Been a While

I haven't really felt the urge to write lately, and I have learned better than to force myself to keep up a blog (there are a few dusty, abandoned blogs out there saying "preach!")

Danny asked me about Sparrows Nest the other day and I told him that I had intended this blog to be a happy place, as I had started it when I was newly pregnant and hopeful. It just didn't seem right to post happy or funny things here now that it had become a place for me to air my grief. He reminded me of my last post, where I promised to start living and enjoying life and said it made perfect sense to write about whatever I wanted. Of course he is right - smart hubby. Believe it or not, my old blogs tended to be humorous. I don't find that as easy anymore.

Lately, I have been busy with living, I guess. We've eaten good food, spent time with friends, I've taken up craft projects for the first time in eons, read books, and am about to embark on an exercise project to boot. 

I've made some online friends who are going through similar things and it has helped to have a place to air my feelings. It always amazes me how good it feels when you share these kinds of fears and someone knows how you are feeling.

We're getting ready to start trying again and I'm equal parts anticipating and dreading it. I'm popping vitamins to help prepare my body to house new life. Even Danny is taking vitamins to do his bit. I wonder if this time it might work or if things will all fall apart again. It makes me so sad to admit that pregnancy is ruined for me; I absolutely loved being pregnant the first time, but now the thought of enduring those 9 months (if I'm that lucky) is much like how I would think about running across a minefield and hoping for the best. 

So that is an update of sorts. I will try to write more often. It really does feel good to talk about these things here.

Bereft

I have written 3 or 4 posts but stopped with my finger hovering over the "publish" button because I realized that I was not really getting out what I wanted to say. The problem is that what I want to say is inexpressible. How do I explain just how broken my heart is?

This December, this year, has been watered with so many tears that I am surprised I am still capable of producing them. I cry at home, I cry in the car before and after events, at events, with friends, alone...there isn't an end, it seems.

I've been so incredibly angry this past week, and it has taken all of my willpower to hold it inside so that it doesn't spill over and hurt someone I care about. It's just a symptom of my shattered heart, I know.

So here we are. Christmas Eve. Two, not three. Quiet. Alone. Bereft.

Journal

I keep a daily journal that has space for only a few lines a day. The idea is that this diary will take you through 5 years. Each page represents a date; for example, March 5 has its own page with five sections so you can compare five years' worth of March 5 experiences. My first such journal was given to me when I was pregnant with Haven and was intended for mothers (click here to check it out). I couldn't bear to keep it up after Haven died, though now I wish I had. I started a new one (not mom-specific) a few weeks before we found out we were pregnant this time.

I decided to look through my current journal the other day...I missed Haven and I missed being pregnant. I noticed two things:

1) A few days before this little baby died, I had expressed to him or her that I loved them. It was a big deal for me, as I was so afraid to bond this time around. I am thankful that I said it before it was too late. Even though this little person couldn't hear me, I hope that the love was felt somehow. I've realized that no matter how I tried to deny my feelings, I was bonding anyway. I hope that, next time, I will open up my heart right away, no matter how hard it is. Life is delicate and too short to not love fully.

2) Around the time this baby died, there was a wicked winter wind storm and I noted in my journal that it reminded me of the weekend Haven died and was born. From the day we found out she had died to the day she was born (Friday-Sunday), the wind was violent, spewing ice pellets and freezing rain from an angry gray sky. It is fanciful, but I remember laying in my hospital bed watching the chaos outside my window and thinking with pleasure that she didn't go quietly. That the gale bore her up to heaven. Perhaps, my imagination says, that same wind visited and whisked this little one up too.

I have been reminded this week of how much I need this blog. Writing about my experiences is one of the only ways I have found to process this grief. Friends have told me that I am "brave" for sharing it publicly, but I only keep it public because I know how desperate I was to relate to someone after Haven died. If my blogs can provide that even on a small level for someone else, then it is all worth it.

Public Service Announcement!

Yes, I am enough of a perfectionist that I need to add this disclaimer:

I normally upload posts from my iPhone and didn't realize that it was skewing the text as well as the pictures. I'll post from a PC from now on after I fix the affected posts. Sorry for the mess! Ick!