The eyes have it

I've started about four billion posts in my head since April 13th, but none of them seem to find their way to the computer screen.

I'm stymied by my inability to figure out exactly what to say. This really is so unlike me. Truly. Just ask My Beloved.

I've also been busy in the garden and busy crocheting and busy getting on with things in general, in the profound absence of anything useful going on in my uterus.

And thinking. I've been thinking too. All. The. Time.

My conclusion? Really, I think it's over. I turned 39 a few weeks ago and it behooves me to face facts like the great big grown-up woman that I am. If I'm unwilling to submit to further surgeries and testing, it's very likely that I've had my last child. Seen my last second pink line. Announced my last pregnancy.

It's over.

And there is so much to say about all that, I just don't know where to begin. I could write volumes on that alone.

Life flourishes all around me. A child on every square corner of my street. Pregnant friends popping out of the woodwork. Multiples. Surprises. They're everywhere.

Except here.

And the thing is, I need to be okay with that. Because this is what it is. This is my life, for better or for worse. Every day I breathe in and I breathe out and the myriad possibilities of a clean, white day stretch endlessly in front of me.

I can write whatever I want on that page. Perhaps I can't be a mother to a living child, but I can still be.

I can grieve my lost babies and still be something more than just a woman grieving her lost babies. This is not the end. I am not finished.

Yesterday I had tea with someone I haven't seen in nearly three years. I've lost two more children since the last time our eyes met. And in those eyes I saw fear. She was afraid of me. Of the person she must be worried I've become. Of my loss and my grief and all the horror I've witnessed and felt. Maybe of the things I might say, the craziness I might suddenly exhibit, the tears I might spontaneously shed.

And it broke my heart. Because while there is an indelible story of grief written deeply in my heart, I'm so much more than that. And I want people to know it. I want them to really, truly know that I am devastated by the loss of my son and by my inability to carry the other four babies we wanted so very much, but I am alive and I have survived and I have thoughts and dreams and hopes that have nothing to do with the carnage of the last six years.

I want it to show in everything I do, and in everything I say, and in everything I don't say.

I want to be walking proof that there is life after loss.

A good life. A happy life.

This 'n that. Photo essay style.

See? I've been doing stuff - honest! I just haven't been talking about it much.

I'm sure I'll find my voice again. I'm just mulling and musing.

I'm good at mulling. Some may call it over-thinking, dwelling or obsessing. But I prefer to call it by less distasteful, more benign names.

Even if they're secretly all one in the same.

P.S. Thanks to My Beloved for the most excellent photographic stylings.

She's alive!!!!

I have no reasonable excuse for my unprecedented two week absence. And no, I wasn't biding my time before coming back with a spectacular long-awaited announcement either.

Same old same old. Busted uterus. Fucked up periods. Cycle number 62 halfway in the bag.

And so I just haven't had much to say. I think there comes a time in every loss blog when this happens, particularly when a subsequent successful pregnancy fails to materialize.

Most loss blogs eventually morph back into pregnancy blogs and then baby blogs and then parenting blogs. Still, of course, with lingering sorrow and grief issues woven throughout.

But this one? This one never seems to change. And I'm not sure where to go from here.

I don't feel done, exactly, I'm just not sure what's left to say. At least not right now when I'm still sitting in a childless limbo, unsure of exactly where we're headed.

Direction should help.

I'm just having a little trouble nailing that down.

Until then it feels like I'm spinning my wheels. Talking about the same things over and over and over.

Which, to be honest, I'm perfectly happy to do. But I worry that this is all I'll ever be if I continue to focus on it. I am more than a bereaved parent. And I'm slowly moving back into the world from whence I came before five small souls drifted in and out of our world without a sound.

But in the meantime, while I straddle these two worlds, I find it hard to know what to say in this little corner of the universe. And so, obviously, I'm struggling with regularity. As far as blogging goes, that is.

But I'll be around. In fact I'm here every single day.

I'm just not sure I'll be here as often.

But who knows. I've been wrong in the past.

Plenty wrong.

Time

Yesterday, after I commented on some pictures a friend posted of herself on Facebook when she was pregnant with her son, we got talking about being pregnant. I was 30 weeks behind her, but for a while we were pregnant at the same time. She asked me if Thomas was a "kicky pants", if he ever got the hiccups, and if he poked me all the time like her cheeky little monkey (who is now a great big almost five-year old!) did.

We traded stories, back and forth.

Yes, Thomas got the hiccups a few times later on in my pregnancy. I remember the gentle, rhythmic movements and feeling so terrible that I couldn't do a thing to stop them except talk soothingly to my lumpy belly while I rubbed it.

No, Thomas wasn't a kicky pants. He was an acrobat - moving in and out of breech position long after he should have had room to do so - but a relatively gentle one. He used to poke me regularly in one spot, just under my left rib cage, and he used to tap dance on my bladder every once in a while. But mostly, he was calm and gentle.

As we chatted, my friend and I, it got me thinking about how nice it was to talk about Thomas without talking about Thomas dying.

We all know how the story ends, so it was really nice to focus on the middle bit for a while instead. Reliving those perfect, blissful moments when he was alive and thriving. And I was undamaged and happy.

It made me miss him like crazy, but it also made him feel so very, very real again.

While it's busy bringing healing, time also has a cruel way of stealing the reality of a lost child. It dulls the only memories you have of that little one, taking you farther and farther away from the moments you had together.

It's a necessary evil, I understand that, because we desperately need the the healing time brings.

But we need the memories too, and I'm so grateful to my friend for not being afraid to ask. For talking to me like she would talk to any "normal" mother. And for bringing the happiest times I spent with my little boy back to me for a while.

I smiled so much yesterday.

Missing

My sweet, my dear, my darling, you're so far away from me.
Though an ocean of tears divides us,
Let the bridge of our love span the sea.

Birthday kisses to heaven

I love you more and more every single day. I can't imagine how there will be enough of me to hold all that love eventually, it'll be so big.

I miss you. Happy 4th birthday, sweet one.

Balance

I'm much better tonight.

I just forgot that it's okay to allow yourself to feel sad. I wasn't purposely ignoring it, but that's absolutely what I was doing; focusing on the good and pretending there was no bad at all.

For balance and sanity it is, unfortunately, necessary to feel everything.

Once I gave in and just let myself hurt, I started to feel better. It sounds counter intuitive, but for some reason acknowledging the dark somehow makes it okay to bask in the light.

Okay, I'm not exactly basking - let's be honest. But I do feel better.

So what if there's a little mind-game action going on? That's necessary too. On days like this, very necessary indeed.