Wondering, and forever altered.

So.

I have to be honest. Recently a few people IRL have found my blog. It makes me feel weird. I'm a pretty private closed off person IRL and I keep my cards close to my heart. So having every raw emotion splashed across the pages of this blog to be read, picked apart, misunderstood and judged by people I see on a regualr basis...well, its awkward. I'm trying to just deal with it. This is my safe place. This is where I come to work through the horror that is having a child die before his first breath was ever taken. But I still feel weird. I don't like being that transparent. I don't like feeling that vulnerable to people I know IRL. Especially people who can not begin to fathom where I've been.

But. I'm trying to deal with it. I'm trying to get past the awkwardness so that I can feel safe and comfortable here again.

Anyway...

I never thought a year and a half ago that I would ever be in the place that I am today. Hopefully that offers encouragement to others who may just be starting out. It does get easier to live with, in time. I don't have nearly the amount of bad days that I used to. Now they're not so much bad days as bad moments. I still don't like hearing his name called out randomly, like at the Zoo today. There's just something about that. I'm hanging out, oblivious, most likely not thinking of Logan and I hear his name called and its like being slammed in the face with it again. Some people think that this would desensitize me, but I'm sorry...it does not. Not anymore than hearing my husbands name called, not any more than hearing my living child's name called. The name Logan is special for me, almost sacred. I'll never get used to hearing it called out randomly. Songs do it to me too. There are just way too many songs out there that fit how I feel. Walking this evening I had one loop through my Shuffle. Creed. Don't Stop Dancing. The very beginning of the song is this:

"At times life is wicked and I just can't see the light. A silver lining sometimes isn't enough to make some wrongs seem right. Whatever life brings I've been through everything and now I'm on my knees. But I know I must go on. Although I hurt, I must be strong. Because inside I know that many feel this way."

Anyhow, you can read the rest of the lyrics here if you want. The song tried to kill me. And like some sadist I replayed the song like four times! I'm hormonal this week. Driving back from the zoo this morning I started crying. Why? Get this. Because I started to think about if I died, that my daughter wouldn't remember me (she's just shy of 3). She wouldn't know the enormous amount of love I have for her. She'd grow up wondering about me, who I was, if I loved her. It crushed me to think of it. I don't know what my problem was. I just chalked it up to hormones. they're never rational anyhow.

I miss Logan. I miss the dream of the life we planned on. I miss the innocence of not knowing about this side of reality. I miss the thought of having my two kids, the days I had planned for us. I've come to realize that even should I choose to go on and have another child, Logan will always be missing. He should be here even after baby number three (coyly referred to as Rudy these days). It should be Aubrey, Logan and Rudy. Three. Or Four. But it never will be. He will always be missing. Its a hard thing to grasp for myself. I don't expect anyone IRL to ever get a handle on that either. You know. You're supposed to move on. Have more kids. Forget it happened. I guess. I dunno. Doesn't seem possible. I think the reality of it is that the parents of these dead children just stifle and lock away thier thoughts, memories and dreams of these "secret" babies so that the outside world won't label them as weird or crazy. Not able to cope, get over, move on. If Logan would've died at the age of five I highly doubt the outsiders would feel that way, much less have the audacity to even suggest perhaps its time to move on. But because he was a baby...because we didn't have "real" memories with him...because he didn't really have a life...we should move on. What about the memories we do have? The memories of him kicking? The memories of the sound of his heart beat? The memories of his dead body craddled in my arms? What do we do with those memories? How do we get over those? Move past them?

Logan would've been 17 months now. A month older than Aubrey would have been when he should've been born. I struggle with the fact that I can not imagine what my life would be like with a 2 year 10 month old and a 17 month old, especially one with Down Syndrome. I had no problem imagining it before Logan died...but now its just weird. I try. But I don't see it anymore, not even with Rudy. I see Aubrey with children about his age and it rips open a gash in my heart that is a fraction from being unbearable. I try to not think that she is lonely. I try to not think that she will most likely grow up to feel ambivalent, maybe curious at best, about the little boy who was her brother. This little boy that I have so much love for, she will not. I have lots of brothers. And I can not for one second imagine what my life would've been like, who I would have been, if any one of those boys never was.

These days that's what I struggle with the most. Wondering what life would've been like. Wondering what I would've been like. Wondering what Aubrey would've been like had she grown up with a brother. Wondering what we would all be like if Logan had been given the chance to have a life here on earth. Wondering, and never knowing. Forever altered, and yet not knowing to what extent or just how.

I miss that tiny life. I still have so many tears for that little boy.

::: ::: :::

On a different note I am proud to announce that I have lost the thirteen pounds of depression weight that I put on after Logan died. In fact, I've lost another pound more than that. The day that I surpassed my pre-pregnancy weight I cried. Those blasted pounds were just another reminder. I hated those 13 pounds more than any of the other ones. Put on because I just couldn't cope with what happened to me. Put on because I wanted to feel joy, comfort...anything other than what I was. Put on because I didn't care anymore. They were the hardest freakin' 13lbs a person could loose. It took me a year and nine months to get more than 3 pounds to budge. But I finally did, and though I have another 45lbs to go to my goal weight, I feel like a new person not having those 13lbs on me anymore. I blog about my struggles with weightloss in the face of depression, toddlerhood and life at my blog The Fatty Cake Girls Club if you'd like to wander on over and gawk at me there too.