Uphill Battle

My husband is still travelling for work. It's a couple days here and a week and a half there. Soon it will be over, only 2 more weeks on this project. I had been enjoying our time apart, I could stay up late and sleep in, I could watch TV or movies and eat whatever I wanted or do nothing at all. But now it's dark out early, it's gotten cold and I came down with a cold last week. I miss having him to snuggle up to at night. I'm getting tired of doing everything around the house.

I started reading stuff for my new job at work. I hope it will be interesting. I don't especially care, but I hope it will be interesting to pass the time quickly until I get pregnant and just might get to take a baby home. I'm tired of pretending to be an engineer.

Carol invited me to a seminar she's coordinating, she asked me to be on the Parent's Panel. That sounds so weird to me. I don't feel like a parent. I don't feel like a mother. I sure don't feel like a mom. I went back and forth in my head about whether or not I should go. I didn't want to because I dread sitting there crying the whole time, not being able to tell my story through my sobs. But I decided I should go because it will give me validation. Validation that Isabella and Sean existed, validation of my grief in losing them, validation I so desperately crave. It will also give me a chance to help educate others on what I thought was done right and what wasn't when my world came tumbling down all over again. Thinking back to last year, I don't really have any complaints. All the medical folks I dealt with were compassionate, I never felt slighted or let down. This April I felt like I slipped through the cracks, the time line of April 8th and the events that transpired still make me so upset. It boggles my mind that an U/S technician seriously thinks they can say "I have to get a doctor to talk to you about your case", and then leave the room and have you not freak out. And then when they send you back to your doctor's office the receptionist has no idea why you're there and why you're already crying. That was just the beginning of the mess that was another worst day of my life. I can't say it was the worst because I've had two babies die while I was pregnant with them. I can't really say that one was worse than the other. I don't even know how to feel about September. I guess I was pregnant again, but was I really? I tried so hard to make Isabella and Sean into people by finding out their genders and naming them as if that would make them more real to others, but really was it just to make them real to me? And if that's the case then what about baby # 3? A baby I was barely pregnant with, a baby I never had a due date for, never even got to wrap my head around before it was gone. Like it was never there. I have pictures of Isabella and Sean, so that makes them more real, but it's all so unreal. I feel so sorry for myself. Boo-hoo, why did this happen to me? I'm tired of it. I'm tired of life sucking. I'm tired of not being happy. I'm tired of thinking that only a baby will make me happy. Because what if I never get one? What if I never get to really be a mother, to be a mom. To be the one a child runs to to show a new treasure and cries for when they fall down. To kiss the boo-boos and tuck them into bed. To read a story to and make chocolate chip cookies for. To teach to swim and ride a bike. I don't want to be baby lost anymore. I don't want to wear it like a badge and rub it in others' faces. I don't want to be offended when people tell me "You'll find out when you have kids..."

What am I trying to say? I feel like an impostor. I feel like I conjured all this out of nothing. That I've been overreacting. That I'm milking this for all it's worth. That it really isn't a big deal and I should just get over it.

So while society or whatever has been drilling this into me why haven't I just given up? Why haven't I just rolled over and taken it? Am I glutton for punishment? Do I just like conflict and adversity? Am I only just going against the grain and making a mountain out of a mole hill?

I think it's because it's such a fight that I keep fighting it. If it was easy and clean then I probably wouldn't bother. If people fell all over themselves and said just the right things when your baby died wouldn't it be easier all around? But they don't so it's not and it's back to me and my principles and the inevitable disappointment that other's behavior doesn't live up to my expectations. I'm tired of all my principles, I'm tired of always trying to prove my point. I'm tired of my uphill battle, but who am I battling? My husband? My husband's family? The world? Maybe I'm just fighting myself.

There's no way to win that battle.