"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.


I've spent a lot of my life looking behind me. Wishing all the old things were new. Panicking at how fast time flies by. Childhood, highschool, college, my twenties...poof! Gone. So fast. So fast they just whipped by, pulling years from my life that at times I stop and stare and wonder how it happened. This has always made me sad. These days though I'm rushing through it all. Like maybe if I press forward this will all be over sooner. The logical part of me knows better, but I find that I am very emotionally driven as of late. And I hate that. I hate that I can't stand still long enough to listen to reason, and if I do I usually just shove it aside. And I hate that I'm rushing through life. Rushing through the cute growing years of my toddler, just so that I can get beyond a pain that I keep hearing you can never really get beyond. I know that in a few years I will look back on this past year and know that I should have slowed down and taken the time to smell the roses with my living child. Enjoyed every moment with her that I could. I owe that to Logan don't I? To enjoy my daughter? To make every waking moment with her count, to make it pleasurable, to make it worth while. I wish I didn't feel like my patience died that day too. Not that I've ever had an overabundance or anything. But I feel so raw all of the time. So spent. So done. So tired. So drained. I've started feeling like enough is enough. Knock it off already. He died. You're sad. I get it. Stand up and dust your self off and keep walking. But then the other part of me want to throw a tantrum. Wants to pount. Wants to feel sorry for herself and pretend that she's the only one in the world to have to go through this...like other's haven't been through so much worse. I have one dead baby. He wasn't my first. At least I have a child who is alive and healthy. At least I'm not like some woman who have had dead baby after dead baby after dead baby, or never able to conceive, or struggle for years with infertility only to have the child die as its being born. At least I don't have that. I wish that mattered to me.


I didn't decorate for the holidays. I'm not in the mood. I don't have the energy. And I use my 22 month old as an excuse "Oh, she'd pull the tree down" or whatever. But truthfully, I just don't feel like the hassle. Its like that with so many things these days. I need to just buck up and do it. Clean, laundry, bathe...


I don't cry much at all anymore. Logan is becoming such an enigma for me. I have a hard time picturing life with him in it anymore. I feel more and more like it happened to someone else. I miss my baby belly. I never thought I'd ever say that, but I do. I miss the thought of new beginnings and the excitement of a new baby. I spent the last two Christmas's pregnant and exhausted. Waiting. Impatient. Excited. This year I feel empty. Its odd how not finishing a pregnancy will leave you feeling like life is unfinished. I feel stalled. Like I'm still waiting for him to be born. Waiting for something. I spend most of my time trying not to think about what happened. Which in turn leads to less blog posts. I find myself eager for major change. I want to move. I want to remodel. I want to overhaul myself, my home, my life. Unfortunately (or fortunately) my husband doesn't have those same needs, or if he does he's at least rational enough to know what's best for us.


I can't leave life this way. I can't go out on a bad note. I feel like I have to try to have another child. I want to prove to myself that it doesn't always end badly. I want a happy ending. I don't want to always walk around feeling like life is unfinished. We started a family and then stalled during round two and never got back up on the horse again. I KNOW this sounds terrible. And no I don't think another baby would replace Logan. And no I don't think that it would make all of the hurt go away, but I have to believe it would help to heal some of the hurt. Not now. I'm not ready for a baby now. But someday... I have to feel like I still have that option. And dang it if I don't feel like that option has been torn from my hands. And I hate that I wanted this big family and now I have an only child and a dead child and so since I had one die then that's it, no more babies. And I hate that I should be content. Hey, at least I have the first one. Right? We're all thinking it. I SHOULD BE CONTENT. Aubrey should be enough. She's the light of my world. But I guess it makes me feel like I was hungry, so I got Aubrey, and then I was thirsty, so I got logan. Well hey, at least I'm not dying of starvation!! They're like apples and oranges to me. Having Aubrey doesn't minimize or erase the fact that I don't have Logan. Sigh. I so wish it did.


I added a new quote to the top of my blog. Its from a song by the Counting Crows called Its Raining in Baltimore. The quote is: "You get what you pay for, but I just had no intention of living this way." I've heard that song a million times over the last decade. But that line hit me so hard the other day. Maybe because it resonates that sentiment that maybe I didn't deserve Logan, or maybe I did something to deserve this pain. You get what you pay for, right? Maybe I didn't pay enough. But, regardless of if I paid enough or not, I never would have chosen this path. Who would? But I feel that so hard these days...I had no intention of living this way.


I can't believe its almost been a year. 39 days to go.

4 comments:

Mrs. Spit said...

I read a comment somewhere that having another baby is not going to fix what happened, but it's one hell of a pain killer.

Sending hugs. The days before the anniversary were ever so much worse than teh day of.

Carla said...

Hugs, Heather! It doesn't look like you want to replace Logan at all. Having another child is your decision to try to keep living your life in the best way you know how. Like getting back on your path after a nasty detour.

ps - Get that tree up before you get a guilty Mommy complex later about not having it up for Aubrey. You want those pics for Christmas morning in your scrapbook, right!?

Carla

Carla said...

Hey, I'm not pushy or bossy or anything, right ;) I always think twice about posting here but I hope that you take what I say in the way it was intended.... with empathy, friendship and kindness

Michele said...

Sending hugs... Grief cannot be measured.

Remembering Logan with you...

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