Fourteen months later and I'm tired of explaining.

It's almost April. APRIL! Don't get me wrong, I'm ready for Spring and the inevitable Summer (please hurry!!) but when I take a step back and look...I just can't believe it. Fourteen months have passed since Logan died. His first birthday would have been knocking on the door in May. Fourteen months. Feels like a lifetime, feels like yesterday, feels like someone else's life. And I mean, I'm better...right? These last fourteen months have been documented here in this blog and this blog is nothing else if not proof to what life was like and is like now. And though I know that I must have survived, and I must've gotten through it...I don't know how, and I don't know when it happened. I mean, I guess I'm not really through it yet. I think that will take a lifetime. But here I am. I wake up, I live what my life is now, I enjoy my daughter (among other things) and for the most part...I'm okay. There are moments, days, even several days at times when things are ugly and tough and I want to pack it all in and head for the hills. And when those times hit, they hit hard and fast. The part that I really feel like I have a hard time coping with is the "outsiders". People who just can't fathom what a wrecking ball loosing a baby can be. How it just seems to hang around forever and change everything about you. How you view the world, other parents, your own parents, your friends, your self... Its all changed. And the "outsiders"...well, I guess its just that it doesn't occur to them, the fact that everything is different. That I'm different. My mother comment something about me not being this bubbly person anymore. I mean, what do you say to that? Duh? It seems appropriate enough. But I guess its not her fault. She had five kids, not one complication. She has her own "tragedies and hurts" that I guess make her feel like she can connect with me on some level, but I don't see the similarities. I guess that's a fault I have to work on. I dunno. How can I be this bubbly person anymore? Though I can not relate, and this is probably a very insensitive comparison, I kind of feel like maybe its similar to what happens to people who have been in the middle of a war. They go in naive and ignorant to the horrors, they come out very changed, shell shocked and very aware that life isn't all sunshine and rainbows and that no, life doesn't always get better. And no one can get that unless they were there too. I just get tired of defending myself (or feeling defensive, I don't know how much active defending I've been doing) or trying to explain myself. She said that I should go out and celebrate my birthday, do something really special this year since I've been through a lot. In theory this sounds great. But in reality, I don't want to celebrate. The coming of my birthday (or any holiday or milestone for that matter) is just a reminder of the time that has passed. One more [insert event] further from my son's life. One more event that he isn't present for. One more event where I can't overlook the enormous elephant in the room, the fact that he was planned on, and isn't present. I can't help it. Believe me, if I could escape those thoughts I gladly would. I'd love to have an event go down where the thought of his absence wasn't bouncing around in my head like a Mexican Jumping Bean. Its tiresome to remember, and exhausting trying not to. I can't win. But my birthday, my 33rd birthday, is one more year (2 in total, if you were counting like I was) since the "bad egg" was brought to life. And if there was a bad egg two years ago...well then, how many are there now? And another birthday means I'm that much older. If I was old at 31... If I expired two years ago... If time was up then... Well, where does that leave me now? I just don't want another birthday. I don't want this time to keep trudging past, pulling me further and further away from the reality that Logan used to be. Those feelings are fading. I have to almost fight to remember what it was like while I was pregnant with Logan, especially since I took it all for granted. You know, because well, my baby won't die. The memory of his precious little face is starting to blur around the edges now... And I don't remember him looking the way he did in those photos, so they don't help. He's starting to feel like a vague dream these days, and I hate that because the ugly memories are still crystal clear. How I felt being wheeled down the hall from the uber-OB's office to the birthing room, like everyone was staring at me, like they all knew. Sitting there knowing that I had a dead baby inside of my body, but not fully grasping it because I could still feel him. Sitting there feeling a baby inside of my stomach who was dead. Being wheeled by some stranger while my husband walked a few steps behind...just out of reach when I was screaming inside and never felt a stronger desire to hide behind him as I felt in those few hours. Wondering how his face looked, what he felt. Was he crying too? Was he as devastated and dazed as I was? The memory of being in that bathroom in my birthing room where I was supposed to be changing (I think) and all I did was stand in the furthest spot from the door I could get in and cry and cry and cry. The sheer terror of what birthing a dead baby was going to be like. The terror that I knew would come the next day when I would wake up and it would really hit me. The annoyance I had of having to communicate with the outside world, to let my family know what was happening to us, when I didn't even want to admit it to myself. The horror I felt as his lifeless tiny body slid out of me onto the table while my husband watched in horror...and no one caught him. The way it felt when they handed him to me and I made the sad joke "it's a boy!" because hey, that's what they're supposed to say when a baby is born. I remember that horrible walk to our car just a few hours later. The longest walk I've ever taken. I remember those moments, those feelings, like they just happened. But Logan...his actual little face, the way he felt, his little life...its fading, and it scares me. And how fair is that anyhow? Isn't it bad enough that I lost him, can't I have the sweet memories remain and those horrible ugly ones fade? Is it that I hang onto those memories tighter because they felt more tangible, more real?

I'm tired of this roll. The one of a dead baby mom. The one who can't watch a stupid movie or TV show with out thinking things like "well at least he's alive" or see another parent trying to parent with out thinking that they're taking their kids for granted, that they don't love them enough. Its an exhausting way to be. And I wish I didn't yearn for the days "before". I wish I could just accept this role my life has taken on and live it to its fullest. I feel whinny and selfish and like I'm refusing to let go. Like this role defines who I am now, and with out it that I wouldn't know how to be anymore. But I can't. I can't think of myself as Heather, mother of one. Because I can't let it go. I have pictures. I have memories. It was real. For six months I was Heather, mother of two. And that reality is too much for me to overlook and go back to being Heather, mother of one. But no one outside of this circle sees me as Heather, mother of two. And I get funny looks to comments that I make that seem perfectly coherent to me, but obviously must fall into that crazy lady realm. Like people want to say "No, no Heather. You're mistaken. You have one child." and anymore its just easier to agree, to not try to explain it to people. Like this Sunday, being Easter and all. This would have been Logan's first Easter. Logan would be almost eleven months, maybe walking by now. Maybe Logan would have been able to hunt for eggs next to his big sister. There would be two Easter Baskets on the table. Two children on the bunny's lap. A family of four in all of the pictures. How many of the "outsiders" are thinking about this stuff? Who do you think actually thought to themselves that Logan will be missing, that Logan should have been here to experience this with us? And come Sunday I'm sure there will be a moment when I look distant, lost, or sad and someone will notice and someone will mention it...and they will have never thought it would have had something to do with a baby that never quite made it to this life. And how would I explain it to them? How fourteen months later it still feels like a ton of bricks slamming into me every time I stroll down that lane? How after fourteen months, well, I'm just not quite over it yet. And if I did chance an explanation... Well how could it possibly be that I'm still mourning? There must be something wrong with me. Because its not normal right? People die, we move on. That's the way its supposed to be. That's the way it is most of the time when someone dies. But not when a baby dies. Not when the story ends before it was ever written. It all leads back to that same old feeling, I shouldn't be doing this, any of it. So, its too hard to explain. Its easier to just smile and shrug it off like that person was imaging something ridiculous. Its easier to let people think that you "got over it" and "moved on" and that you're still okay in the head and that it wasn't that big of a deal and that it didn't really change you. It's just easier that way, and these days, I'm all about doing what's easiest.

You know, I asked a question over on The Dead Baby Club Blog about how loosing a baby has affected your relationship with your parents (go add your own thoughts if you'd like). A few people commented on how its affected other relationships, and I've been thinking a lot about my husband. Not so much about how its affected us as a couple, because I think its still too early to know for sure, but how its affected him as a person. I know the ways that I've changed, ways that others can't even begin to understand, even ways that I may not even be noticing. But what about David? David's different. Not good or bad, just different. I can't quite explain it, or even single anything out in particular, but the question has gotten me to obsessing about him. How he's doing, how he's coping...is he coping? What he thinks about, what he feels about it. For the most part I splash myself out across these pages with out a whole lot of editing. He reads my blog (Hi babe!) he knows how I feel, who I've become, what I fear. But most men are so private. Men don't like to talk about their feelings. Especially my man. Its left me feeling like I wish it was mandatory for men to blog after something like this occurs. I wonder how many times I was off my rocker and David read my blog and was like "oh, I get why she's acting that way!". I don't have that. I mean, we used to talk about it, in the beginning. He used to be real up front about what was going on with him, but that's gone by the way side now. I ask on occasion how he is, but for the most part I get the same generic answer. I don't want to fix it, I don't know how. I just want to know where he's at. From what I've tried to figure out, he's about six months behind me in the grieving process. Like he took the first six months to keep me from going over the edge, and then took time to start his grieving. But its hard for me to remember where I was six months ago. I don't know. I just don't know what to say to him anymore with out sounding like a broken record, or like I'm prying or something. And no one wants to talk when they're having a bad day, and I don't want to bring it up on a good day and make it bad. It leaves me feeling lost about the whole thing. And I just want to know where he is, and where I am, so that we can try to work together and try to figure this mess out. Life was complicated enough beforehand, now its even more complicated and weird. And I can't help but have this nagging feeling that something isn't right, when deep down I know that its that damn elephant again.

I feel like I could talk for hours tonight. I have a lot racing around in my head, but I've so very tired and well...the Muffin doesn't like to sleep till noon the way I desire too. Hopefully I'll be able to fall asleep with out laying there staring into the darkness obsessing about things I can't change and fearing the ones I can.

Most days I am smiling, genuine smiles.

A fellow DBM and I were emailing and she said this:


"I often look at you and how hurt you still are and wonder what's wrong with me. Why do I feel pretty okay at 9 months and you're still so hurt at a year?"


The thing is, Logan's blog is where I sift through the intense stuff. I don't use this blog, just to blog about my everyday life and goings on. I have tried to keep it exclusively about the muck I am trying to sort through that is wrapped around Logan. I noticed recently myself, the folks who read Logan's blog don't get to see the times that are good, the days that are happy and filled with laughter. Part of that is unfortunate because it does give the impression that I am still neck deep in depression. I am not. I think that I came out of the deep depression at around 10 months. I had weeks where I would feel great, and then I'd have a few rough days or a week, and then I would surface again. Most of the time, these days, I'm angry at the people around me for their stupidity. A lot of this stems from unresolved issues I had long before Logan. I think about Logan everyday, but it is a very rare thing for me to cry over (maybe once a month, maybe). I struggle also with the fact that David is so far from having another baby, which in turn makes me feel like I am grieving the other children I always planned on. I find too that my grief cycles on about the same wave as my menses, meaning hormones are playing a major role in that. Not that I am trying to minimize my grief, but I think that I come across a whole lot more sad in my blog than I do in real life...if for no other reason than because I don't blog about the sunshine. The point is, no matter where others may be in their grief, its probably all normal, I am normal. Everyone grieves differently, and at different lengths and degrees. Sometimes I read other stories, mom's who seem to be coping better than I am and I wonder. Sometimes I read stories about mother's who see far more filled with sorrow who's child has been dead far longer and I think to myself that I don't feel nearly that sad, what's wrong with me?? So you see? I think that it depends on the person. And I also think it depends on the time. Grief comes in waves. A mom may be feeling great now, and in three months feeling devastated. Maybe not. The point is no one should feel weird at all. Perhaps some find more comfort from the Lord and that gives them a peace many can't get a grip on. I've thought about that. Maybe if I could let my anger go, maybe I could find peace and comfort in Christ again. I don't know. But I do know this. So many of us try to over think this whole grief thing, and I think its just best to let it be and it will take care of itself. For months I wondered if I needed a shrink, if I needed pills. Now I see that I just needed time. Within 6 weeks I was questioning my sorrow. SIX WEEKS! I laugh at that now. Six weeks was a blink in the cycle of grief. I was just in a hurry to get it over with. These days I let it be and when I am at a high point I try to enjoy it, and when I am at a low point I take it for what its worth and know that I will cycle right back out of it, because that's what I've done for the past 13 months now.

But life the way it is now is bearable, most days. Most of the time I find myself going about life the way I used to, perhaps a little more intense and a little more sensitive than I used to be, but I don't walk around dusting and sobbing. I enjoy my old hobbies, my old shows. I enjoy my friends, have made new friends and go out and enjoy their company. I enjoy my daughter, my husband...not the dog. I still can't find it in me to tolerate the dog (who incidentally puked on the floor this morning because she doesn't know how to moderate her water intake!!). I'm not nearly as angry in general, or as angry with God as I was even a few months ago. I'm even contemplating returning to church again. I've started to look at Logan's death as horribly unfortunate for me, not personal (most of the time), and not some horrid act of God so much as it happens sometimes, and sadly it happened to us. Not that there aren't moments where I fall back into the mindset that God is punishing me, has it out for me, or abandoned me..because I am human and I still have those thoughts on occasion. For the most part these days are filled with laughter and life, new plans and hopes for the future. Instead of bad days or weeks, I have bad moments. Logan being dead makes me sad. Its just a fact, not one that will likely ever change. I can't believe that at 80 I won't still feel sadness for my son. But it doesn't rule my life anymore. It doesn't trump every thought that I have, every event that takes place. I think I have learned to try to accept it instead of fighting it off and trying to understand it. Sometimes really crappy things happen to people. Guess it was my turn. It could have been so much worse, and for that I am thankful that it was not. I believe that certain things will always tug at my heart. But I am long past breakdowns. I am long past feeling the urge to have my eyeballs floating in vodka because I just don't want to feel the sadness anymore. Yesterday I even decided that I was going to move Logan's box of ashes. Which means I have to touch the box. Open the box. Remove the inner box. I haven't touched that box since the day it arrived so many months ago. And I surprised myself by realizing that the reason I wanted to move the box from sitting askew on the top of my very dusty armoir was because I was tired of seeing a box sit up there. I've decided, for now, to place him in the hat box on the stand near my bed. The hat box is empty anyhow. I couldn't bring myself to put him in the armoir or in the closet, but I thought this was a huge step for me. So, at some point today, the box will be moved. And I can say with almost all certainty that it will not make me cry. Almost. Being that close may affect me, but the thought of it does not. I guess I can't be sure.

So no, the year mark was not some magic date that set me free. In fact, I went into a real funk for a few weeks around that time. I will say that I do notice that every month I feel a little less sad, a little less depressed, a little more hopeful and normal again. And here at 13 months I can say with out a doubt that I will survive. My life will go on. I will find as much happiness again as one could hope for. I know it now because I feel it, and not because some one assured me it would be so.

However I will continue to have bad days here and there, how could I not? I will always need a safe place where I can come and sort through the struggles I face being a DBM. And I will use this blog to do just that. I just wanted to share with everyone that though it may seem like I am really struggling on a daily basis, in fact I am not. Most days I am smiling, genuine smiles and feeling real deep down satisfaction and happiness. But, I think, my memory of Logan will always hang around like a shadow. I'll find better ways to work around it, through it and with it, but I believe it will remain. How could it now? He was my son.

Courage at the keyboard

Maybe its the year mark. Maybe people feel like enough time has passed now and that they should be granted the freedom to speak their mind, regardless of how it rips open my (very shoddily patched up) broken heart. Maybe people are just that thoughtless. Maybe people find courage at their keyboard the way so many find it in a bottle. I do not know.


I do know this...


It has been a year (almost 13 months to be exact). And no, enough time has not passed for comments such as:


"...not let the loss of Logan be wasted, a missed lesson & understanding, in vain. There's a reason, and God wanted you to find Him in it! God...the Author of life."


There's no point into going into the rest of the argument, and I am not taking this opportunity to bash the person who wrote this, or their beliefs. I will clarify that I do not believe that my anger at God (mind you, not for my son's death, but because he was created using a bad egg knowing full well his demise) will cause the loss of my son to be a waste. I do not believe that God allowed/caused/didn't prevent my sons demise because he wanted to teach me a lesson or understanding, thus I am not sure how his death would be in vain. In vain of what exactly? I do not believe that there is a reason, and I do not believe that God was using this to prompt me to "find" him, and since he is all knowing...he would've known this and that it would have been a waste of time.

The point here is, more or less, a big fat WTF?? I am grappling with the understanding as to why some find it their duty to explain God's mission. Why they are the self appointed ambassador's of his great wisdom. I know that so many turn to faith in the midst of their grief, and I think that it is a wonderful thing...for them. I wish I had the sort of faith that prompted me to run to God for comfort. But I don't. And I really am struggling with why there are so many people out there who are so quick to condemn and shame grieving people when those who are grieving falter in their faith, blame God and are honest in their anger. I could have worn a mask of false faith. I could have pretended to "run to God" or "give it to the Lord" as so many have suggested. I didn't. I have been up front and honest about my lack of faith, anger and questioning of faith. And yes I scoff and roll my eyes at the simple idiocy so many paint God into. I believe and accept the basic principles of Christianity, I just question its ambassadors and their self important need to "comfort" those who are ear deep in a pain that so few can begin to fathom.


Someone said the following to me once. It helps to feel like there are believers out there who aren't all gung-ho trying to argue God's case for him and accept that grief can not be argued out of. I found the words to be profound, and felt like for once an outsider might have actually gotten it.

People really upset me when they don't have enough knowledge to explain things, and they try to make up crappy excuses as to why God "does" something. Who says God "does" everything? And really? Do we have God all figured out to know Him so well as to know what He's thinking and if He's blessing somebody to say these "words of comfort"? People shouldn't preach and try to say something if they don't know enough of what they're talking about. It sours everything, it's NOT the order in which things are supposed to be handled. I'm sorry that you have become the receiver of this kind of treatment, that would get real old, real fast. I am sure, they were talking out of frustration in the argument and not even thinking about everything they were saying, using God to prove that they are right. That you shouldn't be mad at them for what they said, since it was of God. Sure, they believe in and love God, and in their heart they have the faith to put certain situations in His hands. But that's them, and it's a childlike faith. Which of course we are supposed to
have. But for heavens sake, there is a lack of wisdom in trying to win over one who is heart-broken in the middle of an argument and for the benefit of sticking up for God. Sometimes I wish I could get that through people's heads. God doesn't need us to "stick up" for Him. He'll deal with things in His own time and in His own way. WE need to quit getting in the way.

Anyhow...

I have been feeling very attacked lately, on several fronts. And I don't get it. The only thing I can conclude is that the general population must think I am "milkin' it" and that after thirteen months I should be well on my way to creating that replacement baby, forgiving God, and moving on. And in my own ways I am. Life is much different for me now than it was even 6 months ago, three months ago. But I still feel the pulsating emptiness that is my son's spot every waking moment of my life. The thing is, I haven't asked for anything from anyone. And all I've really desired in this whole mess is to be left alone by those who can't find it in their selfishness to step aside and let me be. Why is it that I feel like it is expected of me to comfort them? Especially when I never asked comfort of them, only space, and a request that has been denied time and again. I don't know, maybe its selfish of me to not have the time, space or desire to handle or care of the (what I now feel to be) mundane idiocy of those around me. When Logan died it became very apparent to me that I had to use every ounce of energy and strength I possessed to not fall off of the deep end, and I stopped caring how that affected anyone else. And, call me selfish if you will but, I still do not have the strength, desire or will to tolerate or empathize with the drama and chaos of the lives of those around me. Its like I feel as though I am using all of my available resources to keep it all together, to hold myself intact so that I do not explode into a million pieces of sorrow and disappear into the inviting depths of my despair. And if I let one of those resources slip, then all will be lost. The hardest part is that so often the majority of the insult has come directly from those closest to me. Those I depended on to hold on to me, prop me up, save me. This is where I feel the most let down. The few people who should be on my side, are the ones attacking. And the ones on my side, the ones who ended up being the ones who truly held me up, they are all complete strangers. Strangers who relate and "get it" because they've felt this pain, they've stuck around to say "Hey, its ok. You're normal, this is all normal. You'll survive, I did." It adds a new dimension to my pain. Its become so obvious to me why so many become reclusive and alienate themselves after a great loss. I feel that I can only handle so much. I feel as though I am skittish of that final straw. It makes me angry and loathsome and gives me the desire to lash out at people who must feel as though they are being thoughtful and well meaning. It leaves me confused, flabbergasted and appalled. It leaves me just a little sadder than I already was. A little more frightened. A little more fragile, and a whole lot more likely to close myself off from a world that wants to injur my heart further.

A year ago this time...

Do any of you go back and read your blog posts from a year ago or so? I got to wondering how I was doing around the 2 week post-incapacitating-horrible-event. I was seriously enraged. Funny, I still feel that way a lot of the time. I guess the anger is the part I hung onto the most. Then I found this paragraph in a post that really sounds like something I could have still written today. This is from a post from around the 8th of last year:

Today I took down all of the sympathy cards and threw out all of the dead and dying flowers that everyone was so kind to send. It’s been two weeks. And though two weeks seems like a flash in the pan, the day we lost Logan seems like a lifetime ago, certainly not two weeks ago. I couldn’t take the dead flowers anymore. I couldn’t take staring at the cards with their sad words. My brain wants to forget we lost a son. My heart won’t. It lingers there, the sadness, the emptiness that I always feel now. Like hunger, or that odd feeling you’ve forgotten something. I can’t explain it, but there is a spot that aches and is empty. I assume its Logan’s spot. The spot that would be filled with the memories of holding his newborn body while I nursed him or the spot that would be filled with the scent of his baby skin and hair. Or, the spot that would be filled with the sound of his crying and his sighs.
Whatever it is, I think it’s Logan’s special spot. One I put aside for him six months ago when we found out we were being blessed with a son. But I can’t mix it back in with the rest of me. So, I guess I’ll always have that empty spot where Logan was supposed to have been.

I still feel that spot. It never did get mixed back in with the rest of me. And it is still a weird gnawing sensation that I can't quite put my finger on. And it does feel very much like hunger. Maybe that's what it really is, hunger pangs. Hunger to be filled with everything that should have been Logan. Its uncomfortable, still, twelve months and two weeks later.

Too many thoughts on Thursdays

Music speaks to me. It always has. I have always found solace and comfort in the words that other people write. I find a sense of peace in knowing that everyone has these deep emotions that they can't express with out the shield of music. I used to be a poet. I used to write song lyrics. I didn't share them with many. I have thousands. Thousands of pages of unheard words brought forth by a broken heart, a new love, feelings of insanity. I've always needed to get them out. I talk a lot. I talk too much. I talk in circles, I repeat myself and worse of all I have a terrible memory...so the stories change, get tangled and take on a life of their own, sometimes with a form that is far from the original. I loath this about myself, and am not in denial about it. But I have always been comforted by the fact that I can express how I feel through symbolism and story telling, even if at times it doesn't make sense or sounds corny. It is what it is and sometimes people express themselves in odd form. I mean, look at Picaso. Sorry but no. He was not a good painter. BUT, he was good at expressing himself and a lot of people were provoked by his work, that made him great! We are all artists in our own ways. Through words, through tangible media, through food, through decorating...and the list goes on. I don't compose poetry or song lyrics anymore. In fact, the last poem I wrote was for Logan. It's buried somewhere in this blog. I'm not sure when I stopped writing. I think it has been in the last 5 years or so, when life took on a comfortable and protected feeling. I married my long time love, we had a nice home, cars, toys...everything I could want or need (short of a child). Eventually I had a daughter. Things were perfect. How many poems can one write that are coated in bubble gum? The urge to write faded until I realized that I don't need to write anymore. I don't have these awful emotions to get out anymore. Life was just the way I wanted it and I couldn't have asked for anything more. Then Logan died. And suddenly I found myself so far over that chasm that I couldn't form a coherent thought. I didn't have the urge to make rhymes or even sublime thoughts. I just sat and stared. Any desire to produce anything was gone. Except the urge to write in this blog. I think this blog saved me. I still needed to talk, to get it out, but somehow the thoughts and heartache I had for my son seemed so much more substantial and important than any I'd had before. I couldn't degrade his memory with a hokey poem that no one would read. I wanted to be heard this time. I wanted people to know my devastation. I wanted people to know that my heart was irrevocably broken. And anyone who reads this blog, they know. My husband knows. But most importantly, I know. And in the end that's the only thing that really mattered anyhow. Admitting that my heart was broken. That this tiny little soul, with a blink of an eye life span, took a huge chunk of my heart with him when he went.


I don't know what it is about certain days. Why some days, even now a year later, I feel trapped, lethargic and inconsolable. Why I wake up and have him on my mind in that instance, and why it hangs over me like a storm cloud all day, pressing me down. Maybe its because its Thursday and my dd is at Grandma's. Thursday's are quiet and leave a lot of room for shadows to creep in. It usually starts with a song (this is where I go back to the whole music thing from earlier). I'm driving the Muffin to Grandma's and some song comes on the radio, presses me down. I drop her off, I drive home, thoughts churning, more music playing, more pressing down. It is easy for me to find Logan in almost anything. Someones words, a little blond haired boy, a break-up song, a monkey, food... I hate to say he haunts me, because that just makes it seem ugly and scary. I think its my mind that haunts me. My mind always whispering terrible thoughts into my proverbial ear. Thoughts I have no business allowing to stake claim and plant them selves deep in my subconscious, letting their roots dig deep and torturing me. I'm an avoider. I hate tense situations, drama and confrontation. I'd rather ignore it. Pretend it didn't happen. But I can't avoid what happened to me. I can't avoid that there was this little life churning away in side of me for six months with out a lick of problems and then BAM!! Dead. Down Syndrome is detectable, and we had no warning. I don't know, maybe its better that way. Maybe in my ignorance I would have wished him dead rather than to have a crippled child coming in and "messing up" my perfect little bubble gum world. Wishing, because I wouldn't have had a clue about the pain of loosing a baby. Because maybe a lot of people don't really think of a fetus as a person until they're here. I mean, I always thought a baby was a baby from conception...but it wasn't a person. It didn't have a life, or a personality or face. It was an enigma. I had trouble with that with my first pregnancy with my daughter. I couldn't connect. It never felt real. After her birth I was overcome with emotion and a love I couldn't fathom before. The months following her birth I was in awe of how I just loved her with every fiber of my being and that nothing else mattered. But while I was pregnant, I just didn't get it. When I got pregnant with Logan I was still nursing a 6 month old. I was exhausted. I was sick. I didn't have any energy to be concerned with anything other than the current moment and situation. I feel like I missed a lot with Logan during those six months. I took for granted that I'd have all the time in the world to get to know him and right now my very young daughter was my main focus. Oh the things I would change if given the opportunity.


These are just too many thoughts for a Thursday of little consequence.


So the song that sent me spiraling today was "Nothing Compares to You". You remember that song don't you? Late 80's early 90's? Sinead O'Conner in black with that stark white bald head and the single tear on her cheek. I loved the song then and found out years later that Prince actually wrote that song, and recorded it himself. But this part:

"It's been so lonely without you here. Like a bird without a song. Nothing can stop these lonely tears from falling. Tell me baby where did I go wrong?"

That was the one that got my head spinning like the chic in Poltergeist. Because that paragraph brought with it a million dreaded thoughts that I couldn't shake. It is lonely here. Even with my dh and the Muffin, its lonely. There is a missing life. There is a missing face, a missing voice, a missing personality that I wanted so badly to get to know. Would he have been like his sister, or a force unto himself that I can only guess at? And it leaves an eerie feeling in its wake. Silence, even in the midst of the noise and chaos that is my two year old, there is an eerie silence that should have been filled with his voice, his chaos and noise. And I can't help but to go back to the same old question, what did I do wrong? What did I do that would warrant not being able to mother Logan outside of the womb? Was I going to fail at it? Was having 2 kids so young and close together going to cause me to be a bad mother, so he was spared? And I feel like if I had that answer, even if it was one I didn't want to hear or know, would I be better able to accept this? The pathetic part is that I just assumed that by the time the year mark passed that I would have this greater knowledge. That I would have begun to accept that I have a dead child. Don't get me wrong, time has controlled the bleeding. I don't "lay here on the couch with my heart hanging out" (Garth Brooks) anymore. But its still very tender, and sometimes it still bleeds. I know I'm an impatient person. I expect fast results, and I want them now. And you can't rush grief. And if you ask around, these parents who went before us...years ago, when they're being honest and they don't think anyone is looking...it still hurts for them too. And I think that scares me. To know that I will always feel this ache. And in a way it comforts me and brings me some element of peace to know that this ache, this ache means that I had a little boy and my time with him was not enough.

I surived the one year mark

I survived the coming and going of Logan's angelversary on the 24th, though I guess survive is a relative term these days. The 23rd seemed to affect my dh a lot too since that is the day that we found out Logan had died (at which point they induced labor and I gave "birth" the following morning). Until he mentioned that fact, I'd never given that date much thought. My big days were the 24th and the 21st. The evening of the 21st was the day the uber-doc thought Logan probably died (based on the condition of the placenta and Logan). We didn't do anything special to commemorate the day. Seems terrible in theory, but neither of us felt like it was a day to commemorate. Logan was not supposed to have been born until May, so it wouldn't have even been his first birthday. He didn't die during an early birth, he was forced out after he died. The day was just an ugly day that shouldn't have happened. So, we did what was best for us. We woke up (at 3:45am thank to my dd who decided it was morning) to a warm (for a January in Michigan), rainy, gloomy day. It fit perfectly and was in great contrast to the stark bright and bitterly cold day of last year. We ate breakfast at the IHOP and spent the day lounging around the house, relaxing and watching TV. Thoughts of Logan and the mention of his name laced its way through just about every sentence that took place over those few days. And when they didn't his shadow still remained in a more distinct fashion than it has as of late. The only thing that might have made it obvious that day that something wasn't quite right was the fact that we were both very irritated and moody, snapping at everything and everyone. There was an aura of anger that lingered, until my daughters birthday (yesterday) gave us pause for happiness. Such an odd feeling to be so horribly sad and angry and bitter and to also feel such an enormous sense of joy and wonderment and to feel truly blessed at the same time. Such contradiction that eases through our lives like it belongs there. I guess it does now. I managed to keep myself together (I think we both did) until late the evening of the 24th. The only thing I really wanted to do for Logan that day was to write him a letter in his journal. I do that very rarely. It was too much. Too much honesty bubbling to the surface. On a routine basis I think I manage pretty well at keeping my honesty, and the raw emotions that must still linger, in check and locked away. But man, let me start writing and everything pours out. I couldn't finish the letter. I didn't want to talk to him anymore, it just hurt too much and talking to him like he was still here was too much honesty all at once. David came down stairs where I was hiding in my Scrapbook Room writing just moments after I finally broke down. We stood in the doorway and shared our common sorrow for several minutes, then shook it off and tried to go to bed.

What else is there to do but to shake it off and keep moving?

Here it comes...

So, here it comes. Today, a year ago, our horror began. Today is the day they told us there was something wrong. By the 23rd we knew he had died, the 24th he was stillborn.

Today I coped. Today I thought a lot about him, but it didn't pull me under. I thought a lot about what happened and the way I felt, but the day progressed in a "normal" fashion. I didn't cry, yet.

Last night...well... Here's the thing. I realized last night, after a small rift with my dh, that I feel like I have no control over much in my life. And that really bothered me. It came out wrong, and I took it out on my dh and was in a desperate search to reason that my thoughts were normal "wife" thoughts. But they quickly turned into Logan thoughts. And I realized that's what the issue really was about. Oh, not that I didn't really want what I was asking my dh for, but that the reason I got so angry (and later so sad) was really just because I struggle with control more so this past year than I used to. There have been so many things in the past year that have happened to me, that I had no control over, that it has really left a scar, or more realistically an open wound. Not that there haven't always been elements of fear of loss of control, and the actual inability to control everything around me (I once haunted myself in my sleep because I felt so out of control), and not that there won't always be that. No one can control everything around them all of the time. Other's free will is often involved (divorce, job loss), or circumstances beyond ones immediate control that make it impossible to control a situation. But after Logan died, it became very real, and very obvious to me that there is actually little in this life that one can control. I couldn't control what happened to Logan. I couldn't control the pain I felt from it. I couldn't control my husband and force him to have another baby right away, or move, or so many other things. I couldn't control the reaction of other people. I couldn't control my response to them (ok, this might be debatable). I couldn't control so many things that seemed so life altering, anymore than I could control the weather. Which has left me feeling so very insecure and vulnerable. Two feelings I despise. I miss the illusion of control I thought I once possessed. I miss the prospect of a new life in this home. I miss the dreams I had for Logan, the plans I made, the big sister I saw in Aubrey, the Mommy and Daddy I saw in us. I miss the family I framed in my head, the way it was going to be. And because of things I could not control, those dreams and hopes and plans are gone. I miss being able to relate to other women on a natural level with out them second guessing my words, thoughts or intents. I miss being able to think innocent thoughts about babies and being pregnant and frankly, sex, with out the constant sad reminder of what no longer is.

I miss the innocence and the comfortable naivety that used to be mine.

And I would gladly have given all of those up and so much more if I would have been able to have had a healthy Logan, or even, selfishly, one not so healthy Logan.

I miss him.

I miss you baby boy.