This evening in short form: appetizers + big meal + chocolate cake + pregnant = BEACHED WHALE. Holy moly. “Stuffed” doesn’t even begin to describe it. I crawled into bed afterwards, watched TV and basically rolled from side to side for a couple of hours trying to take off some pressure. I knew ordering that cake was a bad idea… but I couldn’t resist. Chocolate cake. Siiiggghhhhh.

Devin has spent today making up for yesterday. He’s been squirming and kicking all day long, and I for one am thrilled. Even though it kind of hurts sometimes. Thank you, kid!! Good boy, good boy. I guess yesterday was just a sleep day for him. Maybe a growth spurt. Who knows. Maybe he was just sleepy like mama. (I hope he likes his sleep after he comes out. I sure do.)

Speaking of sleep… I really need to get some of that. I’m going to try, even though Devin might make it a little tricky, with his current acrobatics and all.

I woke up today from a dream… a bad dream. I dreamt I had gone into labor, and when I woke up I couldn’t remember anything. Nothing. I didn’t remember anything beyond going into labor, I couldn’t remember giving birth, I couldn’t remember my baby. I rushed over to check on Devin, only to find out he was a month old. I was… beyond distraught. “What happened?? What day was he born?? How did I give birth?? Why can’t I remember??” Den had kept pages of notes that I combed through, hoping it would jog my memory, but it seemed apparent that I had been drugged up so much that I was knocked completely out for the whole thing. Devin had been taken care of by my husband, but he was a stranger to me. It was horrible. I felt like the entire experience had been ripped away from me. My belly was flat and I had no memories to make up for it.

Several things are becoming clear to me over the past few days, as highlighted by this dream.

First, I am not ready to have this baby. Not this month. In the dream I kept asking what day he was born because I wanted it to be in April. I don’t know why this matters so much to me – still thinking about that – but I really want him to hang on until April. Of course he’s going to come whenever he’s going to come and I need to start working on my perspective here, so it’s a good thing I recognize it.

Second, the birthing experience is very important to me. If necessary I’ll get an epidural, I’m okay with that – but under no circumstances do I want to have my mental capacities dulled. I want to experience it all, wholly and completely, and I want to remember everything I possibly can about it. I believe I really would feel bereft if I skipped that step. It’s an important transition to me, one that says goodbye to pregnancy and initiates motherhood. In the dream it was like, because I missed out on that early bonding period right after birth, I had no idea what to do with this child. I didn’t feel like his mother at all…. he was unfamiliar to me. Now obviously that’s just a dream, but it does show the fear that I have over becoming a mother.

And thirdly, I am really going to miss being pregnant. Everyone in my pregnancy groups seem to be really looking forward to getting their body back, to having this done with. People who aren’t as far as long as me are “done.” I keep waiting and waiting for it to hit – that stage when I feel fed up and uncomfortable and done with it. I’m wondering if it’s ever going to come, or if I’m going to be one of the lucky few who enjoys it right up to the end. And to be honest I’m not certain that’s entirely a good thing – it means I’ll miss it more. Other friends have their babies and are like, “Oh thank GOD that’s over with and now I can get back to being myself again and get on with being a mother.” In my dream I had given birth, my belly was going back to normal, and I was bawling, people.

With that being said… I highly doubt I’ll be ready to get pregnant again right away (if that were a choice we could make). I’ll be sad and mourning the loss of being pregnant, but I really do want to take the time to get used to being just me again in my body, to see how my body reacts after having been pregnant, to focus on my beautiful baby boy. (Denis would love to get pregnant again right away, he’s hoping for a miracle so we can have our two kids that we want and not have to worry about IVF again and have the kids close together. Though honestly it’s the “having two young babies really close in age” part that freaks me out more than the “being pregnant right away” part.) So don’t be expecting me to jump right back into “TTC” again. I’m done with that for a while (I hope). And I don’t even want to think about insurance and IVF. Too stressful.

::

Chronicling my [very very slow] descent into discomfort, I am no longer all that comfortable sitting up in bed with my laptop or sitting at my desk. Either way just seems to create problems: the desk chair is giving me lower back issues if I sit for extended periods, and my legs go a little numb even when I’m sitting absolutely properly with both feet flat on the floor, chair raised to the proper height. I had a little bit of success putting a pillow behind my lower back, but it only went so far. In bed, propped up with the multitude of pillows I have in my collection, which used to be just so perfect for taking the pressure off of every joint, is now creating an issue with my ribs – that is to say, the angle is not so good for the growing kid, and he lodges in my ribcage. I have found that sitting propped up on the couch (sideways, with my legs stretched out across the cushions and pillows behind my back against the arm of the couch) is working a little better. My shoulders aren’t being pressed forward by a wall, which means I have a little more ribcage room. I do not, however, have any place to put a mouse, so while it’s okay for surfing and writing, it’s not so good for working. Bummer.

I am still waiting for the joints to start really aching funny and feeling loose. The lower back, yes it does get sore when sitting or standing too long, but that’s less of a joint thing and more of a weight thing; the heavy belly is pulling on my spine and it can hurt after a while! I’ve had a few pops come from various joints – knees, mostly – but nothing to write home about. I did have one odd sensation from my pelvis this morning when I pushed myself up in bed, a little stab of pain. I was like, “Hmmm, that’s new!” But again, it wasn’t very bad at all, just a twinge really. (I hear of friends having horrific pelvic pain… yikes!)

So it’s all good. Just tired all the time.

So for the second time in recent weeks I have spent a morning hunched over the toilet. Greeeaaaatttt. Luckily once I get it out of my system I seem to be fine. But uggghhhhh. [insert yucky-face emote here]

I find myself getting more and more sensitive as I get closer to my due date. I feel the desire to become a hermit. I know it doesn’t and shouldn’t affect me, but stories of inductions and c-sections and labors gone wrong are just really not what I need to be reading right now… I need to stay positive and focus on my own upcoming labor. Positive, positive, positive. I need the good stories. I’m just really edgy and defensive and it’s not good. Den listened to me rant last night, then soothed and coached me to relax and breathe and let it all go, and he reminded me that I’m going to do wonderfully. That helped a lot. But I still feel like becoming a hermit.

I think it was totally thoughtless for my chiropractor to go on vacation!! My appointment isn’t until next Monday, and owwwww. Today was a hard day at work…. just the “simple” things I’ve always done are getting to be such a strain on my back. Just bending over or squatting down to unwrap flat after flat of canned food before putting them on the shelves – and no we have no counter in that area. My lower back was so not happy with me. Thankfully I spaced out my physical work with periods of sitting in a chair with my laptop or some papers. Those breaks are pretty much required at this point.

::

I had the weirdest craving today. I was at work doing my usual stuff and some random scent reminded me of driving the bypass when I was a kid, a section of the city that always smelled like freshly baked bread due to the big bread factory there. My mind flashed to always going in to this one bakery with my mom and us kids always getting cheese breadsticks. (I know I could not possibly have actually smelled fresh bread at work, so I have NO idea what it was that triggered this.) So of course suddenly I wanted a cheese breadstick. I still wanted one when I got home, so I drove to the grocery store to find some kind of cheesebread. They had none! Nothing. Rye, raisen, kaiser, bagels… NO CHEESE BREAD. God damnit. That’s so not funny to a pregnant woman.

::

One horrible side effect of pregnancy: gas. Oh. My. God. I never knew one person could be so damn gassy. I feel like this cat (and learned that lesson the hard way). As embarassing as it is, there’s just nothing that can be done. I am so glad I work alone most of the time.

::

I have noticed a big difference in the type of movements I feel, ever since that night I freaked out. The change must have happened prior to that, but I didn’t really make note of it. Granted some days he’s a lot more active than others, but I’m noticing that the old daily pattern isn’t really so predictable anymore. I still feel movement, it’s just… different. A lot more pushes and lumps sticking out here and there, and pressure from odd angles inside, a lot less swift kicks.

Today at work I felt a lot of pressure, and my hand found a large round body part in my upper right side – I assume a bum. The front of my belly was hard all the way down from there (slightly diagonal), which I assumed was a back/body. The funniest part was that when I pressed down on the bum, I could feel the other side of his body pushing down into my pelvis! That was the oddest thing! I did a couple of times for giggles, little pushes, and then started thinking that perhaps it wasn’t very comfortable for him, having his head squished into my pelvis. (Upon later reflection, I decided that babies get through labor without being too traumatized, and they are FAR more squashed during contractions than a little push with my hand while he’s still safely floating in his bubble.)

::

House progress. Yes, this is what I actually opened up this window to write about, then promptly forgot about.

First, the basement is coming along in leaps and strides. I have to take more photos tomorrow and then I’ll post them all and give an update. It’s wonderful seeing an actual room take shape.

Den is also making progress on our bedroom! Remember when Den started and we unmasked the ugly wallpaper? Today he took more panelling down and then started taking down wallpaper in one area… to see how it was going to go. It’s like I feared: not only is it wicked old wallpaper, it was applied directly over the original plaster walls…. no paint or primer or anything. So we confirmed our suspicion that the wallpaper is original to the 1955 house. (Which is kind of cool, in one way – but it’s still being removed.) Den did get a section off, but he said it was a bitch. Great. I don’t even want to think about what shape the plaster wall is going to be in after the wallpaper’s been scraped off. Ugh.

I feel so good, blah blah blah… no real pain, blah blah blah… nothing much to complain about, blah blah blah…

Today is not one of those days.

We have spent the last three days working on the house. I really should say HE has spent the last three days working on the house. Den and his brother got the drywall finished in the basement, and BIL has done the seam taping and two of three coats of mud. Very very soon it’ll be ready to prime and paint! Still no ceiling or floor though. And we’re not quite sure what to do about that. So then Den started on the bedroom, and so far he got the panelling down and gone, all the wallpaper scraped off, today he sanded all the yucky goo-stained plaster, washed it down, and is half done the priming! Gosh darnit the plain white primer looks ten times better than the glue-and-smoke-colored plaster. I cannot WAIT to get some test colors up on the wall! I have three options that I really like in the chips. This is one of the most exciting parts – selecting the color and seeing the transformation.

I spent monday at work, and most of yesterday sitting at my computer working on client projects. Today I spent a good deal of time sitting on the bed watching him work. I feel really quite bad that he’s doing all that work, but every time I do something to help out I end up in pain. I started washing the walls, and anything at chest-height was fine, I couldn’t reach up to the ceiling, and when I crouched or bent over to get the bottom half of the wall my back threw a fit at me. I filled a bunch of holes in the bedroom walls, and my wrist was freaking throbbing by the time I was done – and it only took me all of 15 minutes. (I don’t know if this is carpal tunnel or not, but whatever it’s called it translates into “something that makes my wrists hurt a whole lot.”) I’m mostly “helping” by making him food and doing trips to the hardware store to pick up supplies we can’t find or don’t have. Which I know he appreciates, but it seems like so little compared to how hard he’s working.

So today I definitely have been sporting the distinctive pregnancy waddle. My hips pop at funny times. My lower back is very sore. And I woke up this morning to more of my mucous plug coming out (or can only assume that’s what it is – colored CM, like the last time). A couple of obvious Braxton-Hicks contractions today. Definitely my body’s way of telling me to take it easy, thus the sitting and watching.

Also lately I’ve been getting random twangs down at my cervix… maybe it’s just my pelvis, who knows. Odd times, too… like laying in bed last night, or at birthing class yesterday. Kind of makes me suck in my breath, a sharp little stab that immediately goes away. Maybe it’s just the kiddo bonking something, it’s possible he’s dropping lower. (Though the position of his butt up at my ribs says he isn’t dropping very much.) I said to Den that it just feels so weird to have a pain like that, from some place deep inside that you can’t even recognize, yet it feels as obvious as taking a good knock on the tail bone.

Despite the aches and pains, I’m actually feeling kind of good that things seem to be progressing. I’m a little relieved that I’m feeling something more like what you’d expect for the third trimester… and yes, the pains do make me look forward to labor and delivery a little bit more!

As of today I have exactly one calendar month until my due date. That’s a little freaky. Even more freaky is the fact that I have a little over a week until I am officially “full term” when they wouldn’t stop labor. Holy effing SHIT. Of course I still fully expect to go overdue, but… that’s still scary man. I think weeks 37 – 39 will be hard for me emotionally because we probably won’t have everything done and clean and there’s a chance I could go into labor at any minute.

I have a meeting with the pediatrician in a little bit so I had better go get changed into something a little bit more… clean.

This morning I woke up to reddish CM. And a lot of cervical cramps. Making myself breakfast (toast… and a banana – I really went all-out) really brought them on harder. So I’m currently laying on my couch. I have an appointment with the midwife at 9am, thankfully, so I’ll find out soon if this is something to be concerned about. Obviously right now there is concern about pre-term labor, I’m not quite 36 weeks yet and it is too early for baby boy to come out! I’m worried that they’ll put me on bedrest, as I still have things to finish up and I haven’t trained someone at my job yet on everything I do. We also have not made it to BRU yet to buy the rest of the stuff we need. We do have the necessities, thankfully.

I put up a couple of test patches of color on the bedroom wall last night, and thankfully one of them we both really like. So today I intend to buy 2 gallons of paint, and tonight hopefully Den puts up the first coat of actual paint! I’ll tell you what, when the bedroom is painted and put back together I’ll let out a huge breath. Then it’ll be ready for the co-sleeper and for Devin to come home. The rest of the house, whatever. The nursery doesn’t have to be done. The basement doesn’t have to be done. But we need a bedroom. (Sleeping on the futon last night? Yeah that was… interesting. One pregnant lady, three of her pillows, and her husband… on a futon. I’m surprized Den didn’t roll off the bed in the middle of the night.)

Then of course there’s the worry of Devin just not being as active. Very mellow baby lately. I’m obviously going to mention that as well today and see what they say. I’m hoping it’s just his position and size. I still have random fears of them going, “What? That’s not good! We need to get this baby out now!” (cue freak-out)

How is it that I’ve had such a nice, confident, relaxing, happy pregnancy up until now… then suddenly I’m full of fears in the last month? Wouldn’t you think it’d be the other way around, worrying until he’s big enough to survive just fine on the outside?? Because if he was born now he may or may not need to be in the NICU, but he’d be fine. And yet I’m freaked out anyways.

He needs to bake for several more weeks, that’s all I have to say.

First of all I want to say thank you from the bottom of my heart to every person who left a comment on my blog or forum journals…. it means so very very much to us that so many people care. I read every comment – tears streaming, but of gratitude as well as sorrow. Den read and cried too, and told me I have so many wonderful friends.

::

March 6, 2008 was the worst day of our life.

At my midwife appointment she couldn’t pick up anything on the doppler. She was really very good, she didn’t let on the true weight of it. She sent me for an immediate ultrasound. I was panicking, but just waiting for the ultrasound tech to say, “Oh there it is.” My fear level rose with every second that passed, until the tech said, “I’m so sorry.” There was no heartbeat. Nothing. There are no words to describe that moment. None. I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t think, I just wanted my husband there with me.

And then to realize that he was still inside me, and had to come out. The thought made me sick. Labor and delivery with no baby to take home. WTF kind of cruel joke is that. I just wanted someone to wave a magic wand and make it all disappear. Every time I passed by a mirror my pregnant body mocked me.

They started the induction at 1:00pm with some pills. They intended to add pitocin once my body was ready, but they never got that far… just the vaginal pills did it all. I had no delusions of going natural, given the circumstances. I did manage to get a shot of something in my IV that made me loopy for about an hour and took the edge off. When it wore off I just wanted more loopy, the pain of contractions really didn’t seem all that bad to me, but decided to get an epidural to make sure it was in place for delivery. They never got it in me. I can’t believe how fast it went. I delivered Devin without a drop of medication in my system (the loopiness had long since worn off). I find it ironic – I got my natural birth, and I hadn’t even intended to. I’ll be working on writing everything about labor and delivery down.

Devin Alin was born still, at 6:58pm. He weighed 4lbs 10oz and was 17″ long.

I am physically fine and recovering well. I had a very minor tear that required one stitch. I am tender down below, but it’s hardly bad enough to take anything for. That’s it. No cramping, no pain. My stomach feels… flabby. Weird. I hate that I still look pregnant. Another reminder.

They say he passed a few days ago, a thought that haunts me… I can’t process it. They have no answers for us, and say they may never have answers, but they are going to run tests try to find out. They say it happens – could be just a cord accident, a placental accident. An accident. We of course can’t stop thinking the “what-ifs.” They tell you not to, that it does no good to blame yourself, to wonder. But how can you not. What if… what if. As if you could somehow go back and change things.

We got to see him, hold him. He was perfect. It was horribly morbid in so many ways – he had obviously passed. Things weren’t “right” about him. But he had the cutest little nose. Some brown hair. What really got us was his hands. Perfectly formed hands, with long skinny fingers, just like his mama. My finger fit just perfect in his fist. We stroked his perfectly formed little fingers and just cried and cried.

He was our little boy, our Devin Alin. We hope to someday get pregnant again, light willing. But there will never be another Devin. I don’t want another baby – I want THIS baby.

Den was wonderful through it all. His way of dealing is to dedicate himself to taking care of me. He held my hand, he encouraged me, he reminded me to relax through contractions and get through them. We are as one, dealing with our grief. I don’t know how I would have gotten through anything without him at my side. When the grief strikes hardest, we cling to each other. As long as we have each other we can make it through anything. I am just so thankful to have him at my side. We give each other strength.

The hospital was really great. They took very good care of us. With one exception, everyone who came into our room was prepped on the circumstances and so very kind. Our nurses (who changed with the shifts) appeared to be dedicated to us and Devin. She took photos of him (which I have not gone through yet), she dressed him and cleaned him up for us and brought him to us, she gave us footprints and handprints, which I plan to hang on the bedroom wall. I am thankful for those momentos. I asked her specifically for handprints, to have them. To always remember.

It’s like I stepped out of one life and into another, one I never in a million years thought I would be in. I used to be Natalie, pregnant infertile and soon to be mom of a newborn. I am now Natalie, mother of a stillborn child. My stomach twists when I think that. My head reels. I don’t know who I am anymore. I know we will get through this, but we can’t see how.

Our son is gone. My stomach is empty and flabby, yet I have no child to hold. My heart is forever broken.

Writing is cathartic for me – it’s always been the first thing I turned to when I was feeling emotional. That was one of the hardest parts of being in the hospital: I had nothing with me. No laptop. Not that I would have had wireless anyways, but not being able to write down what I was feeling and thinking drove me a little crazy. I still have so much more to write, but I decided to keep posting in here about the day to day happenings while I’m writing the whole birth story.

Physically I am feeling mostly okay. I don’t have to pee every half an hour anymore, which is kind of nice – especially since peeing causes some stinging down there where I tore a little bit. I’m a little tender, but it’s still minimal.

My breasts, however, hurt. The the last few hours it has gotten worse and worse… my milk has definitely come in. They are rock hard and so sore. It’s a sad reminder of what I am missing, but it also reassures me that my body can do this correctly. Next time, next time.

People have been dropping in the past two days. After Devin’s birth we hadn’t gotten up the strength to call anyone – thursday evening was spent saying goodbye to him, and in the morning we just wanted to get everything set and go home. It was friday evening before we felt emotionally ready to make phone calls. Just as we were going to do so there was a knock on the door – it was Den’s mom and step-father. His mom said she just wanted to give us a hug, even if we wanted her to turn around and go home, that she had to come and hug us. So we sat for a while with them and talked to them and cried. She told me my mom was going out of her mind… I guess my mom and called my MIL a few times… my mom, being so far away, being unable to come here and comfort me… she was beside herself. The two mothers shared their grief – I am very glad they had that. I feel very badly for my mom, that she’s hurting so much… I know how much she cares, how deeply she grieves for us… but at the same time, I don’t know if I could have dealt with her on Thursday. I needed to focus on me and Denis.

This morning Den’s dad and step-mother showed up, and we again sat and cried and talked. I do find it so comforting that the family is all just beyond supportive. They’re understanding. I will never regret sharing with everyone our struggles with infertility, because they all get it. They know how much of a miracle baby this was, they know that we probably will not be able to just “get pregnant again.” We all hope it will happen, somehow, but everyone recognizes that it will take another miracle.

After they left a friend of mine stopped in… a friend I met online, from one of my forums. She and a couple of other girls live in the area and we’ve gotten together a couple of times. When she heard our news she was so upset, and I guess she organized a gift fund on the forum… today she showed up with a basket of little comfort gifts for me – soaps and books and chocolates and two stuffed animals, sheep of course – and bags of groceries for us. She and her husband stocked our fridge and freezer with all kinds of meal items, all contributed to from the gift fund.

I’m looking online at some loss and bereavement sites and found some memorial items that we really like. I want to get a memorial pendant to wear. I found this site. They do custom engraving of handprints and footprints – which to me is so much more meaningful than a stock image. Especially given how much his little hands mean to me. And a birthstone… Devin was born in March, he’s aquamarine like his daddy. I think that is fitting for our little boy, I like that.

Friends of ours wanted to get us a plant of some sort and suggested planting a memorial tree, which we both really like the idea of. And I’m thinking a marker stone at the base of it. Devin is going to be buried in the hospital’s graveyard – we have no family plot or grave and really no wish for one (as neither of us particularly want to be buried, we’d rather be cramated and have our ashes spread somewhere or something), so we let the hospital take care of it. So I think the idea of a memorial marker in our yard is really nice for us. Den agrees with me and thinks that it would be a good time to have family over – to plant a tree and set the marker. I’m really liking the idea of a small little “memorial” here, at the house. I’m going to get the certificate and hand and footprints framed. And I really do think that the family and friends would like to show up and offer support. People keep saying, “What can I do? What can I say?” And we don’t know.

We don’t need things, and in some ways we feel guilty about people spending money on us (we felt that way about baby items too, though), but people want to do something, anything to help. And it means so much to us that everyone is thinking of us. Please know that. We don’t need gifts to feel how much everyone cares – every comment on this blog is a comfort.

::

One of the weirdest parts of this mourning process is how you bounce back and forth. Den and I actually watched a really funny movie on TV Friday morning at the hospital, we were laughing pretty hard at it. It felt GOOD to laugh. And we didn’t really feel guilty about it, either. We needed it. But then someone would come in to talk to us about, say, memorial plots and services, and we’d be crying again and lost in the grief. It goes back and forth all day. I’ll be happily working on something online (granted it’s something regarding Devin, but that’s what makes me happy right now, getting things all set, capturing memories, organizing photos and stuff), and then I’ll read something… or a memory will surface… or I’ll click on a photo… and tears will be rolling down my face.

Looking at things doesn’t hurt as much as I thought it would. I stared at my most recent maternity photos today and just felt… glad… glad that I have them. Most of all I looked at my face reflected in the photo and felt sad that that joy is gone. The feeling of pure peace and contentment that I projected…. is gone. It’s kind of weird, like I’m looking at someone else. The memories… they sting, of course. It hurts because it’s gone. But at the same time, I’m so glad I have them. Devin did live for 8 months with us, inside me. And I cherished every single moment with him.

This morning Den said to me sadly that he wishes we had some video, that we never got some video of me being pregnant. And I told him… yes we did. I got videos of my belly moving, the first day we had the camcorder. They’re still on the camcorder, I haven’t figured out how to get them off of it… but I have them! And we both just cried realizing we have them. At least we have that. Every memory, every momento is precious. It has made me ever so glad that I kept track of this pregnancy like I did. Sometimes I felt foolish, blogging every detail, photographing my belly button, measuring my belly and my weight, but I knew I would look back fondly. And I do.

One of the items in that gift basket my friend brought us is a CD of songs. I’m not even remotely a country fan, but Garth Brooks’ song The Dance has me in tears… it’s just so fitting. For us the dance is pregnancy… and what a dance it was.

Garth Brooks – The Dance
Looking back on the memory of
The dance we shared beneath the stars above
For a moment all the world was right
How could I have known you’d ever say goodbye
And now I’m glad I didn’t know
The way it all would end the way it all would go
Our lives are better left to chance I could have missed the pain
But I’d have had to miss the dance
Holding you I held everything
For a moment wasn’t I the king
But if I’d only known how the king would fall
Hey who’s to say you know I might have changed it all
And now I’m glad I didn’t know
The way it all would end the way it all would go
Our lives are better left to chance I could have missed the pain
But I’d have had to miss the dance

Nights are the hardest. I can get through the days just fine, as there’s always something to do, something to read, something to post. But at night… at night I just lay in bed and stare at the ceiling. It is getting easier each night, though.

Thursday night I just layed in the hospital bed, stared at the ceiling, and wept on and off all night. I may have dozed off for an hour or two, but I would wake up crying again. I turned on the TV just to have something to stare at and listen to.

Friday night, on the futon at home nestled next to Denis, my mind wouldn’t shut off. The memories and thoughts were painful…. thinking of everything we were going to miss out on, all the hopes and dreams that died with Devin. I did manage to fall asleep, but then woke up in the middle of the night, hit with a wall of grief so hard I couldn’t stop sobbing I could barely breathe. I turned to my husband, who comforted me until it subsided.

Last night I just layed there, thinking. Thinking of how I want to put together Devin’s scrapbook, of the tree that Den wants to pick out, of relatives and friends, of what I wanted to write in this blog… so many things. I closed my eyes and tried to sleep, but honestly it’s like I’m not tired. I’d rather get up and do something.

Well, that and my boobs hurt so fucking bad I couldn’t lay on my side… or raise my arms over my head…. or breathe, pretty much. Laying on my back was the only option, even though they still throbbed… and I really can’t sleep on my back unless I am either dead exhausted or drugged. I was neither of those things, so after three hours I finally got up to write.

I was supposed to get a prescription for Ambien before I left the hospital, but we forgot all about it. I’ll be calling to ask them to fax something in, because I really do need to sleep and I just don’t see it happening on its own anytime soon.

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I welcome everyone who has found my journal through friends and aquaintances and forums and random bloggers. It’s amazing to see people stop in who I haven’t seen or talked to in years, who heard the news through the grapevine. It reminds us how many lives have touched ours over the years… I’m truly awestruck by it.

It’s kind of odd, in a way, to see what people say about my writing – that I’m brave for writing, for posting in a blog like I do. But that’s just how I am. I used to be a terribly socially awkward person, but through my writing I learned how to express myself – how to be myself. I am now like that in person too. I am who I am. If I’m feeling something I really FEEL it – I do not hide my emotions well at all. I’m excessively candid, and like Den says to me on occassion, it scares people sometimes – it certainly catches them off-guard.

When family comes to visit they say up front, “It’s okay if you don’t want to talk about it.” But I don’t have an issue with it. I want to tell them about Devin’s birth. I want to tell them how beautiful he was. I want them to understand what really happened, to know and appreciate everything that Devin was and is. I want to cry with them as I tell my story… and then I want to smile and laugh as I tell them the good parts.

And there were good parts. Devin gave me so many gifts that I’m still finding. He taught me joy…. true joy. For 8 months I was the happiest I have ever been in my life. I won’t say it’s the happiest I’ll ever be, as I don’t know what the future holds, but it sure feels like it.

He taught me to love my body… to truly love it, cherish it. I’ve never had a bad body-image, but it was never particularly good either. Part of that joy was in knowing my body was doing exactly what it needed to do. I realized how much I love my curves, my skin, and all the changes my body went through. It was – is – a spectacular journey. My body is still changing, and I’m finding myself still amazed by it. My breasts are huge and full of milk right now – they hurt like a bitch, but I find myself staring at myself in the mirror, astounded by how my body knows what to do, and feeling thankful that there is hope for the future. Even my belly… I remarked to Den that it’s the grief connected with it that makes me so sad about my belly, not how it looks. I still not think my post-partum belly is ugly. Weird, yes. But amazing how it’s shrinking already.

After learning of Devin’s death I wanted to hate my body. Over and over again I kept thinking how could it do this? How could it not have kept him safe? How could this terrible thing have happened within me, in a process that is supposed to be so natural and right, when my body did everything else it was supposed to do? But the more I think about it, the less I can blame my body for an accident – though, trust me, I want to find something to blame. But I just don’t think I can. It was a horrible, horrible accident.

The strangest gift Devin has given me is labor and delivery. It was a horrible thought. If I could have jumped out of my skin and ran as far away as I could, I would have… I wanted to be far, far away from all of it. I wanted time to jump ahead a day, a week… any time but then. But you do what you have to do, there was nowhere to go, nothing to do but get an IV, get induced, get through the pain and get it over with. And I am thankful now that I missed my opportunity to get that epidural. I did not want to feel that pain on top of everything else, but somehow… somehow it helped heal me. I can’t even explain it. I am proud of what I did. I waited so long to experience labor and birth, and at least now I can say that I did. The outcome was horrible – never in a million years should it have ended with a dead baby. But at least I got to experience it. It’s one of the many things that makes me feel like I really am a mother, even though we have no baby to hold. That concept is going to take time to sink in.

That truly was his biggest gift to me: he showed me how to live in the moment and appreciate everything I have, to live with no regrets. He made me feel truly alive, he gave my life purpose. The movie we watched Friday morning was Second Hand Lions. I cannot even begin to tell you how perfect that movie was for that moment in time. Not only was it an absolutely fantastic, funny, well-written movie and the message behind it was very clear: live with no regrets. I am going to buy that movie and watch it over and over.

I’ve been thinking about how the hell I’m going to ever handle going through pregnancy again, having been through this tragedy. I think one of the biggest things I mourn the loss of – besides Devin himself, of course – is my loss of innocence… my belief that nothing would go wrong. I don’t see how I could possibly feel anywhere close to secure and safe in another pregnancy like I did with this one. And, worse, instead of feeling more and more relaxed the further I get in, I think it’s going to feel more and more terrifying as I get closer to the end. But despite all of that, I am glad that I lived this pregnancy in such joy. I would not have wanted to know how it ended, I would not choose to live in fear. Take more precautions, yes. But live in constant fear? No. I really don’t know how I’ll feel when, light willing, I get pregnant again. But I hope I can manage to find some way to enjoy it, despite the overwhelming fears.

And yes, I am living with the belief that I will get pregnant again. I have to believe that. I don’t know how, I don’t know when we’ll even be ready, but I have to believe that we will get another chance at the happy ending. No subsequent children will ever change what happened or how we feel about Devin. He will always be our firstborn. But we still ache for a child to hold, to raise. And someday we will get that chance. We have to believe that.

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Den is dealing by working on the house. We stopped on the way home from the hospital to buy paint from the paint store in the color we had just picked out, and he immediately started painting the bedroom. Our bedroom had been completely dismantled in the days before Devin’s birth as we started the painting. Everything but the huge bed had been pulled out, and we couldn’t even use the bed because of the vapors in that room with all the painting. It was frustrating for us both to come home to a house that was in such disarray. So that’s what we’ve been doing: putting it back together. And I am honestly thankful that Den, especially, has had something to do. Yesterday, after painting a fresh coat on the wall in the bedroom and unable to do anymore more in that room until it dried, he walked into our hallway and said, “So what color were we going to paint this again? Do we still have that paint in the basement?” And he did that too. At one point everything just needed to dry and he was walking around with a paintbrush saying, “I have nothing more to paint… I need something to paint!” I did point out several other odd jobs that we have intended to do for years, but he decided he had enough projects at that point, heh. This morning he is putting the bedroom back together – he’s currently on his hands and knees scrubbing the wood floor to clean it up of all the crap that’s gotten on it during construction.

Den’s original idea was for him to take me from the hospital to a hotel room while he went home and got the house in order – or at least put away all the baby things so I wouldn’t have to see them. We decided in the end that it was better for me to come home with him… I wanted to, I thought it was best. I put all the baby things into plastic containers; most of it was already in containers to keep it clean, but I wanted to repack stuff to fit everything else in. More than that… I wanted to go through it. To pick out a couple of things to keep in a keepsake box, and to say goodbye and mourn. I packed things away in boxes, and Den took them down one by one into the basement to put them in storage.

The hardest part, by far, was after I told Den to let me know if he had any attachment to anything he wanted kept in a special place. He admitted to me that he’d taken the stroller downstairs and opened it up and had pushed it around for a while. I walked down later to find him pushing the stroller back and forth, crying. I just about lost it completely. Denis wanted this baby boy so fucking badly, more than anything in this world. He had so many dreams of playing sports and taking him for walks in his stroller. Finding out we were going to have a son was by far one of the singular best moments of his life. He was so damn proud of his boy. And as much as I hurt inside, as deep as the sorrow and loss runs within me, I think it almost hurts more to know the overwhelming grief that he feels, to watch my husband hurt so very very much.

Today is a bad day. I just feel so empty and lost… I think we both do this morning. The sky outside is blue, the world outside seems so normal. Even our house… with the dogs and the cats napping in their usual spots… just seems too normal. The silence accentuates what is missing.

Den and I talked last night about how you go from not thinking about him, then you feel guilty, then you think about him and it sucks the air right out of you with the grief. I realized how different his grief is from mine. I had Devin growing inside me, I got to experience everything first-hand. All he had were his hopes and dreams for after he was born, and they are all gone now. He lost everything. He doesn’t have those fond memories in the same way that I do. He is angry… angry at the world for taking this away from him. I tried to comfort him as best I can, but… I don’t know how much it helps. I worry that my way of grieving causes him more pain.

Last night was so freaking hard. I’ve started feeling really anxious when the sun sets. I may need to adjust my meds (which we knew might be a possibility), though right now I think the anxiety is understandable – I can tell the difference between hormonal imbalance anxiety and external events anxiety. Every evening Den and I have been turning on the TV and finding something to watch together… a movie, some Law and Order. It’s something that I can look forward to, in a way… some time just spent clinging to my husband.

I just hate the darkness so much. and last night we moved back into our bedroom… newly painted… but the same bed. Getting into bed was anguish. The same bed that, every night, I would sit up in with my laptop and watch my belly move around. It was “our” time together, Devin and I. And my heart ached so very, very badly to lay there and be alone in my body. God it hurt so much. I just cried on Den’s shoulder.

I slept all night pressed up against him. I think we used only half the king-size bed. I’ve also started feeling a lot of anxiety when I’m not in the same room as him. I need him near me. When I start feeling upset I go and find him, wherever he is in the house. The thought of him going back to work tomorrow (which is something he needs to do for himself, to keep busy) makes me feel extremely anxious. I’m not really sure how I’m going to get through that.

Today’s just one of those days where I can’t see any light at the end of this. I can’t see how on earth I’m going to keep getting through day after day of grief and get on with my life. I can’t see how my life will ever be “okay” again.