Dusty Ovaries

I'm turning 35 this weekend.  Sigh.  I hate my birthday.  I don't know why Logan's death has had such a profound impact on the way I feel about my birthday, but it has.  Maybe its that whole getting older thing.  Three plus years ago, when Logan was conceived, my ovaries spit out a dry shriveled up egg that let my son down.  And here I sit, 35 looming like the biggest freight train you have ever imagined, and its barreling down the tracks at me...carrying my dusty ovaries.

That's what my friends husband calls them.  Dusty ovaries.  He said this, a few beers loose, to my friend (who is a few months younger than me) the other night.  Bastard.  And anyways, who's he to talk...more than a decade older than us with his wrinkly old balls!! [Enter Adam Sandler]

So every year, around this time, I get ugly.  I stomp around and snap at everyone.  I hate everything.  I overindulge on everything from sugar and fat to booze and TV.  Coincidently this turns me into a real bear the week after my birthday when I jump on the scale and see that, YUP, I'm still fat!  I guess that the only difference this year makes is that I am now aware of why I am being such a jerk to everyone around me.

Sigh.  I hate the time that has lapsed.  I hate the years that continue to move me further away from the memory of my son.  The faint, dream of a son, that I had so briefly.

Waves & Stages...There and back again.

Grief comes in waves and stages. We all know that. I've been there, and back again.

If nothing else has been proven in the past year and a half, this has; I am hypersensitive to everything these days. It doesn't take much to make me blue anymore. My mom used to say that things rolled off me like water on a ducks back. These days I absorb it. I store it up in little bottles and stick them on a shelf. I collect sorrow and grief in all its forms anymore.

This has been one crappy week. My emotions have been spun tight, unraveled and tangled together, only to be sifted through each night while I lay awake and obsess on things that can not be, things that might be, and things that are. Lately it is making me physically ill again. Between the mess of thinking and hoping and being so sure that I was pregnant, only to start my cycle...my house sitting stagnant on a stagnant market, with teasers dangling and nothing coming to fruition...to finally finding a new home for my dog, only to be saddled with so much guilt and sorrow over the decision that I can not sleep, and am trying to drown my sorrows in food to which point it actually hurts...and then reinforcing the issues I have with myself and my complete lack of ability to stick to my diet.

They say not to do anything major for a year after the loss of a baby. Don't move, don't quit your job, don't get a new pet...or get rid of one. Right around the time I got pregnant with Logan I started getting very disillusioned with my dog. When Logan died...well, she took the brunt of it. Some people turn to their pets for comfort. For me, Kaida was just one more thing I couldn't deal with. She stressed me out on a level I couldn't handle and I begged my husband to let me get rid of her. It took a year and a half to find a new home for Kaida, well past the "recommended" time frame, home that I thought was good enough for her. I didn't want to place her in a home where she wouldn't get anymore love or attention than we were giving her. This past Friday I found such a home. Its perfect really. Its everything we hoped for. And now that she is gone I find myself feeling as though I failed her. She counted on me to love her and give her a good home, and I let her down. I broke my husbands heart in the process. I took away my daughters puppy. I did it because I didn't think I could cope, and now I feel like a whiny selfish bitch. I keep trying to remind myself that its for the best. In the long run it will be better for everyone. Kaida deserved a home where she would get the attention she so craved and deserved. She is a great dog. She is sweet as can be, and the problem laid with me. I couldn't be the "mommy" she needed, and damn it if that doesn't ring deep into my soul on a level I can barely comprehend. But here I am once again feeling as though I failed my baby. The guilt has crept into my belly and is sitting there like a stone. I failed. Again.

Logan's death changed everything. I'm just beginning to really see this, how deeply it all runs. Just how much has changed. Things I never considered, things that are still being revealed to me. It scares me. This event that I couldn't control, couldn't stop, couldn't prevent, couldn't fix will hold a power over me that I will not ever be able to reconcile. It makes me feel broken. A deep down sort of broken. Irreparable. Scared. Sad.

Will I never be me again? Will I forever feel like the shell of the woman I was?

Manic feelings

I'm not sleeping again, and I feel manic. Or more like a maniac. Either way, its exhausting. I'm tired, and I lay in bed and stare into the darkness and I obsess. I obsess about my family and the crap storm I feel like I am in the middle of there. I obsess about my marriage and my husband and I feel like something is wrong there and I can't put my finger on it. I obsess about myself and why I feel unloved, and why I feel worthless and why I don't feel like there is any hope...and it hit me tonight, maybe I'm not over the depression. Aren't those key signs of depression? And I know its somehow related to my cycle. I mean all women get moody just before the start of it, but am I just fooling myself during the two good weeks that I'm OK, and then when my hormones flux I find myself in another extreme? Its messed up, and it makes me weary. Weary of everything around me. The phone rings and I'm nervous who's calling. The mail arrives with no return address and I'm leery about opening it (since my step-mother has an affinity for sending me horrible letters and trying to disguise them with no return address, sending from a different state and changing her hand writing...yeah, I'm surrounded by crazy). I've even started dreading opening my email, because there's always something in there to deal with. I just don't want to deal with anything anymore. Its making me feel panicky. I'm starting to feel trapped and that makes me feel like I have to run and hide...except that I can't, because I really am trapped. Where am I going to go? I am a wife, a mother. I need my daughter near me. I need to be near the reassurance that is my husband, his steady and constant rhythm. Remember the good old days when if you wanted to remove yourself from the world you just unplugged your phone?? Now if you did that people would call your cell, then text you, then Facebook you, then email you...there's no escape. And how do you tell your family to leave you alone with out everyone taking it personal? Its just that I guess people have always been able to lean on me, and I've always propped them up with out much complaint, but I can't anymore. I don't want to. I want someone to ask me how I'm doing, and not because I'm some circus side show or a car wreck that makes people just HAVE to look, to stand witness to the horror, or because its a juicy tidbit of gossip, but because someone really does give a crap about how I am. And not just "someone" but the people in my life who are "supposed" to love me, who are "supposed" to care. And no one ever asks. Worse yet, I get the feeling its because people just expect that its been long enough. And no, I don't want to talk to them about Logan. I just wish they'd get a clue and stop pestering me with their mundane crap. Like all I do is sit around bored waiting for someone to saddle me with their problems. Really I just spend most of my energy trying to figure out how to avoid just that.

I cut off my Dad, step-mother and sister almost a year ago. My step-mother recently sent me two nasty letters. Illustrating, once again, that they never really got how impacted I was from Logan's death, not to mention the impact that they have had on my life as well. A subject, as I have stated before, that there are not enough words in all the worlds languages to explain that topic. But the thing is, it eats at me. Not my step-mom. She's worthless and evil and I can happily live out the rest of my days on this earth with out every having contact with her again. But my dad (and even my sister)...I just don't get it. How can you have such little love for your own child? How can a father neglect, abandon and take advantage of his children for years and years? I just don't get it. I can't fathom treating my daughter with such neglect and indifference. But the reason I cut them off is because I couldn't take anymore hurt. And in the year since I cut him off he's tried to contact me three times, the last one being in September. And, ironically, its not that I want him to actually contact me because I am so done with that. I can't take it anymore. But the fact that he put up so little of a fight for his daughter... Its just one more thing.

I'm tired of feeling obsessive. I'm tired of these extreme highs and lows and feeling manic. I'm tired of me being up when David is down and vice versa. I'm tired of feeling out of control and I just want some peace in my life. Some steady rhythm. I want to feel like these uphill steps that I'm taking are actually taking me uphill, instead of feeling like for every 2 steps forward I take 3 steps back, and not loosing an weight while doing it mind you. Its an exhausting way to live and it has worn me down again. It affects my very personality. It affects our marriage, how I mother my daughter and how I look at myself as a person. I don't like this person, and I'm too worn out to do anything about it.

Flippin' off the blues!

I've been blue lately. If I'm honest I'd say its been since just before Logan's anniversary. That's like 3 weeks now. I don't feel like I'm in the pit...yet, but I've definitely been wallowing in the deep end. I hate having the blues. It really messes up my day(s). Nothing gets done. I beat myself up and give in to all sorts of self deprecating talk and behavior. I keeps me from sleeping. Like tonight. Pile on top of that some other unfortunate events that have gone down in my personal life recently and you've got a real recipe for a blues fest. My eyeballs would be swimming in vodka right now if it wasn't for this stupid Metformin, which frankly I'm not sure has done so much to help. The problem is that I have faith in people, and I take them on their word. The doc said it would help...I believed her. But...

I have really gotten bad at wishing my days away. Which is not good for someone like me who has a hard time letting go of the past, and is very much afraid of growing old and dying.

And I tell myself all of the time, things have got to change. I need to change. I need to buck up and get it done. Force myself to be the "Suzie" that my dh thought he was getting when we got married. But I struggle with pulling myself up and dusting myself off. I struggle with caring. The evidence is all around me. Everything from the laundry that I haven't managed to get on top of since Christmas time (no joke), to the dust that is literally hanging from my ceiling fan blades, to the dog goop that is slung on my walls to the fat that graces (and not gracefully I might add) my rear end. The thing is, I care. I do, deep down in side. At night when I lay in bed and realize that another day slipped past where I failed at being the person I wanted to be, the person my daughter deserves, the person my husband counts on. I care when I am fighting the urge to hurl something through my large kitchen windows because I am so sick and tired of the grime and clutter. The never ending-ness of the mess that I not only can not seem to get a handle on, but certainly can't seem to maintain. I care when I finally catch a glimpse of my fleshy, repugnant body that I honestly don't recognize. I do care. But apparently not at the moments that count, or not enough.

But, tomorrow is Monday, and like most Mondays it will be a starting over point for me...again. Tonight as I sit her (caring) I'm determined to flip off the blues tomorrow and try to finally get the upper hand on my day to day existence. I feel so out of control and so stuck, the least I can do is gain some control over this house and this body. Maybe then I won't feel so stuck in the blues all of the time.

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.

This

This morning is not starting off good.  I have zero patience and feel wound tight and ready to explode.  I've been feeling this way a lot lately.  I have a cold, so I know that isn't helping.  And my 22 month old has one too AND is teething.  So we're both whinny and irritated.

I thought I was doing good.  For some time now I haven't really been feeling anything.  But last night my husband and I were snipping at each other and he said "There's the girl I've been seeing for the last three months!".  And the anger came boiling to the surface.  You know that anger.  The one that pokes its head out everytime you realize that this has changed you, that this has changed everything around you, how you view life, your partner, yourself, your future, your past, every one around you.  And I got pissed that I let it change me, that I couldn't stop it from changing me.  That every innocent thought, is no longer innocent.  That I can't think warm fuzzies about making babies with out remembering that one died.  That I can't think about my annual Christmas picture without realizing that last years picture had a very pregnant looking woman in it, with her husband and daughter...and this year there isn't a second child to add.  No transition.  He was there last year, he's not this year.  No sign or caption explaining why.  Future generations will look at those pictures and be confused, wonder what happened.  It made me so angry to realize, and have it voiced by my husband, that I'm different in a bad way.  I'm not happy.  I don't look forward to anything.  I don't want to celebrate.  I am angry that this has turned me into someone I don't recognize.  That it has taken away what little bit of self worth, will power, motivation and what not that I used to have and that now days I just feel like a giant worthless blob who doesn't hold up her end of the bargain.  I'm no wife to my husband.  I don't care anymore.  And it makes me angry that I don't care (so I must care a little or something), and that most of the time the new me beats down the old me until all I do is sit and stare.  Depression.  Yeah, I know.  No pills they say.  Gotta deal with it.  Its expected, its normal...blah, blah, blah!  WHATEVER!  I'm angry that this has given me depression.  I'm angry that my life is slipping away, my marraige, my daughters days.  All slipping by while I'm just too spent to do anything about it.  I feel torn.  Torn between who I feel like being, and who I know I am supposed to be.  Torn between cleaning this house, cleaning up myself, loosing this ugly weight that drags me down, being a good wife, a good mother and just loosing myself into the blob on the couch who doesn't understand why this happened to her.  What did I do?  What did my dh do?  What did that poor baby do that warranted this.  What did my dd do to deserve being born into a family that so soon after her birth would try to fall apart?  Why us?  Yeah, yeah.  I know.  Its not our fault, we didn't do anything to deserve this.  God has a plan.  Yeah, whatever.  It makes me so angry that I want to throw this computer through my window.  I don't want to be this person.  I don't want to have this ugliness hanging over me and every thought I have and every thing I do.  I want it to go away.  And I know I sound like a 5 year old stomping her foot.  I know it sounds ridiculous.  But it is what it is.  Its not fair, and I don't want it.  I want my old life back.  I want that innocence back.  One freakin' month ruined everything.  And I'm tired of living with it.  I hate this new me.  I hate what I do, how I think and what I know.  I am pissed that I couldn't stop this from ruining me.

I can't believe its December.  Christmas is just 3 weeks away!!  I'm a month and three weeks away from Logan's anniversary.  Almost an entire year yanked from my hands.  A year spent being someone that I'm not.  A year.  Gone.  And I'm glad its going.  The year mark is the magic number right?  The day when POOF everything is better and back to normal, right?  Yeah.  Right.  Its sad to say that I'm looking forward to February.  I have never in my life looked forward to February.  February is frigid cold and boring.  That's why they invented Valentine's Day.  Threw in a little excitement.  But this time around, February feels like a little light at the end of the tunnel.  I'm probably setting myself up for a huge dissapointment, but I'm clinging to in anyway.  I need to find hope in something.  I need to think there will be an end to this.

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.

5 months

Five months have passed.

Seems impossible. Seems irrelevant too. It doesn't seem to matter how much time has passed since Logan died. I don't know why I bother counting the days, the weeks and now the months. I'm sure I'll count the years too. It doesn't seem to matter that any time at all has passed, because he is still dead. I'm not sure what I am counting to. Will I say at the ripe old age of 92 (should I be blessed/cursed enough to live that long) that my son should have been 60? That he should have been a parent himself? A grandfather even? That he should have lived a long and happy life? Will I, at 92, still see my son as the tiny, tiny baby who left me before he had a chance to live, and not the old man that he should have been?

At 92, will I still be the mother to a dead baby? Yea. I'll always be that I suppose.

I find myself settling down into this role (on most days). I find myself admitting that perhaps I am too old, and that I shouldn't have been having babies at 31. Science is still iffy on that, but I have the proof of what society constitutes a woman being too old to have a baby is. I have a baby with Down Syndrome. I have a baby who died because I was too old to give him a healthy egg to start out with. At 31 years old, I am an old woman. Go ahead and laugh. I know, it sounds ridiculous. But by all accounts our good eggs vs. bad eggs are what make us feel young vs. old right? Isn't that what we grow up hearing? Your eggs are too old, you shouldn't try. I just didn't realize that at 31 it was possible that I was too old. I mean, I guess you can be too old at 19, or even 16, or if your lucky not till your 45 or more aged. Eggs have an expiration date. Did you know that? Mine have expired. My chances are pretty good that I'll have more bad eggs. Apparently they don't all go at once. That's a nice perk. Now having a baby is a crap shoot. A 1 in 100 chance that my next egg will fail us too.

I wonder if my expiration date was posted somewhere...would he have chosen me anyhow? Would he have chosen this amount of anguish had he known before hand? Would he have chosen me regardless of his horrid future, his eternal pain over the loss of a son he was promised and then so cruelly told "psych!" to? Would I have wanted him to have chosen me anyhow?

I'm too young to feel so old.