Really feeling it

The tears came more easily last night than they have in a long time. Truth be told, I don't actually cry that much. I sometimes think I'm a bit of a freak, in that the worst thing in the world happened to me, but sometimes I can barely squeeze out a drop. I'm just so numb.

And I am focusing right now on my job at hand - and that is to fall pregnant again. Whether you agree with it or not. Whether you think I may or may not be putting my grieving on hold. Whatever. I need this new pregnancy more than most people will ever know. Because that will help my grief. That will bring back a tiny bit of that spark. That will give a real purpose and a real reason to drag my sorry ass out of bed each day. Until that day, I have nothing.

I have been having a few really long conversations with my best friend of late. Trying to repair much of the damage that has resulted from the shit storm that blew through our lives back in August. It aint pretty, any of it. But it is conversation that needs to be had. It is ugly and gritty but ultimately it is taking us back to a better place.

It was never going to be easy,any of this. It was always going to get worse before it got better. The birth of her second child hurt me in ways that I can't quite put in to words. But I do think the word bittersweet was probably invented for situations just like this one. Because that's what it was, absolutely bittersweet.

I sat at my laptop, talking to her (as we have not graduated to phone conversation yet) and tears spilled out of me like they haven't in some time. Splashing down on my keys all the while we I tried to explain myself and while she tried to understand me. While she gets to hold, kiss and feed her baby, I kiss my laptop screen. It feels soft and smooth like her skin did. Each day I find myself stroking her forehead on the screen with the back of my index finger, like I did for hours after she was born, and just wishing she would come back. Wishing she was more than a picture.

I felt relieved to know I was not alone in this crazy behaviour when my new friend, the girl in Melbourne I "met" who lost her first baby at 40 weeks and 6 days back in December, does the same thing. It just keeps happening in this community. People just keep making me feel sane and normal, amidst all the ugliness of our grief.

She told me she often wonders about what Hope would be up to and I said I did too. But I was lying. I don't. I can only see her as my newborn. That's all she was. And I've never had any other kids. I don't know what they do and when. I have no idea. Part of that makes it a bit easier for me now I think, as I have absolutely no idea what I'm missing out on. I can only believe it is truly magical. I can only hope I will get there again some day.

As the ever so wise and eloquent Carol has said before, if she could live any day in her life over again, it would be the day she had her Charlotte, even knowing the outcome. I feel the same. I would do it all again, 1000 times over. Just to hold her, to tell her I loved her one more time. To smell her, because in all seriousness, I'm sick of trying to smell her on the ugly and vomit stained t-shirt I gave birth in. The things we have to do to keep our children real and close are awful.

With the end of this cycle now approaching, I feel as if I'm headed towards a really big cliff. I know I said I would try and not put as much pressure on myself and that I would try and not make as much of dates, but I just feel like if it doesn't happen this month, well I just don't know what I feel. I'm too scared to even go there. I've done all the right things. I took the fucking holiday like everyone said I should. I have relaxed and recharged myself. I take the herbs, the vitamins. I pee on sticks so I know we get the timing right. I'm trying hard, but not too hard. It is my main focus each day, but I don't obsess over it as much as others. But it is still all I've got.

I'm so far from where I should be in life and even after it happened, I'm so far from where I thought I'd be. This bit is just taking too long. I'm so over it!

New pregnancies are starting to happen all around me, to so many of you in this strange world. I'll admit, I have stopped reading as much at some of those places, because it stings. But I am happy for you, just tired of waiting for me. I know I need to get in line though, and wait my turn I guess. Even though there is no race, some of you lost your babies well before me, so the chances were it was always going to happen for you first. But I'm still terrified of being left behind though. Of being the only non-pregnant person left who has nothing interesting to say or blog about other than her ugly grief.

Because most of this blog is ugly. Yesterday I went back and did something I haven't done before, and that was read over all my old entries and comments. Man, I hate it! I hate most of what I've said. The posts work out so much better in my head. They just end up a mess once they reach the screen. And all the typos and grammatical errors and punctuation mistakes I found. It is all a mess. I'm embarrassed, as I'm someone who actually gets paid to write!

But that's my life right now. A mess. I sheepishly admit Simon thinks we DID get invited to that first birthday party I ranted about yesterday. I simply have NO recollection of the invite ever arriving. He said I threw it out. How could I forget that? And it wasn't last weekend, it is this weekend coming. I still stand by the fact we weren't invited, he thinks we were. I think he's thinking of a Christmas card they sent us or an invite to the Dad's 30th birthday party a few weeks earlier. I have no idea. So what does that make me, a super giant mega bitch? I just feel so lousy. But you know what, I'll get over it. In any case, I'm still not going to the stupid party. Even if they did invite and I am welcome, I'd still be alone if I was there. I'm still the huge freak of nature. Woman who bears dead children. I'd still be the only childless mother there. I never even thought the words "childless" and "mother" could go in the same sentence. Now that's my life. It is the purest form of hell I could ever imagine.

This new life is just the strangest thing. I'm in a place I never wanted to know existed. While I was talking to my oldest, bestest friend last night, at the same time I was talking to my newest, bestest friend. Carly came online and told me she'd written 70 names in the sand last night. 70! And she had 110 waiting. She wrote names until the stars came out. I mean it is nuts. I shudder to think these are all new members to the club, but then I shudder regardless as it is still 110 families left behind brokenhearted, whether it happened five weeks, five months or five years ago. I hate that I can now more easily mourn the death of a little person than I can celebrate the safe arrival of one. I feel more comfortable looking at photos of pale, lifeless dead babies than I do bright pink, squirmy alive ones. It is awful.

It did feel good to cry those tears last night. I don't feel them brimming there anymore. I feel a bit more cleansed. Like maybe I can make it another few weeks without having another major breakdown like that. But then who am I kidding because in two weeks, there is either going to be some real tears of joy or some real tears of pain and sorrow. Again.