Passing a Milestone

Halloween was the day that my first baby was due. I know that babies hardly ever come on their due date but I need a day to mark the loss on the calendar. I know that I can't stop celebrating Halloween forever. This year was just too much. I bought the candy and even gave a few pieces out. Thankfully my husband loves to see all the costumes and he spent most of the night sitting by the door.

The weather was completely crap so I didn't get to sit out in my memorial garden. I know I said I was going to no matter the weather but then i realized there was no reason to sit in the cold rain. I can go sit with them any time. I don't have to pick a day to say good bye because they will always be with me. Walter and I spent most of the day staying busy in the apartment. I cleaned some more and he painted that last wall.

This was not how I planned to spend the day but I think it was for the best. I could have spent the entire day in bed crying but it wouldn't change a thing. I'd still have no baby.

With a lot of pressure from my crew of doctors I ended up going to see the specialist in Bangor last week. It was a complete waste of time. No exam. No tests. She looked over all the test results from the tests that Dr Fabulous did and said there was nothing else to do but give it more time. She said I didn't have a fertility problem because I could get pregnant and that there were no more tests to run to see why I miscarry. She said most likely it was a chromosome problem and there is nothing to do about that. Sometimes it happens. Sometimes it doesn't.

So instead of feeling hopeful that there was something more they could do, I am feeling discouraged that they had nothing to say.

I am spending the weekend shopping with my best friend. More distractions. I think right now that is the best thing for me. Keep busy and distracted and try not to think about it too much. The more I think about it, the more hopeless it seems. So the Head Shrinkers advice is to try not to think about it so much. Don't let it consume my every thought.

Today I got my haircut and bought some new clothes. I bought a few Christmas presents and had a good time with a great friend. I hope to have many more great distractions in my future.

1 Week and Failing

One week till my first expected due date.

One week since I announced that I was going to relax and let nature decide if I was going to be a mother someday.

Fail. Major fail.

For two days after making that announcement I felt good. I felt like a weight had been lifted off my back. Then, it all came back like an avalanche. I feel like I am suffocating.
How did anyone expect me to do this? How does someone just stop trying to achieve their dreams? How do I forget the babies that I lost? How do I look at a calendar and not just know when Im ovulating? How do I stop my brain from thinking about all of it 24-7?

Making a declaration doesn't just make it happen.

Wishing and wanting won't make it so.

I failed. Again.

A Graceful Exit

“There’s a trick to the 'graceful exit.' It begins with the vision to recognize when a job, a life stage, or a relationship is over — and let it go. It means leaving what’s over without denying its validity or its past importance to our lives. It involves a sense of future, a belief that every exit line is an entry, that we are moving up, rather than out.”
― Ellen Goodman

I still have some time to change my mind but the more I think about it, the more I am sure that I am making the right choice. I am not going to see a fertility specialist at the end of this month. I am going to cancel my appointment. Walter thinks I should still go. Dr Fabulous thinks I should go. The Head Shrinker thinks I should go. I don't think its a good idea.

Walter and I have talked quite a bit about what we are willing to go through to have a child of our own and I think we've made some really good decisions.

We can't afford this or that. 

Plus, we don't want to do anything that might cause this...

 

I really can't think of a single reason to go see a fertility specialist. They might find nothing wrong with me and we'll just have to keep waiting on a miracle. Or, they might find something wrong that requires a treatment option that we've already ruled out. Either way, there is nothing else I can do but hope that someday things just work out on their own, naturally.

I feel like I just need to come to terms with the fact that I will probably never experience this...

If I can just let go of that dream, maybe I can find something else to make me happy again. Trying this hard for this one thing is stealing all my joy. I know that Walter and I both agree that its not supposed to be this hard. Maybe we just aren't meant to have children. Maybe we are. I don't know. No one knows for sure.

Right now, I just feel like I am waiting on something that is never going to happen...

Tomorrow, I would have been 38 weeks. Just 2 weeks away from my expected due date. I might even be holding my first child in my hands already. Or we might have another 4 weeks to wait if he decided to be late for his own birth day. Instead of getting ready to bring my first child home from the hospital, I am getting ready to let go of a dream I've had my entire life.

How do you do that? Can I just let it go and move forward? Can I make a "graceful exit" to this stage in my life? The only answer I have at this point is, I am going to try. I am going to throw away my thermometer. I am going to stop charting anything except the first day of my period because all smart girls mark that on the calender. I am going to stop trying to figure out how to afford to have a nursery. I am going to stop making decisions for my life based on whether or not I might be pregnant soon.

Tomorrow, I will get out of bed without taking my temperature and marking it on a chart.

Tomorrow, I will begin letting go of an old dream so that I can make room for a new one.

Tomorrow, I will wake up to my husband and see all the wonderful things he brings to my life each and every day.

Tomorrow, I will make the first step toward a "graceful exit."

Tomorrow, I will start trying to live each day for me, my joy and my happiness and not for a future I may never have.

Tomorrow, I will move on with my life...

“You must make a decision that you are going to move on. It wont happen automatically. You will have to rise up and say, ‘I don’t care how hard this is, I don’t care how disappointed I am, I’m not going to let this get the best of me. I’m moving on with my life.”
― Joel Osteen

Falling Apart

My husband got the granite bench placed in our memorial garden yesterday. Today, I am spending some much needed time with my babies. As I sit here with them, mourning my losses I can't help but think about what the future might look like.

In a few years, will I be sitting here watching my children play in the grass beneath these 2 trees. Or will I be sitting here alone looking at 3 or 4 trees instead of just 2.

Another month has passed and I am beginning to wonder if I'll ever even get pregnant again. There is so much to think about and so many overwhelming emotions.

The one piece of advice that everyone keeps giving is, let it go.

Letting go is so hard to do. Today, I am going to work on letting go. Right now Im going to sit with the memories of the babies I'll never get to know. When its time to go inside, I'll take a deep breathe, pray that God gives me a chance to be a mother to a living child, and then exhale as much of my pain and anger as I can. Tomorrow, I'll do it all over again. Hopefully, someday, I'll feel less burdened.

4 Weeks and counting down

I know that I shouldn't look at pregnancy websites anymore but I just can't help it. Tomorrow, I should be 36 weeks pregnant. I should be just 1 week away from a full-term baby and most likely less than 4 weeks from holding him. I should have had a baby shower by now. There should be a crib set up in my bedroom. I should be seeing my doctor on a weekly basis. I should be packing my hospital bag. I should be worrying about contractions and fine tuning my birthing plan.

How your baby's growing:

Your baby is still packing on the pounds — at the rate of about an ounce a day. He now weighs almost 6 pounds and is more than 18 1/2 inches long. He's shedding most of the downy covering of hair that covered his body as well as the vernix caseosa, the waxy substance that covered and protected his skin during his nine-month amniotic bath. Your baby swallows both of these substances, along with other secretions, resulting in a blackish mixture, called meconium, will form the contents of his first bowel movement.

At the end of this week, your baby will be considered full-term. (Full-term is 37 to 42 weeks; babies born before 37 weeks are pre-term and those born after 42 are post-term.) Most likely he's in a head-down position. But if he isn't, your practitioner may suggest scheduling an "external cephalic version," which is a fancy way of saying he'll try to coax your baby into a head-down position by manipulating him from the outside of your belly.


Instead I am crying 3-4 times a day. Every time I write the date I feel like I am counting down to the end of my world. I stare out the sliding glass door at my pear trees but am too scared to go out there. I am so afraid that if I go out there, I'll start crying and never be able to stop. I look at pregnant women with envy. I look at pictures of babies with such longing. I look at my husband holding our dog and can't help but imagine him holding our son. I dream of being pregnant. I dream of rocking babies. I dream of having what so many other women get to have.

I want to believe that I'll have a baby someday but I am fast realizing that it is a real possibility that I won't. Some people have said that we still have plenty of time. Others  have mentioned fertility clinics, treatments and procedures.

I don't want to wait.  I don't want more appointments, treatments and procedures. I don't want to look in the mirror every day and be reminded of my failures as a woman. I just want to have a baby like a normal woman.