"Look out!!"

I didn't realize how much watching someone else go through this would knock the wind right out of me. Its like watching a car wreck in motion. You wanna reach out your hand a scream "Look out!!" But the disaster in inevitable and there isn't a damn thing you can do about it.


And making food seems so trite.

The Pioneer, the Harbor and the Land Mine

So, another one of my closest friends in now part of "The Club". She is in process now and will deliver a stillborn baby boy sometime in the next day or so. She was 33 weeks along with out any signs of trouble. Oh, and her birthday is this week.

It gets easier. But there isn't a day that goes by that I don't think of Logan, and now Rudy, and wonder what they would have been like. How our lives would have been. And each time another friend looses their baby I feel it all over again. I feel their pain, I feel my own. And I wonder how it could be that my life is so full of dead babies, when just a few short years ago a dead baby seemed more like a horror film than my reality. Now my horror film has sequels and spin-offs.

"They" say that God puts people in your life for a reason, and you in theirs. Now here I sit with my two newest friends, also being on my list of closest, and I will have walked this path with the both of them with in the past two and a half years, while losing another of my own in the mean time. I feel like the pioneer. And though I find some odd comfort having friends in real life who are in my boat, it sickens me. It makes me angry. It confounds me. I just keep asking how and why. And part of me feels like I'm supposed to be thankful that God put me in the lives of others who would all end up with this common bond, and part of me would rather just say "no thanks!" I'd rather have my innocence and ignorance back than to ever know that babies die, and they do it all the time.

Oddly enough I am able to be at the hospital with her and to talk her through the basics and the facts. The "what to expect when you're suddenly NOT expecting" if you will. Although I think I've removed my heart for the time being. Sort of like the wall you put up when you're holding some one elses newborn. It wouldn't do for me to sit there and be in hysterics. I felt like I talked her ear off while I was there. Nerves mostly, I'm sure. But as I left I felt like there were so many things I wanted to tell her. I wanted her to have a list of everything to expect from the hatred for the newborn's cry down the hall she'll be hearing after her baby's been silenced, to the gut wrenching feeling the first time she's realized she's forgotten she's not pregnant anymore, to the phantom kicks and the cruel joke that comes on day three when her milk comes in for a baby that didn't. I wish I could walk in front of her for the next year and warn her of all the canyons before she falls in them, before she encounters each and every idiot who's going to tell her that her baby is in a better place, and that God has a plan and that it was for the best. To be her neon sign, the one that I wanted so badly that shouted that I had a baby too, and it died, and damn it you'd better not forget it!

But all I get to be is a safe harbor, and then, maybe not. Maybe I will be a land mine. Maybe every time she sees me I'll just be a reminder that babies die.

We were pregnant together too. And it took her so long to get pregnant, and she wanted this baby so bad... And I was thrilled to death for her. And I know she felt terrible for me and helpless in May when Rudy died. Know I feel like I'm just a witness to a really cruel prank, or somehow even in on it.

There aren't enough Margarita's in the world for this.

Wasn't that supposed to hurt more than it did?

One might think that I might've curled up and died after the loss of two babies. Oddly enough, I didn't. But to be honest, the loss of Rudy just couldn't come close to the anguish I had with Logan. I dunno. For a long time I thought maybe I was just in shock, it would come. The ordeal turned into a fiasco. The surgery, though it removed the pregnancy and most of the remnants, didn't fix the problem. I barely recovered from the surgery and I was being injected with Methotrexate (a drug used to both induce abortions (yay for that tid bit!!) and attack tumor cells in cancer patients) to stop (and ultimately bring down) my hCG levels. Because, ironically enough, my body just. did. not. want to accept that there was no longer a baby in there and insisted on continuing on in a pregnant way. That was SUPER! And to make matters worse we were selling/buying and moving to a new home in the midst of it all. Each day inundated with chaos and stress and a nice helping of fear over a rupturing tube when there wasn't even a baby in there any more! Frankly the whole thing was a bit much and in the end I think I was more relieved it was over than anything. But, I kept waiting, expecting that same old gripping grief to haul me under. Except, in never showed up. Don't get me wrong, I cried. I cried at weird moments. I get the familiar pangs and urges. I still count on the calendar to see where I would have been now (15 weeks, if your curious). And yes, I feel the grief at another child leaving before their arrival. But I keep waiting, waiting to be pulled under by the tidal wave of grief I'm supposed to be having.

So far it hasn't shown up...yet. It's been 9 weeks since the surgery. Maybe I was just so hell bent on not going under this time. Maybe I was too distracted. Maybe the whole "you could've died" issue kind of balanced it out. Maybe its because I really only knew about Rudy for about three weeks. Maybe its because I expected this child to die. I mean, aren't all BLM's freaked out the the subsequent children will die too? I dunno. It freaks me out a little bit. Makes me feel cold and heartless. Makes me wonder just how far down I stuff this pain, and when it will surface. One more thing to make me feel freakish.

I guess in the end I just feel like its old hat. Been there, done that. Strike two. I dunno though, I feel like my odds for a living breathing healthy baby get lower every day! Two outta three, that kinda sucks in my book! I mean really, the odds don't look good. First the stillbirth from Down Syndrome (at 31!!), then an Ectopic when I had NONE of the markers...I mean, what's next?

Most of the time I just feel like I'm standing here, poised, and telling the universe "Gimme your best shot!" Because at the end of the day, I STILL want another child! I want that child more than just about anything in the world. I figure I can handle whatever comes my way this time around, I mean, I feel like I'm getting to be a pro at the whole dead baby thing. I can handle it, as long as I get to bring another healthy one home. But then part of me wonders just how many dead babies I want on my list.

Sigh. I keep looking over my shoulder. I am still terrified of dying, and I'm convinced there is a target on my daughters back. I keep having this eerie feeling that the loss of Rudy should've hurt more than it did. I think the problem is that I keep comparing the loss of Rudy to the loss of Logan and frankly they are worlds apart. Logan was within me for six months, he moved, he had a name, we had time to plan, hope and dream. Logan was more than an enigma. He was birthed, held, cuddled and kissed though he were dead. Rudy was a glimmer, barely seen on an ultrasound, and unbelieved in since conception. Too good to be true, and so he/she was. And please understand that I am not trying to diminish miscarriages. Sadly I don't even feel like it WAS a miscarriage. I ok'd the removal of a living baby. I believe they call that an abortion, wanted or not, warranted or not. It is what it is. And in the end I am more sickened by the fact that I became pregnant and then was forced to terminate, or die. I feel like it was just one more giant "psych!" from the universe, except this time I was kinda in on it. I don't like feeling like I had some form of control over it, because realistically I didn't. But we all like to beat ourselves up and play the blame game.

Maybe it gets easier with each loss? Maybe I'm really effed up in the head now days. Or maybe, as my mother likes to point out, God really did protect my heart this time around. Can't say that I mind.

And the hits just keep on coming!

You know, you'd think that loosing a baby would be enough. Baby's dead, its over, your done. But nope, not this time. Friday afternoon I got a call from the doc that my hCG levels are rising, which means that I'm technically still pregnant and that remnants of the pregnancy are still growing in my tube. Friday evening I was in the ER receiving two shots of Methotrexate (a chemotherapy drug) to stop and shrink the growth of the cells. Monday I get more blood work done and another trip to the hospital so that doctor can evaluate me again, and then again on Thursday. If the Methotrexate didn't work they'll do another round (which works 95% of the time). And if that doesn't work, they start doubling the doses. Or they'll have to take out my tube (which they'll have to do anyhow if the tube ruptures in the mean time). Its all so surreal. I can barely get a grip on the seriousness of my situation, and oddly enough I'm afraid of really trivial things (in the grand scheme of it all). Like the side effects of the Methotrexate. I already blacked out today standing on the stairs talking to my husband. Thankfully he was standing there and caught me, but it was so unexpected. That's a side effect I could live with out. Plus then there's the puking. I'm so freaked out by puking with an already sore and tender abdomen the thought of puking makes me sweat and shake. And not that I'll have these side effects for sure, but I'm consumed with fear over them. Maybe its because its the only bit of reality that I can get a grip on at the moment. Tomorrow and the rest of the week are supposed to be the hard days when the medicine really kicks into overdrive. I'm nervous to be alone with my toddler. What if something happens? What if my tube ruptures and I pass out before I call 911, and then I bleed to death right in front of her? That would so screw my kid up for life. But I'm trying not to walk around feeling like I'm dying, because I'm not. Its a remote chance. It just feels like lately, those are the chances that seem to always find their way to my door, and that freaks me out just a little. Even my doc commented on how I'm not doing anything the right way. I've been an exception to almost every rule, and that's frustrating.

Yesterday David asked me where I wanted to be buried (here or back home), just in case. That was a surreal conversation and one we quickly ended. My poor husband. He has got to be freaking out on the inside. I know I would be. He's trying to be all cool and strong for me, but it got to be messing with his head.

And how sad is it to say that I still want another baby? I do. We can't even begin to think about it until November, and David says will talk about it then. I know he's done. Who could blame him. He felt like Logan was a warning, and losing Rudy reinforced that...but now, with all of the complications and what not with this ectopic mess, I can't see him ever agreeing to a baby again.

And what am I supposed to do with that?

Anyhow, I really feel like we are on the verge of tipping over the edge around here. We're supposed to be moving in about two weeks, and I'm useless right now. I can't really help do anything, and David is having to do most of the packing on his own. Its really frustrating and stressful. We've been offered a lot of help, mostly vague help..."if you need us, maybe we can come help sometime". Well, we need it. I've said so. We'll see how much help we actually get. Lord knows we need a lot of it.

2 week Post-Op check up

I'm tired of feeling like the world is viewing this as one big ugly medical procedure. That I'm just Post-Op. What about post baby killing? Because, I mean really, isn't that what went down? And they say it all delicately, politely..."removing the pregnancy". No one wants to talk about the fact that the baby was alive when he or she was so sweetly removed! No one wants to call it what is was, not even me. I always swore there would never be a circumstance in which I'd have an abortion, I feel ashamed and ill in my ignorance. And saying to me that I didn't have a choice, it doesn't seem to matter. I ok'd the "operation" to "remove the pregnancy". I swear, I feel like God is beating me up these last few years.

Most of the time I am bewildered that I am here...much less again.

Tomorrow I get the pleasure of revisiting the place where every time I have walked in, it is because a child of mine has died. It sounds so melodramatic. I HATE every OB office I walk into. Each time its like a dagger. Pictures of healthy living babies. Pregnant Chics. And I know most of them have pregger issues or they wouldn't be at a specialist. It doesn't matter, they're pregnant and I'm suddenly not...again! Guess I'm back in that selfish phase.

I'm scared. I'm scared of what they are going to tell me tomorrow, and I'm scared of what they aren't.
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