RE's nurse originally told me that I would only be having the one U/S with them before being released to my OB but apparently the dr. wasn't happy with that and said "I want her to have two! Make it happen however you need to!" so I'll be going in again 2 weeks from now for my second and final U/S with them. I love them there but I sincerely hope that visit will be the last time I step foot in that office.

Meet my little rainbow:
 

(It's the little blob at the top of the black space)

Not much to look at yet but hopefully it will be eventually :-)

Hindsight

Sometimes I feel really dumb.
Like I should have known.
Like I should have been able to interpret what was normal and what wasn't with our last pregnancy.

But I didn't.

I was just a new, naive, excited pregnant woman. I was so so HAPPY. I was so so RELIEVED the IVF had actually worked!  I was actually proud of myself that I wasn't one of those freak-out-about-everything new moms who feared that every cramp meant a M/C was imminent and who asked a million questions during every U/S to make sure things were normal. I strived to be that way, and I was proud of myself for it.

Now I feel like a dope.  Would I have been less blindsided if I had asked more questions during our NT scan?  Should I have googled how much baby is supposed to move during U/S?  Shouldn't I have questioned why our baby never wanted to cooperate and why the U/S Tech couldn't get him to turn no matter how much she tried, when every other pregnant mama talked about how active their little ones always were?  

Why the hell didn't I question it?!  Why didn't I think something could be wrong? Why did I assume everything was perfect and that bad things couldn't/wouldn't happen to me?

Through two NT scans the baby wouldn't cooperate. Then as I got further and further into 2nd tri I never felt any movement. Weeks 16, 17, 18 ticked by and nothing.  Why didn't I question that?!  And then it was time for the anatomy scan and still no cooperation and still no thoughts that something might be wrong. Why was I so fucking DENSE?!

Well now I know.  I know more about things that could go wrong than I ever would have wanted to.  I know what it is to receive soul-crushing news and I fear that it might happen again. I know what to look for now. I know just how scared to be if the baby doesn't move around much during my 12 week scan (assuming I get to 12 weeks). I know to focus on the legs now, to make SURE they are moving, to make SURE another little baby isn't paralyzed from the waist down. I know what a deformed head looks like now and the image of a wide open spine... why was I so fucking IGNORANT?!  Why didn't I pick up on any of the signs?!  

Why didn't it enter my mind that bad things could happen to me?

And now I feel like it would be stupid of me to trust again. To feel like lightening couldn't possibly strike twice. Because it could. And it might. And I need to mentally prepare myself for that.

My first U/S is this coming Tuesday at 6.5 weeks. I am not worried about that one.  I had a late loss, not a M/C. I expect to see my baby in there. And I hope to see/hear a heartbeat if I'm far enough along.  I really hope I'm not setting myself up for disappointment.  But truthfully I feel like next Tues will be fine.  It's the 12 week scan I am already scared about.  And I am petrified of the anatomy scan. Those are the hurdles I need to cross. And if I get past those, I really don't know how I'll feel.  I've never been more than 20 weeks pregnant - half baked. I have no idea what the 2nd half of pregnancy is like.  I have so much experience now with things most people will never know about but no experience with being normal.  I wasn't normal when TTC and I wasn't normal when PG. I hope to God that this pregnancy will be normal.

I hope my fear will calm down once we pass the anatomy scan.
(I hope we make it to the anatomy scan.)
I hope I'll feel connected to this baby soon.
I hope I'll be able to love this baby as much as I loved Petey.
I hope the guilt will die down eventually.
I hope I'll be able to feel excited and be able to trust and be able to let the past go.

I just hope more than anything that this baby will be healthy. 

What's the opposite of weight loss?

Oh right, what I'm doing.

I've been pregnant for like, a second, and I've already gained back 3 of the pounds I worked so hard to lose over the last month. That makes me feel A) sad and B) selfish because I feel like that shouldn't even be entering my mind. I should just be happy to be pregnant. Period.

The hungry mungries have started already though.  I have to eat every 3 hours or I get nauseous. Unfortunately I am not liking much food lately. Watermelon's pretty good most of the time. So are Andes Mints.  Aaaand that's about it.  Yup, well-balanced meals over here at Chickin's house!

I am also back to my favorite thing of being awake from 3-5am trying not to puke. I am SO hoping my "morning" sickness isn't going to be as bad as last time but it's not looking good so far. I've distributed the puke buckets around my house and one in my car already in preparation.

This all feels like deja vu (only with omnipresent sadness and a healthy dose of fear). I hope that will let up as time goes by.

I feel like the past couple weeks have moved in slow motion. How am I still not even 6weeks PG yet?  I'm looking forward to my U/S next Tuesday.  Hopefully there's only one baby in there and s/he's looking good. I'm hoping to hear the heartbeat at that point. Maybe it will make it feel more real.

I'm going out on a limb and predicting that this baby is going to be a girl. I don't know why. Before we even got PG I thought the next one would be a girl. Something with rainbows feeling girly and also the fact that I thought Petey was a boy. A girl just feels right this time. Also, I am craving sugary things so far and when PG with Petey I had no interest whatsoever in sweets.
Hey, 50/50 shot!

Milestone: Passed.

Petey's due date on Friday was okay.  The first thing I did when I woke up was sit and write a letter to him.  I had more to say than I knew. It took a long time. But it gave me a bit of a sense of relief too. I just wrote and wrote and didn't think. I got it all out of my head and when finished I folded it up and tucked it into my pocket instead of burying it under his tree like I had intended. I'm not sure why.

Then I went to the butterfly sanctuary. I wasn't sure if this was a good plan or not (especially when I pulled in and saw so many parents with small children) but I went in and I am SO GLAD I did. I don't really know how to explain the experience except to say that it felt magical. It was like walking into another world. It was so lush and humid with all kinds of beautiful and exotic plants and flowers, a koi pond with waterfall, the sun streaming through the glass ceiling, and the butterflies.  There were SO MANY butterflies. They were all around, fluttering and dipping and diving and chasing each other. They just seemed so happy and carefree. I got choked up a few times while I was there, not thinking just about Petey but about all the little angels to whom so many of us have had to say goodbye. There were two beautiful butterflies in particular that were a vivid blue and kept catching my attention. They were chasing one another and seemed to be playing together and I just could not get Krystal's boys, Conner and Ben, out of my head every time I saw them. I like to think that maybe all our angels are playing together: Petey and Rowan and Ninja and Conner and Ben and Jack and Lexus' Ben and Ana and Colton and Serenity and so so many others that we have lost. I like to think they are happy and carefree now like the butterflies seemed to be.  
I thought about taking pictures while I was there but in the end I decided it was more about me having the experience and living in the moment than about capturing/documenting it so here is the one picture I took:

It was a nice experience.
On the way out I bought a few little momentos including a butterfly kite. I thought maybe when we have a rainbow someday it would be nice to fly this kite with her/him every year on Petey's special day.

After that I did end up going to BuyBuyBaby. I walked around a lot and touched little baby things, thinking of Petey, seeing items that I had intended to buy for him or that were already on the registry I had created for him. I looked for pictures and toys and other things with butterflies and/or rainbows but nothing felt quite right to me. In the end I didn't leave with anything but that's okay. It was still kind of nice to just walk around and remember how I felt the previous times I was there when I was PG with Petey and shopping for him. 

By that point I was starving so I decided I'd have "Petey's lunch". When I was pregnant with him I craved hamburgers and lemonade all day every day so I decided I would have those in his honor.  It was not good, hahaha!  Apparently I am not craving those things with this baby (yet - or maybe never) but it was nice to have that last meal "with him" while thinking of him and remembering.

Afterwards I had planned to go get a pedicure and have them paint a butterfly on my toe. I never made it.  As I was driving, I passed a big ball field/park that's not too far from my house and made the snap decision to pull in and fly the butterfly kite I had bought earlier.  The whole park was deserted which was A) surprising as it is usually packed and B) perfect because I wanted this time to feel connected to Petey and feel my feelings without other people around. I'm so glad I chose to do this. This was the best experience of the day.  It was just breezy enough for the kite to fly and I have to say, I had FUN.  I spent a good amount of time running around as fast as possible trying to get (and then keep) that kite up in the air, laughing and panting.... At one point my pants fell down while I was running so it was a very good thing I was alone! Haha! It was fun. I felt connected to Petey and felt like we were doing this together. Every time I would encourage that kite to go higher and higher it was like I was encouraging him to climb higher and higher. Even though I was alone I truly did feel like his spirit was with me and I was very grateful for the experience. When I finally went back to the car I caught my reflection in the window and saw a red, sweaty face, crazy fly-away hair and a big smile. 
Thank you for a fun time, Petey.

When I climbed back into the car I let my breathing return to normal and thought about what had just happened.  I felt like that was the only time he and I (Mother and child) actually played together and had fun together. Like we connected and I was able to do something for him that both he and I appreciated. Maybe that's hard for anyone who has not experienced a loss like this to understand but it was powerful for me and made me very emotional. I decided to take out the note I wrote to him earlier and read it aloud to him and to the open field. I cried while reading it aloud and then sobbed for a long time when I finished. It was powerful. I wasn't really conscious of what I was writing while I wrote it but reading and hearing it aloud made it real. It was painful and beautiful and inspired and raw and true. I hope he heard it. I hope he knows how much I love him and how sorry I am for everything.

After that, I was completely wiped out so I went home and napped for a couple hours.  Hubs woke me at dinnertime. We had planned to go out to dinner that night in memory/celebration but I wasn't feeling it anymore so we ordered in and just watched some TV the rest of the night.  It ended up being a pretty good day.  Emotional and difficult but also peaceful.

I'm glad that this milestone has passed. Even though I am now PG with a different baby, I have still felt like this entire time since March has belonged to Petey since his EDD hadn't arrived yet. He still deserved this time to be celebrated and mourned and focused upon.  Now his EDD has passed. I feel like a phase of my grief has ended. I do feel a bit of closure. In my letter, I asked Petey to help me be okay while I now start to focus on the future and look towards our rainbow. I hope he heard me.


~*~* Finally, I know I say this a lot but I just want to say again how truly THANKFUL I am for all of you. The love and support I have received from my IDOB and Loss and Blog and SAIF ladies has lifted and carried me over these past 4 months.  I am so grateful to you all for continuing to let me know that you care and that you remember Petey.  It means so much every day but especially on this extremely difficult day. You are wonderful and I am so lucky to have you in my life. Thank you. *~*~

Petey's Day

Thank you so much to Cici and Jen (<3) for making such a thoughtful picture that means so much to me.

Thank you to all my IDOB sisters and every single one of you who has been such a huge support through everything.

Thank you for not forgetting my little Petey and for always expressing that I'm not alone and that you are thinking of us.

Every word, every hug, every acknowledgment means so much more than you could know.

Tomorrow is the day we had planned to bring Petey home. The day our lives would change forever. The day we'd finally be a family. As of now, I am doing better with this than I expected.  I had an extremely hard couple days at the beginning of this week but I think I'm starting to come to a place of peace when it comes to tomorrow.

I've decided that tomorrow I will be writing a special letter to Petey. I want to get everything out that I wish I could have said to him. I don't want to censor myself. I want to attempt to find a way to tell him how deeply I love and miss him. How sorry I am that I'll never get to hold him but that I will always ache to.  How I'll always feel like a piece of me is missing. I'll be burying the letter under Petey's tree in our yard.
After that I'll be going to a butterfly sanctuary hoping it will make me feel connected to him.
Next I plan to go to BuyBuyBaby to buy something special for Petey or something for this new baby that will represent Petey so that (if all goes well) when this baby is in our lives, we will still have something tangible of Petey to all stay connected.
Finally, I plan to get a pedicure and have a butterfly painted on my big toe (a la Cici's Frosty Ninja <3)

I feel good about my plan. I feel like it's a good way for me to honor my little Nugget. It will be meaningful to me and I hope it will give me a bit of a sense of closure so I can stop focusing so fully on the past and my grief and begin to start looking towards the future and my little rainbow. I feel like that's what Petey would want too.

Thank you all for your love and for remembering <3

 

I won't lie...

...I am a mess right now.

I can't decide if I'm happy or sad. One minute I'll be thrilled about this pregnancy and the next minute I won't be able to stop crying because a) it's not Petey and b) Petey's EDD is this week.  I can't sleep, I can't concentrate on work, I can't get the anxieties out of my head, I can't decide how I feel. 

I am coming apart at the seams more and more with each hour that brings me closer to Petey's EDD (this Friday 8/15). I am dreading it. I took the day off but I have no idea what I am going to do with myself. Hubs and I were planning to go away for a long weekend to distract ourselves but that didn't feel quite right so I kept stalling and we never made any plans.

Most loss mamas celebrate this day. I don't know if I can celebrate. I don't know what will feel right. What I do know is that I don't want to find myself waking up on Fri AM with no plans and spending the entire day in bed sobbing. I feel frozen with inaction as I just stare at this monster approaching closer and closer.

I try to remind myself that it's just a day. The percentage of women who actually give birth on their EDD is so small that it's unlikely I would have actually had Petey on Friday... maybe this could make Friday a little easier for me. But it also makes this week leading up to it harder because today might have been the day we were bringing Petey home. Or tomorrow. Or Thursday... 

I just miss him.  I'm sad.  I feel robbed. I'm mad at myself that I seem incapable of feeling as much happiness as I should right now about this new pregnancy. And I'm upset that, as I anticipated, I feel guilty about Petey when I feel happiness about this pregnancy, and I feel guilty about this new baby when I feel sad about Petey. Lose-lose. But as someone on TB Loss board said: "This new baby won't take away my love for [Petey]". I need to remember that.

After writing this I'm now thinking that I really should take this opportunity to do something meaningful for Petey this Friday. Maybe I could find a way to feel a little bit of closure and allow myself to look forward to the future and to this new pregnancy. I've already decided I want to write Petey a letter, shred it and bury it under his tree. Besides that I just don't know. 
Any ideas from you all out in the bloggy world? 


Update: I found a butterfly sanctuary that's only about 45 mins away from me. As you know, I think of Petey when I see butterflies so I think I may go there on Friday.

Doubling

I am happy to report that all is good in beta-land!;

Beta #1, 13DPO: 202

Beta #2, 15DPO: 453

Beta #3, 17DPO: 1096!!

My betas have more than doubled each time so we are looking good :-)
My first and only ultrasound with my RE will be on Tues, 8/26 so I have just over 2 weeks to wait and (try not to) worry.  As long as everything is good I'll be released to my OB after that.

W O W.

I am starting to believe this now.  I still can't wrap my brain around what a miracle this is though. I am in awe and am so thankful and feel so blessed.  (I am also scared but I think that will be a post for another time.)

Petey is definitely on my mind. I am both so happy about this and so sad that I should have been bringing my Petey home this week.  When I start feeling really sad I let myself miss him/her but I also try to think that maybe this was Petey's gift to me and that s/he's giving me the 'okay' to feel good about this miracle.
I hope so anyway <3

My little Petey and my little Rainbow in one.

Happy Updates

I don't even recognize my blog right now. Opening it up to the homepage showing a big ol' picture of a BFP just seems sooooo out of place. Like it's not mine. Like I have a guest blogger who is posting their happy news and I'm just looking on contentedly. I know I'm technically pregnant but I still just can't believe it. Especially with the way it happened - it just feels so surreal. Like every single piece fell exactly into place. Like it was meant to be. I can't wrap my brain around it.

Besides my BFP post, I don't really recognize the handful of previous posts either: Receiving signs from the universe? Writing a string of super depressing posts? These don't jive with how I've been feeling the last month+. But since August hit there have been some unbelievable lows and now some unbelievable highs.
I think I'm starting to level out a bit now. 

I had been worried about getting PG again when we started TTCAL. How I would feel? Would I be able to be happy or would it just make me feel guilty since it's not Petey? Would I only feel pure fear? 
But so far, I feel happy.  And I'm happy that I feel happy.  I'm sure there will be hard times and I'm sure my emotions will go up and down. But in the first couple days of receiving this incredible news I am glad that happiness is my main emotion.

So on to my updates!

I had my first beta this morning and it was 202. 202! At 13DPO! How can I not feel happy with that number?!  (And with the ridiculous amount of love and excitement I received from my IDOB & SAIF girls and bloggy friends, how could I not be happy?!)

Hubs said I've started humming/singing to myself again. He said he hasn't heard me do that since we found out that we were going to lose Petey. That made me cry. I'm so grateful that I'm actually feeling happy all the way down to a subconscious level. I'm so grateful that I might be able to become myself again.

Also, I have officially lost 10 lbs :-)  I worked hard for the last month and am proud of myself. Now that I'm pregnant though I have no idea what will happen with my weight loss. I plan to continue my healthy eating and exercise for as long as my body will allow but I remember just how difficult eating well was last time; how many foods made my stomach turn; how exhausting it was just to walk up one flight of stairs... Zumba ought to be interesting.

I am so interested to see how this pregnancy will be for me: Will I have all day morning sickness well into the 2nd trimester again?  Will I crave cheeseburgers and lemonade all the time again? Or will I crave Eggos like Ally and Jen? ;-)  Will I carry low like I did before?  Will I only be able to sleep in one specific position again? Will I wake up every single night at 3am and get sick again? Only time will tell.

For now, I will just hope and pray that this will be our take-home baby.  I am so conscious of the fact that I still have double the risk of miscarriage (due to my PCOS) but it won't help me to worry about it. I will just try to remain positive and see what happens.

Beta #2 will be Saturday AM and #3 on Monday for this little rainbow of mine :-)




Update: Beta #2 was 453!!!

I can't believe it

My sign came through for me.

I am pregnant.

I am pregnant!!!

I actually got the urban legend miracle BFP - no doctors, no medications, no thousands of dollars... I can't believe it. I can't stop the tears from coming.

I finally got the experience I've been wanting for for more than 2 years - I was able to run into the bedroom waving my positive pee stick in Hubs face and he was as shocked as I and we laughed and cried and hugged and jumped up and down. It took 26 months and a whole lot of pain to get this moment but we finally got it.
I can't believe it.

I'd been waiting this whole time until tomorrow at 13DPO to test since I'm working from home tomorrow and fully expected a BFN but after last night's rainbow I couldn't wait another day. I never truly thought we would be so fortunate though.
I just cannot believe it.

Maybe being pregnant with Petey reset my hormones to where they needed to be.
Maybe all our prayers worked.
Maybe all the exercise and weight loss had an effect.
Maybe my sweet little Petey pulled some strings for me.

I really don't know. All I know is that I am thankful. I am nervous and I am scared to death and I am excited. I miss my Petey but I am happy too.

I will call the RE today to see when I can come in for a beta. They are going to be shocked.

Please stick baby. Please be healthy. Please be our take-home rainbow baby.

My rainbow

You're going to think I'm crazy since my last few posts have been so full of despair, but I am feeling hopeful right now for the first time in a long time. (I guess this just goes to show you how volatile my emotions are lately.)

It's possible you will think I'm nuts but I got a sign this evening that my rainbow baby is coming. I know it. I think the world gave me a sign of hope in the actual form of a rainbow. 

I was out floating in the pool this evening thinking and relaxing as I often do, and instead of facing towards the trees like usual and searching/expecting to see a butterfly to signify that Petey is with me, I decided I felt like facing the other way, towards the open sky.  It was a nice evening with blue skies and lots of puffy clouds. I was lazily imagining shapes in the clouds. Then, in an improbable place high in the sky between a break in the clouds I saw the colors of a rainbow.  It was faint and wasn't in an arch but I saw the colors. I know it was there. I looked away and back again to see if it was just my eyes playing tricks on me and it wasn't - it was there, hidden in the clouds like it was meant just for me. It took my breath away. It was my sign that my rainbow baby is coming. Maybe not this cycle, maybe not next, maybe not even from our first FET, but eventually. We will be blessed with our rainbow baby eventually. 

I turned around towards the trees thinking of Petey and testing to see if I could bring about a butterfly, as this has always worked and has always reassured me of Petey's presence, and there was none.  Maybe this means it's time for me to look ahead to the future and to my rainbow. 

I'm not big on signs or divine intervention or anything like that but this was a powerful experience for me. Thank you world. Thank you God. Thank you WHOEVER. This is what I needed. I needed a sign, I needed to open my eyes to see the world. Maybe this rainbow has been waiting there for me to just notice this whole time if I just opened my heart and opened my eyes. I felt the message and I now feel hope that things will be okay eventually. 

I will be testing in a couple days and I hope it will be positive. But if it's not, I think I will be okay now thanks to this experience. This rainbow gave me hope for our future and the strength to move forward.

Gone too soon.

~*~*~*~ Trigger warning for well, everyone: Loss mamas, pregnant women, mothers with babies..........................Loss Mentioned.............................~*~*~*~

I can't sleep. Today was not a good day.  Today I found out that my coworker lost her sweet beautiful healthy perfect 4 month old son over the weekend. They don't know what happened but suspect SIDS. He was found unresponsive last Friday and died at the hospital over the weekend with his loving and heartbroken parents by his side.

WHY does this happen?!  And WHY does it happen to such good people?!

When I got to work this morning my boss was waiting at my desk. She pulled me immediately into her office before I could even turn on my computer and told me the news.  I fucking lost it. I was a blubbering mess. She apologized profusely for not calling me this morning before I left for work. She told me she knew I would take this hard and said she couldn't stop thinking about me when she heard the news. She said she remembered that I was approaching my due date. It made me cry harder that she cared enough to remember that.

This coworker is a friend. She and I were pregnant at the same time but she was 4 months ahead of me. She and I had talked about our pregnancies and she shared with me tips and ideas and things to expect.  Her son was born on the day that we found out Petey was going to die. After that it was hard for me to see her or think about her son. Once she was back from maternity leave I avoided her in the hallways.  She was always all smiles on her way to the Mother's Room to pump and I would greet her but then pass on by quickly like I was on my way to a meeting in order to shield myself from the pain.  I so regret that now. I so wish I had listened to her talk. I wish I had granted her the time to tell me how happy her child made her and about all of his little milestones and all the poop and all the breastfeeding and all the kisses. I wish I hadn't been so selfish.  She will never again be able to talk about her baby with pure happiness. She will be different now.

There is SO MUCH I want to say to her. Advice to give her, ways to help her cope, things for her to expect. I want to tell her:

Lean on your husband now, be gentle with each other and don't let yourselves drift too far apart or you may never be able to come back together. Realize you WILL grieve differently and it will be painful and you will feel alone and not understood and may even resent each other but that you have to work through it no matter how tough it may be.

Lean on your friends and family now, accept their help and don't be too proud or pretend you can do it all. You can't. You need them. They love you and want to help you and you should let them. It will make both of you feel better.

Don't forget how much love and support surrounds you. You are not alone in this and there are many people who love and care about you and are thinking about you - more than you could know.

Try not to be surprised when people say and do insensitive things. They are just trying to help and don't realize they are being insensitive. It's unfair to ask this of you right now but you will need to somehow find a way to grow a thick skin lest the comments eat you up inside.

You will have many many sleepless nights when you lay awake tormented by your thoughts. You will simultaneously wish for daylight to come and wish it would never come so you won't have to figure out how to make it through another long day.  Eventually you will sleep again.

You will blame yourself. Even though it's no one's fault and you couldn't have prevented it, you will blame yourself and will struggle to not hate yourself.

This is the worst time and you will have to push the thoughts out of your head that it would be better to be dead than to deal with this pain.  It will not always be like this. There are times now where you truly do not know how you will make it through the next hour but you will. Eventually the darkness will start to fade and you will survive this. You will never forget and you will always be sad but you will survive.

You will need to find a way to accept that you will never be the same again. You will change in your core and you shouldn't resist it. You will need to try like hell to keep it from making you permanently bitter.

It will be unfathomable to you how people could be going about their normal lives like everything is fine when it feels like yours has ended.  This feeling will eventually fade but things will be hard for you for a long time. Silly things will be tough for you. Triggers will be everywhere. You will need to figure out a way to be okay.

You should do whatever you need to do to grieve and try to heal. You shouldn't put expectations on yourself and should always treat yourself gently.

Your baby is loved and had an impact on this world and will never be forgotten.

I want to share links to all the websites and articles and blogs and support groups that helped me during this time.
I want to give her tips on suppressing lactation because that truly is one of the most gut-wrenching parts of this whole thing; the fact that your body is doing what it is supposed to do to feed your baby even though your baby is no longer alive... it is just pure pain.
I want to reassure her that there are people who understand how awful this is. That even though she feels alone there are (sadly) many other people who are experiencing this too, even though it's not talked about.
I want her to know that I have some idea of how awful this is for her and that I am so deeply sorry.
I want her to reach out to me.

But I don't want to overwhelm her. 

Instead, I told her my heart goes out to them, reminded them how much love and support they have, that they are not alone, and that their baby will never be forgotten.  These were the words that helped me the most.

I now see how helpless everyone felt when we lost Petey. It's a terrible feeling. I have not stopped thinking about her for a moment since 9am Monday. I don't know when I'll stop thinking about them. I am torn apart inside. They are lovely people - so kind and generous. I am so sad they will never be the same again.

I'm also sad for me. This has brought up some serious grief in me again.  And at the worst possible time (approaching Petey's EDD).

Why oh why do these things have to happen?

RIP little G. You will never be forgotten. 

Strength & Authenticity

I blog a lot on my other blog.  Did you know I have another blog? It's not public. It's just for me. It's my "safe zone", where I can go when I'm feeling angry or tormented or conflicted or so sad I can't breathe.  I'm glad I have it - it helps me get shit out of my head so I can start to feel like a human again and it keeps me from scaring the crap out of you all due to the intense ugly hard hateful bitter painful feelings I have to work through in order to get to the "okay" place where I now reside most days.

In ways it makes me sad that I could not seem to find a way to express some of those feelings here though because I do make a point on this blog to be authentic when I'm writing.  What is not authentic though, is that I've filtered myself and my pain.  I just read back through a lot of my published blog posts since we said goodbye to Petey and if I didn't know any better, if it wasn't ME who has had to make it through every day of this life since March 18th, I would think moving on was almost easy.

It wasn't. This has been the hardest thing I've ever had to do and I have no idea if it will ever end. There is no way to explain what it is like to grieve the loss of your child - to be moving along through life with trust in your heart and then to be so slapped in the face by the world that you are left dumbstruck. There is no way for others to understand how awful and heart-wrenching and lonely and exhausting it all is.  And since it's so exhausting I don't have to energy to try to explain it.  It's easier for me to just focus on living and trying to remain positive and trying to keep myself facing away from the dark hole that is always waiting there, ready to swallow me up. One slight misstep, one unexpected trigger, one day spent thinking too much and not distracting myself enough, and I'm falling again. Sometimes I can claw my way out of it by the next day.  Other times I sit alone on the floor of that dark hole for weeks and don't even have the energy to look up to see how close or far away I may be from the light.

I have written some raw posts on my other blog. Sometimes I want to share them. Sometimes I want to show you all exactly what this is like so you can know how life is for me now but I don't want to do that to you.  I appreciate the love and support so much more than you could ever know and the last thing I would want to do is alienate you. As much as you care about me and may be thinking to yourself right now that I shouldn't feel like I need to censor myself, trust me when I say that you're better off not knowing. I hope you never will know what this is like. And truth be told, I really am in an okay place most of the time. 

I am proud of myself for consistently exercising and now really focusing on my health. That feels like a success to me.  Just three months ago even driving down the street to pick up milk was a success.  I have come a long way.  This part of me is what you mainly see on my blog - it's no wonder why people keep saying I'm so strong.  I have felt like this is not strength, it's merely survival. Then I found this quote: 

Based on this definition it's true that sometimes I am strong.  But I've mostly only been showing you my strength because it's too hard for me to find a way to share all the times when I choose to cry instead of move forward.  So this is me, sharing:
Sometimes I'm an absolute mess. 
Sometimes I am weak and overwhelmed and unable to cope with life. 
Sometimes I have no hope and am angry and bitter and hate everyone and everything. 
Sometimes I waste away entire days in bed, scouring the internet for other women's stories of loss searching and searching and searching for something I can't even identify. 

But then there are the other times; times when I "choose to smile and take another step forward instead". I think I write about those times because they make me feel good.  It is a constant battle to try to feel positive so I spend my time writing about those instances instead of sharing things that will just make me (and you) feel worse.  But it doesn't mean those times aren't there. They definitely are. And they're probably not going away anytime soon.  I hope that if I continue to choose to take steps forward they will slowly start to fade into the background and then this blog will be authentic again. I hope there will come a day when I won't have to filter through the bad to write about the good any longer because there will be so much good.

I hope.

August

Well, we're here:  August. Petey's birth month.

Since mid-March I have been dreading this month. Prior to that, I couldn't WAIT for it. I remember posting our announcement picture on Facebook back in February and writing that baby "Chickin" would be "arriving August 2014". It felt SO far away to me then and now here it is already.  

I should be 38 weeks pregnant today. 38. I should be huge right now and having trouble breathing and impatiently awaiting Petey's arrival. I should have a completed nursery upstairs, with cutesy animal sheets and piles of diapers ready to go and tiny baby clothes hanging in the closet.  I should be feeling excitement and anticipation and fear. I should be ready for my life to never be the same again.

Well, that one's true at least; my life will indeed never be the same again, but for a very different reason.

I hope that at some point down the road I will find that this quote applies to me once again but with positive connotations instead of negative. Hopefully we will be blessed someday with a healthy rainbow baby and my life will never again be the same from that point on.

I'm not entirely sure how I feel about this current 2WW that I am in.  I want to get pregnant again. I want to have a family. I want for this to work.  But I just miss my Petey so much. Is there room in my heart to love another little baby as much as I love(d) Petey? August is HIS month. If we got a BFP this cycle, not only would I need to make room in my heart for a new baby (not to mention all the fears that come along with being PGAL) but I'd need to find a way to feel the sadness of Petey's month and the joy of another pregnancy at the same time. I have no idea how I'd mix such happiness and such sadness and still carry on like everything's okay. I would feel guilt about not grieving Petey enough and I would feel guilt about not celebrating a new baby enough.  Lose-lose. 
At the same time, if this cycle is a BFN... well, let's just say I expect my mental state won't be fabulous.

But, "what is meant to be will be" with this cycle and I'll just have to wait and see. So for now, I'll try to focus on the fact that I have made it through one of the days I have been dreading for months in (mostly) one piece.  I'll deal with August one day at a time and eventually it will be September.  Maybe I'll be pregnant.  Maybe I'll be 10 lbs lighter.  Maybe I'll be in the same place I am today. And if that's the case then so be it.