"You get what you pay for, but I just had no intention of living this way." -Counting Crows

Why We're Here...

My husband David and I delivered a stillborn Baby Boy that we loved, and wanted. Our first and only son, Logan, had Down Syndrome. Our daughter's smile is a little light in the darkness. She turned one year old three days after our sweet Logan tip-toed away on January 24, 2009. After 2 1/2 years we found out we were having another baby, whom we affectionatly called Rudy. Just shy of 6 weeks we found out Rudy was Ectopic. Rudy was surgically removed on May 26, 2011 delivering another blow to our already broken hearts.


Another rough day

Today was another rough day. Another one. I'm not sure why I seem to have found my way back into the pit. Usually I can blame my hormones or something, but this is just good old fashioned, kick me in the gut, grief coming to pull me under yet again. I can't lie, these days seem to be less frequent, and I'm not sure why I always seem so surprised when I have a bad day, or in this case...a bad few days. I guess, just like the general population, I feel like it's been long enough (you know, the logical part of my brain) and I need to start to move on. But, every other part of me disagrees. So... Here I am, crying again today. My DH came home early today, and brought me a Slurpee, a back up pop that he knew I'd spike later in the evening, and a jar of peanut butter. I cried then too. I cried over a jar of Peanut Butter. Seems silly I guess. But really I just got overwhelmed. I don't feel lucky. I don't feel blessed. But I am, and I should. It's just hard. I have a great husband, and that jar of PB was just a nudge of a reminder. I mentioned the other day that I was out of PB. I hate being out of PB. It's a staple for me, I like it, it makes me happy, and I've been out for a couple of weeks. And at the 7-Eleven, he remembered, and he bought me a jar, and a Slurpee and a Sunkist for later. It's those stupid little things. I am lucky, I am blessed. But, sometimes I get so blinded by my sorrow for my son that I can not see the sunshine and rainbows in my life.

I've gotten to the point where I feel obsessed to move. I don't want to be here anymore. I don't just mean here, in my home, though I'll start there. I mean here! I want to go away. I want to find a new life, a new culture, a new everything. I want to start over, I want a second chance. I know that moving away and getting a new life won't change a stinkin' thing. I know that, in my logical brain. But the illogical side of me seems to be the one in charge nowadays. I don't want to be here. It makes me unhappy. It makes me sad. That room, it was meant for my little boy. This couch, this is the one I should be sitting on nursing my son while I watch my daughter tare up my house. These floors, these are the floors I should be fussing about the dog hair over, like I did before. Everything in this house reminds me that the plans and hopes and dreams I had are ridiculous now. Irrelevant. I want to leave, and I don't want to take anything with me (ok, maybe my scrapbook room and my laptop...let's not be crazy!). I want new furniture, I want new clothes, I want new decor, or different. I want different everything. I want to live in someone else's home, or someone else's life perhaps. It feels weird to be sad all of the time, to want to avoid my home...that should be my sanctuary. The one place I used to feel safe and comfortable against the crazies in the world. Not anymore. These days I try to think of reasons not to be home. Unfortunately their aren't many, which leaves me to sit here. Here! Here on this God forsaken couch, in this God forsaken living room, staring at the same God forsaken window where I used to sit and dream and wonder and plan. I don't want to be here anymore. Logan was a chapter of my life that God tore the pages from, I just want to start writing a new one. A sequel. But I want it from a new location, a clean perspective. It's not gonna happen, and I think that makes me feel hopeless, and a little more sad. I know I can't run. I know I can't hide. Trust me, I've tried. But grief seems to have taken the spot where my shadow once was. Attached to me, following me where ever I go. I just wonder if grief would look a little different under a different sky. If I would be so consumed with moving and starting over that maybe, perhaps, I wouldn't be so consumed with the truth. The reality that just won't go away. The reality that doesn't seem to want to give me a moments peace. I just don't understand. I've accepted that he's gone, that he's never coming back... So what is this that I am dealing with? They say the truth hurts. People run from it and hide from it and deny it all the time. So what is this then if I stand here and shout at the top of my lungs that I've accepted it? And yet, I am still being drug under by forces I do not understand, a sorrow that I still can not comprehend, and a grief that will not go away. What am I to do but stand here and let it beat me down until there is nothing left of me. I can not sit idly bye with buckets of tears and no hope for relief. Sure, time is the salve, but it won't be the healer this time. I don't want salve. I don't want to have this hurt camouflaged and covered up, just to resurface time and again. I want to be healed. But there will be no healing. Nore should there be I guess. My baby died. I'm not sure I ever want to "get over" that. I'm not sure I don't want it to hurt. I'm just back to saying what I've been saying for the past six months...I don't want a dead baby.

Days like THIS??

Momma said there'd be days like this??

No, my momma didn't tell me.

In fact, I was pretty clueless that there was this kind of pain in the world. Pain that doesn't really have a face. Pain that is so multifaceted that it inflicts itself upon me for seemingly random reasons. Why is it that some days (and this is one of those none hormonal ones, this is supposed to be my one week of peace) I feel the overwhelming urge to stuff Peanut M&M's into my mouth, just after I'd eaten lunch and am feeling rather full? And why is it that there are days that I become obsessed with getting something to drink (we're talking pop here!!) so much so that I actually get dressed (just enough not to have people stare) and go to 7-Eleven?? I've become a comfort eater/drinker. I gained 10lbs this month. TEN!! And get this, I'm trying to LOOSE weight. I don't recognize myself anymore, my brain. It's like I'm two different people. The person I was before Logan died, and the person I am now (who is trying to fake that she's still the old me!). I think I'm depressed. Seems obvious, almost expected. To be honest, I don't really know what real depression looks like. You know, when you're past the blues and you start looking for alternative methods to feel good. I cry for reasons I can't explain. I know, I know. I'm the mother to a dead baby. I should be depressed. I should cry. But at what point does it go too far? I'm too logical to kill myself. At least I'm with it that much. But getting out of bed (and it's getting later and later) is a chore like none other. And getting off the couch, well other that to do what is absolutely necessary (and frankly, the bare minimum), just seems pointless. I know I'm supposed to function, and I do what I have to, but I don't want to. I don't see the point anymore. And days when my daughter is not home...well...those days are pathetic. Makes me wonder who I'd be if she wasn't here to keep me from sliding all the way under. I have an appt. so don't freak out about me or anything. It's just one of those days. A day when I can't describe the hollow hole in my chest, days where I feel like I am literally suffocating, days when I am quite willing to curl up and drift away into oblivion. Days when the Vodka in my cabinet calls to me, and my brain argues not to go down that path. So I don't, most of the time.

I don't want to know anymore.


I don't want to know my son is dead. I don't want to know that I should have a two month old laying in that empty room. That the room should be painted blue and green with little fishies (like this one). I don't want to know that I should be stressed to the max and flipping out because I have two babies. I don't want to know this reality any more. I don't want to know this kind of heart break, this enormous amount of pain that I can't explain to anyone I know. I don't want to stand by helpless watching the pain drag my husband under. I don't want such a wonderful man to have to experience such sorrow, and to know he experiences it because he chose me. I don't want to wonder what to tell people. I don't want people remembering I was pregnant, and not being sure where the baby went. I don't want people to know. I don't want people to look at me like that. I don't want to look at myself like that. I don't want every intimate encounter I have with my husband to be laced with fear, and remorse, and longing, and memories, and sorrow, and hope for something we can't have back. I don't want to search for ways to fill the void. I don't want to long for a different life. I had/have a great life. I have an awesome husband that I don't deserve who is as perfect for me as I could have ever dreamed to hope for, and a daughter who is such sunshine and rainbows you'd wonder how anyone could find a teardrop with in a hundred miles of her. I don't want to hide my life away. I don't want to spend my free time in tears. I don't want this sorrow in my home anymore. I don't want to miss a child I never got to know. I can't mourn someone I never met. It's unreal. I don't know how to do it and it has worn me down and split my chest wide open. How am I to heal? How am I to get over, to move on from an enigma? I'm tired. I ache all over. I'm spent and I don't know how it is physically possible to still be crying after six horrible months.

I've thought about a shrink. I have, a lot. But I keep coming back to the same point...how can they help me if they can't fathom what I'm going through? How can they tell me if I'm normal, or appropriate if they haven't walked in these shoes? All they can do is pat me on the back, ask me stupid questions about how I feel when I already know how I feel, and then give me drugs. The drugs don't sound so bad. A pill? All I have to do is take a pill and then poof, the tears will go away? I'm in! But we all know it doesn't work that way, or we'd all have that pill!

My favorite movie is Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. It's a horribly tragic movie, or at least that's how I see it. The point of the movie, if you don't know, is that this man is so heartbroken over a girl that he goes in to have his memory of her erased. And the entire time they are going through the process of erasing her memory, his mind keeps trying to hide her, because though the pain is unbearable for him, in reality...in his subconscious, he doesn't really want to forget her. That's how I feel. I would give my right arm to not know what I know. To not feel the sorrow that is engulfing my heart. But really, in all of my blinding pain, I still want Logan. I still want to know he was there, even if for a little while. And though I would have given anything at all to have my son be born and grow up (there's that qualifier for you), Down Syndrome and all, I'll take this pain of knowing he was here, that I had a son...even if he died.

I'm just tired of knowing that he died. Tired seems like a weird word to use. Weary. Spent. Exhausted. Drained. Empty. I feel all used up.

Is this what it's like when a spouse dies? A parent? Do I have to go through this again? Does Logan's death hurt this bad because he was a baby? Or because he was my child? It makes me fearful for the future. I am affraid that I can not survive out-living my daughter. I can not imagine that I could survive out-living my husband. It makes me hope that my death is first, and that makes me sad, and scares me. I am a coward. I have seen that kind of darkness and I am afraid to touch it again. I don't care how that makes me look.

OPB (other people's babies)

I did it. I held a newborn. Even more so, I held the little girl my cousin was pregnant with when I was pregnant with Logan (born a month later). She was 6 tiny weeks old. So tiny (8lbs 6oz), so precious, so perfect...so alive. Surprisingly I didn't react or "feel" anything weird. There was a small tinge for my sweet baby when I first took her into my arms. She was so small, I immediately thought about how small Logan was. I held her on three different occasions. I wanted to take her. I wanted to protect her from her idiot mother. I looked for her all afternoon at the wedding, stealing glances every chance I got. Like I craved seeing her. I did it though, no tears, no freak out, no kidnapping. The last time I held her it occurred to me that her and Logan would have been so close in age, that I should have been there holding my two month old...that threw my heart into a tailspin, and it was also the last time I held her. But I think I did ok. I think I did ok because she was a girl...a boy might have been a very different story. It made my heart ache for him though. Holding that tiny little bundle of warmth and innocence in my arms. Watching how my daughter reacted to this tiny baby that was stealing her mother's attention away from her. I also had the very distinct feeling that everyone was watching, waiting... I felt compelled to hold her. I debated, but then I reached out for her and the moment she was in my arms (well, the moment after the initial twinge) I relaxed. I know I surprised my DH and a few others. I always feel like the crazy lady everyone is keeping a leery eye on.

I also watched TNT's HawthoRNe today (on TiVO) episode 3 or 4 I think. A homeless mother had her newborn son taken away and placed into foster care with out her knowing it, and she screamed "I didn't get to say goodbye!!" and collapsed into a heap of tears...and so did I. Stuff like that takes my breath away everytime. I didn't get to say goodbye either.

6 months!

Here it is! 6 months that my sweet boy has been gone. Dead as long as he was alive. It's morning, I'm OK so far. I was up for a few hours before it hit me. I guess that's good, right? Maybe it helps that I'm out of town. Maybe it helps to have the distraction of family and the wedding. Maybe I needed to be distracted so that I wouldn't sit at home and obsess about it. Man! Where does time go? Life kept going on. It doesn't seem fair, and it doesn't seem plausible. It should have stopped the day Logan died. My heart did, so why didn't my life? "They " say that time heals all wounds.
It's late night now. Bedtime blogging. Today came and went and I was thankful for the distractions. David and I didn't talk much about it. But he was mentioned. I wore his tiny tag today and his missing piece bracelet. It always helps me feel closer to him to wear those, like I'm taking him along. I seem to be ok right now, unless I dwell on it. So I try not to do that. But when I do stop to think about it, I'm horrified at how the time seems to have slip away...and yet, thankful that it has.
Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile

Whew! Right?

Thank you guys. Your reassuring comments are helpful.


I took the test this morning. 1 pink line. So...I'm not pregnant. Which is great. And that sucks. But honestly I have to say I'm not ready. I've rejected taking my pills for the past 6 months. Like my rebellion makes it better. And since I'm high risk for Spina Bifida, the fact that I quit taking my folic acid scared me. So, guess I'll be taking those again. I have too much to worry about already, and adding my fear of SB on top of it because I was an idiot and quit taking my pills is just foolish. Plus, I realized last night that this is the same time that I got pregnant with Logan, which means that had I have been pregnant now I would be due in May...the same time as Logan. I don't want that. Plus I feel like Logan's loss is still just to fresh for me and my grief is too raw to be able to enjoy the prospect of another child at this moment. So, though I feel sad, I think I am more relieved and if nothing else I sure have talked myself into believing that it's better this way. I'm glad to hear I'm not the only one with a messed up cycle. I really worked myself in to a tizzy. I made an appointment the other day to get in with a new Ob/Gyn in a couple of weeks. I really need to get my hormones checked.


I will be taking my laptop with me this weekend, so I'll be sure to add a new question of the week to The Dead Baby Club Blog on time. Plus, I've gotten pretty good at mobile blogging. Yeah, I'm a dork, you can laugh.

The words are stuck

I know its the milestone (6 months) that's creeping up on me this Friday, but I am a mess. I go from a weeping pile to a freaked out, delusional, crazy lady. My cycle is messed up, which isn't helping. I've never had a messed up cycle. I've ever only been late three times in my life. The first time my DH swears I counted wrong (and was over 8 years ago), the other two times...I was pregnant. So here I am...4 days late. I know, you can laugh, it seems ridiculous. But my mind is swirling. I actually started on Thursday, and stopped a day later. That's never happened to me before. But I've become obsessed again. What if I'm pregnant? It's not possible, we've prevented. What if I'm not pregnant...because clearly I WANT another baby. Back and forth I go. I should just take a stupid test and get it over with, stop freaking out about it. But the truth is...I don't want to find out. I'm afraid of the truth, which ever one it may be. And I'm afraid that my cycle is screwed up for the first time ever. It happens though. Pregnancy throws every ones body into a loop. I have to imagine having a stillborn in the middle of gestation isn't "natural" and must screw your body up. Sigh. I have so many thoughts, and words, and emotions flailing about inside my head, but they all seem to get stuck just short of coming out. It's making me nutty.

This weekend is my brother's wedding. David's in the wedding, so we'll be going "back home" on Thursday or Friday. Friday. THE DAY. 6 months. I've mixed emotions over this. I'd like to be at home, safe under my covers when this day strikes me in the face...but maybe it'll be nice not to be. Maybe it'll be nice to "get away" and enjoy a mini vacation of sorts. I'm trying like hell to make it into one. We're staying in a B&B, so that's exciting. I like "staying" places. I'm hoping I don't mope around the whole weekend. I'm hoping I can slide through the days with only sideways glances at my grief. I'm hoping I don't notice the day...but I find that doubtful.

Father's Grieving Infant Loss

I posted this today on the DBC blog.
It's a blog by Tim Nelson (Author)
Father's Grieving Infant Loss
Might be a good place to hang out.

If you want to chuckle

I posted this on my other blog today. If you're looking to chuckle, take a gander.

I can't shake it

I guess it's just one of those days. I hate hormones. I can't shake the crap that has crept in today. I was watching the 2nd episode of TNT's HawthoRNe this evening (which I think is pretty good), and of course it had a baby in it that they thought the mother was poisoning. Turns out she was just being too protective and washing her baby too much. She loved her baby so much she was hurting her. It made my heart want to scream. To feel that desperate. To scream and fight for your baby. I didn't get to fight. I didn't even get to know there was a problem. He just died, and I didn't even know it when it happened. And blast it if I don't feel like punching a hole in my wall again.

I just wanted to go to the zoo

I read this today and it got me to thinking about my trip to the zoo over this past weekend.

I took the Muffin to the zoo (you can see pic's here) on Sunday with my cousin and her family. I like to experience new things with my daughter and I was excited to go and see her 18 month old reaction to all of the different animals (and I was not disappointed). The thing is, we hadn't been there but a few minutes, when I got punched in the face again. I say punched, because I still feel like it's a sucker punch, and not a pang or a twinge or something less harsh. We were in the aquarium. It was large, but not huge. Still, a good size and packed to the gills (no pun intended). I'm hanging out with my Muffin, holding her up so that she can check out the fish and other sea creatures and my cousin is nearby. We're talking and chillin' and pointing and enjoying ourselves. And then...


"Logan! Get back here!"


I couldn't help it! I looked. I had to see what he looked like. Dark hair, maybe 4 or 5, typical little boy. Why?? Why now? Why here? I'm just trying to enjoy my time at the zoo with my daughter.


I hate that I noticed. And I hate that my cousin noticed that I noticed. I hate that I had to text my DH and tell him. I hate that I thought about him all day, that I missed him even more, that I wondered what that day would have been like with him there too. Wondered if I would have even been there since he should have technically only been 2 months old.


Of course it seemed like they followed us around all day as our paths crossed several times. The Toledo Zoo is not small! Hearing it once should have been weird enough, but hearing it a dozen times that day?? Well, that's just the universe being cruel to me again.


It changes us, this grief. It changes how we enjoy things, how we see things. It changes how we talk, how we listen, and how we feel about life in general. I wasn't prepared for that. I wasn't prepared for any of this, but I certainly didn't realize how grief was going to change me, how it continues to change me, to shape who I am and how I behave.


I just wanted to go to the zoo with my daughter.

Two Deaths

The day my son died, my faith also died.


And that scares me, and it makes me feel hopeless.


And I am so full of envy for you woman who have managed to find comfort in God and hold on to your faith. I am mystified by it.

I just want to be left alone.

Maybe it's hormones. I dunno. I always seem to find dark days when I'm more hormonal. Not that I need a reason to cry for my son. I don't understand why hormones would play a roll in my grieving process. Not that I need more to add to it. I know on my "stable" days that life will go on, that it is going on, and that I'll survive and maybe I will go on to have more children...but then maybe I won't...but either way I'll be ok. The way I figure it, I have 7 "stable" days a month. Woman spend a week hanging with Aunt Flo, a week pre-menstrual, and about a week around the ovulatory time. So, that leaves me a week to not be bombarded with emotions and hormone induced lunacy. And in that week, I have to be careful not to run across any newborns, baby shower crap, movies or TV shows involving having a baby (or even worse, someone loosing a baby)...which seems to be more prevalent after your own child dies. So, that leaves me a few good days a month. Because when I'm pre-men all I can think about is how bad I want a baby, and that it's not fair that mine was taken away. When I'm ovo, all I can think about is making a baby. And when I am menstrual...well, that week just sucks anyway. But I have come to realize that no matter how much I'd like to move on, to feel better...there are about 21 days a month that are working against that. I'm tired. I'm tired of these tears that seem to come out of no where. The ones that make me wonder if maybe I'm not really coping as well as I'd like to believe, and that maybe I'm just ignoring or stuffing the sorrow down. And I don't like not knowing what causes the tears. Obviously they're rooted in my son, but why today? Why this afternoon more so than any other time? I wasn't watching anything, I wasn't listening to anything, I wasn't doing anything that would provoke my heart. It makes me mad. I just want to be left alone. I want the sorrow to go away. I want to feel normal and whole again. I don't want to feel like something is missing. I don't want to feel like I have to fix something, or like something is unfinished.
I had ice cream for lunch. You can laugh. My diet has been one failure and disappointment after the next and these past couple of weeks I just can't deal with it anymore. But I had a mini 1/2 fat ice cream, it's not like it was Haggan Das or anything. Anyhow, as I stood there peeling the cover off the tiny tub and arguing with myself that this isn't an appropriate lunch and that maybe I ought to go pick something else up, the ugly mean spirited side of my heart said to me, and I quote "It doesn't matter anyhow. You don't have any reason to take care of your body any more!" at which point I burst into sobs for the umpteenth time today. Odd, the things the dark side will whisper in ones ear. The horrible malicious thoughts that drive us to the guilt and self loathing we experience, as if the pain of your baby dying isn't enough, we must add to it. We are more cruel to ourselves than anyone else is. But, I don't find that knowledge to be comforting. I don't care if my hormones, or emotions or the dark side of my heart is what encapsulates me into a weeping mound of sadness. The fact remains that I still feel such sorrow. My dh says that he is sad everyday. And I realized that though I try like hell to pretend otherwise, I am too. Everyday I know my son is dead. I can't even say that I remember everyday, because there hasn't seemed to be a moment where I have forgotten. But nowadays I just feel worn down. Like how you feel after a crazy busy day. Too tired to fall asleep, to achy not to think about it, but too drained to cry or talk. And there seems to be a permanent lump in my throat.
My friends baby shower is in a month. She's having a boy. I don't know why that matters to me, that it's a boy, but it does. I wish it didn't. And I find that I am hurt, or mad or ambivalent towards her and her pregnancy because I tried so hard to reach out in the beginning and to help her not feel weird towards me, but in the end she shied away from me at every turn. And now I think I'm bitter at her for that. I don't know. My other friend, the other pregnant one, suggested us going in on a gift. I agreed, that way I wouldn't have to go shop for little boy things (not that there aren't other things to buy). But I don't even know if I am going or not. I should go. It's the grown up, right thing to do, and I don't think I'll have a melt down (although hopefully it'll be during my stable 7 days!). But what if I do? It scares me to go. It scares me to know that a little blue onesie could push me into hysterics. It scares me that she might feel weird if I'm there, and only invited me out of politeness. I hear she's huge. I haven't seen here since Logan died. I was supposed to meet up with her on Sunday and I found myself really not wanting to. I can't now anyhow, but I'm not disappointed.
Why is it that after our bodies betray us in such a horrible fashion do we still have such an overwhelming urge to do it again? We learn at a very young age that if it burns, we don't touch it again, ever. Why do I still want to run head first into producing another baby? Why am I counting down the days till we are cleared to try again (8, if your curious) when I know that I can't do it by myself? Why am I so freaked out about asking my DH how he feels about it? Actually, I think I know that answer, I just don't like it. He's been very honest from the get go that he's not ready...but I think that's what scares me the most. Having to rely on another person for their consent. And I wish there was something I could do to convince the both of us that it would work out, a dozen times over. That Logan's condition is a fluke. I keep reading that lately, how DS is just a fluke. Oooh, that makes me so mad! A fluke killed my baby! And why at 6 months gestated? Why not right away? Why not before I even knew I was pregnant? Why would he have to die when he was old enough to be delivered, to be seen, to be held, to be felt and heard? Still, at almost 6 months into my grief, I still have so many questions that scream for answers, when clearly there are none. But my heart wants answers, it wants to understand. It wants facts, and reasons.
Me? I just want to find peace. I want the lump in my throat to go away, and I want the knowledge that I had a son, and now he is dead to go away. I want the ache and the fear and the guilt and the sorrow...I want it all to go away. I just want to be left alone.
I want to have genuine happiness with out the shadow of sorrow.

Carry on...


I saw this in my SIL's bathroom on one of those daily quotes things.
Carry on. It is not easy. But it is what we have to do...

Says who?

A new blog for Dead Baby Families

Lately I've been thinking of ways to help others who are "going through" loosing a baby. And since I live on my PC and I have really grown found of blogging, I decided to start up a resource blog for families dealing with a dead baby. I know there are a few out there already, but I can't run their blogs, and therefore I can't post the things I think I would like to see. The blog is still under serious construction but I decided to release it to the public today. I think this blog will be a little different than other resource blogs in that I would like it to be very interactive. If you choose to take a look you may notice that I took the liberty to add a few of your blogs to the directory and what not. If you would like to be removed, just let me know and I will delete it ASAP. Anyhow, I encourage each of you to check it out and add your two cents. There are directories, a dictionary, a guest book, helpful links, a question of the week, a memory name list, a Dead Baby Warning directory among other things. I plan to add a photo album, book reviews, and other resources as I go along. I am VERY OPEN to suggestions and ideas on things that should be added. So, don't be shy.

Debuts today!

A million thoughts at midnight.

I have too much on my mind. I can't sleep. I don't think I do that much, sleep. I don't remember not sleeping, but in the morning (and through out the day) I feel exhausted and like I got ran over by a truck. Almost like a hangover. A grief hangover maybe. Like how it is after a crazy holiday and you feel wiped out and emotionally and physically exhausted for a time after. Maybe that's what is happening. Maybe I'm to that stage where I am just wiped out.


Kubler
-Ross says there are 5 stages to grief; Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression & Acceptance. A friend of mine said there are 6, the sixth one being Repeat. I've repeated this cycle over and over and over again. Some stages more than others. I seem to like to hang out in stage two; anger, the most. I've done a lot of bargaining too. But, God doesn't accept bribes. Trust me, I tried. I tried a lot. But here I am, shuffling into stage 5. I say shuffling because I'm not sure I want to be here yet. I'm not sure I want to accept that my son is dead. It's been so hard to be told he's dead, then to feel it, then to see it, then to talk about it, then to know it and now to accept it? It doesn't seem appropriate. I don't want to accept it. It feels like I'm just laying down and taking it with out a fight. And though I know that I can fight and scream till I'm blue in the face, he will not be coming back...I guess it makes me feel like I tried and did my best...just in case by some fluke God reverses the rules of the universe and gives him back to me. I mean, his death was a fluke...couldn't I experience more of those? No. I know that it won't happen. But to accept it seems like more than I am capable of. Seems like. But, I guess it's not though, is it? Because, horror of horrors...here I stand on the cusp of stage five; acceptance. With part of me still hanging out in stage two, because YES...I am still very pissed. I just am not sure at who, or for what anymore. I just know that I am so very angry still, and I still can't believe it, and I'd still trade every second of my life for him, and it still makes me want to sleep all day and pretend it didn't happen...even if I am starting to accept it. Which leads me to believe that you never really get past the stages of grief. Won't I always still be just a little in denial that such a horrible thing happened to me? Won't I always be a little angry (or a lot) and still try to barter for his return...or at least to take this breath taking ache away? Won't there always be a corner of my heart (at the very least) that wants to hide from the rest of the world? How is it then that I am to get PAST the stages of grief? No. I think I will forever cycle through each stage, again and again and again. Maybe in varying degrees, maybe in different ways, but none the less.

6 months. Logan has been dead for 6 months. Dead for as long as he was alive. This is me in stage 1. Denial. I still can't believe he was here...and now gone. But I see this milestone in an odd way. No longer do I feel like I am standing on the tracks with a freight train barreling down at me at an incomprehensible speed ready to splatter what's left of my guts out for the world to see. Nowadays I feel more like I am sitting in my car, the first person in line...waiting. Annoyed, impatient, distracted but still dazed as I watch this enormous freight train come barreling down the tracks at a speed that leaves me awe struck. Six months flying up on me so fast, while I'm going on with the rest of my life, seemingly unaware. But I'm aware of it's approach the same as I would be aware of the ground shaking, the sounds, the smells, the vibrations in my body of an approaching freight train. Have you ever stood next to a train that was moving? The power will blow your mind. You are such an insignificant force by comparison. That's how I feel now. An insignificant force standing beside an enormous freight train that is no longer going to run me down, but one that is going to pass me bye...leaving me shaken, awe struck and significantly aware of just how fragile I really am, but one that will leave me standing in the end. Survival. Isn't that what I begged God for? Let me survive this breath taking, gut wrenching, mind blowing, heart shattering event. I guess I survived. I'm still breathing, but...it still hurts, when I allow my thoughts to wander down the path with my little boy.

This past weekends was one of those times I wandered down that path a few times more than my current normal. Independence Day. BBQ's and family get togethers for so many, my family not excluded. This event would have been when I would have introduced Logan to my extended family back home. He would have been about 6 weeks old or so. Instead, I went to the BBQ with my DH and the Muffin and it was just like last year. Well, except for a few conversations here and there about the autopsy papers and other stupid stuff. Although, I did have an ironic encounter. It's encounters like this, seemingly random things that really are just inappropriate face punches from the universe, that still take my breath away. My cousins new beau was wearing one of those rubber bracelets made popular by that Cyclist dude. It was white with green letters. I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me because from where I sat I could swear it said LOGAN. I asked the boy and sure enough, it did indeed say Logan's name. When I asked him about it he said that he just liked the color of it and thought it looked nice. My cousin got it from my uncle and gave it to him. No significance whatsoever. He thought it stood for The Logan Center. When I asked what that was he turned to ask my aunt if she knew. The Logan Center is a home for the mentally retarded. Nice. Thank you universe. Even more ironic since my son was retarded, having had Down Syndrome (which I've come to find is a syndrome of mental and physical retardation). What are the odds? What are the odds that I would notice a name on a random bracelet on a kid I didn't know for a home of MR folks on the day that I was consumed with thinking that it should have been my sons coming out party? What are the freakin' odds of that? Well, if you haven't noticed...odds, the ones that no body wants, have managed to find there way to my door step quite a bit lately. I digress. You win universe. I just don't have the mental stamina to keep up anymore. I wish I would have asked him for the bracelet.

Six months also marks the end of our medically demanded infertility. On the 24th we will be cleared, physically, not necessarily emotionally, to start trying to have another baby. We won't be. Not now anyway. I haven't even brought it up in a few weeks. I know. My DH is so not ready. And believe it or not, I find that on days where I am thinking logically and not ovulating or mucking around in the empty arm blues I'm not ready either. Today I even found myself wondering if I would ever be ready again. Wondering if the Muffin was going to be enough for me and my mommy desires. Wondering if I thought it would be worth it or not. Of course it would be. Having a child is worth every ounce of pain you can get, and I'd cut off my own leg if I had to. Maybe wondering more so if I wanted to put my heart out there again with the chance that it might get obliterated again. Maybe convinced that I wouldn't be able to birth a healthy child again. Maybe convinced that Logan was a warning to knock it off. Wondering if I was being punished, rewarded or warned. Wondering if it mattered. Hoping that I wouldn't crust over with a bitterness that could never be penetrated. I think I'd like to have more children. I hate feeling like it isn't a good idea, that there is a time limit, that it might not happen even if I wanted it to.

Anyhow, so being in this acceptance stage...or at least tip-toeing around it, had me laying in bed tonight thinking of all of these things. Which invariably led to my thinking of an urn again. My son needs to be in an urn. Having this open end, just leaves things unfinished, fresh, raw and still bleeding. We need to tie up this loose end. But urn shopping makes me nauseous. And I have been having some relatively grief free days as of late and frankly I enjoy them. And I don't want to cry anymore. And I don't want to think about his dead little body. And I don't want to have to pick out a freakin' urn for my son!!! And every time I think about it I get really, really, really mad all over again. And I keep saying the same thing, I shouldn't be doing this! This isn't natural, it isn't normal, it isn't right! And yet, it still has to get done and prolonging the inevitable just means that I have to continually pick at the scab. Which, as everyone knows...makes for a worse scar. Sigh. I know I have to. And I know I'll have to drag my DH down with me when it's time. And that makes me leery too because he's had a rough time too and I don't want to induce any more tears for either of us and sadly I think that for the most part the white box on top of my armoir has become a fixture that is easy to let blend in with the rest of the clutter in my home...and though I know that is my son, it's easy to pretend otherwise...most of the time.

I've been thinking about God a lot lately. I'm Christian. I think I've mentioned that before. I'm back slidden, or a prodigal daughter or a fence sitter or what ever you want to call it. But the fact remains that though I believe there is a God, he makes me nervous. My mom said once that she pictured me hiding behind a bush hoping God wouldn't notice me and would just leave me alone. I guess I'd have to say that I picture it more like I'm waiting for God to jump out from behind a bush and yell BOO! Because, quite honestly, as I have looked around me over the years at those I thought were good Christians, those are the people who've had their lives yanked out from under them like a rug. I know, I know...there are a million earthly reasons and God isn't out to get us. Sure. I hear ya. I might even believe you on most days. But my faith was shaky before this, and now I find myself more leery of God than ever. Having said that, I know that I need to get back in church regardless. I want to raise my daughter with those beliefs, and sadly I don't know how to teach them to her when I am having such a hard time believing the most fundamental things. I don't doubt there is a God. I can not look at creation, at the human body, at science, at any of it and come up with a better explanation. My logic tells me that there must be a God. But knowing this God. Understanding this God...that's where I fall flat on my face. I can not comprehend this God. It is beyond me. I have no faith, so I can't rely on that anymore. So, I have to trust my gut and my logic. And if there is a God, and there is a Heaven and my sons there...then I want to do everything I can to get there to meet him. Sigh. And I miss the comfort or peace or whatever it is I used to have. And I am hoping that God will reveal to me the why's of my son's death...or more so the illness that made it impossible for him to live. I am hoping for peace, or understanding, or something to go along with the facts and acceptance. Sadly though, one can not be argued into a belief, so don't bother sending me notes trying to convince me or preach to me...thanks for the thought and effort but my family and friends IRL do that already...I really can't take any more of it. I'm just hoping, and on occasion praying, that I find my way back. That my beliefs come back, that my faith comes back. That I can teach my daughter the truths that I know exist, even if my heart rejects them right now. I wonder how many people pray and ask God to help them believe...I do. I want to believe. I miss believing.

Why is it at night when I am exhausted, and seemingly on the days when I am most exhausted do I think about my son? Why is it that I become so overwhelmed with thoughts about him and the terror that my life has become these last 6 months that I feel so compelled to get up out of bed and blog my fingers off until the wee hours of the morning? I do good all day, stuffing those thoughts, ignoring those memories, but at night they sneak up on me and try to suffocate me. Some days I wish they would. Anything to make the ache go away. Admittedly the days and the nights are far better than they were a few months ago. I'm progressing through this grief crap. I guess that's something. This blog does that for me. Some place to let it all out. Everyone needs an outlet I suppose. The thoughts and feelings easily flow from my finger tips even though I choke on them if I try to speak them. I guess it's probably a good thing that I don't blog as often as I used to. Like it's a measure of my progress. Time. It's a force to be reckoned with. I'll take it. These days I take anything that helps move me along. Impatient as always. But life goes on does it not? A thousand years ago some woman's baby died...yesterday, some woman's baby died. And life goes on. More babies will die, and life will still go on.

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