I am currently halfway through watching The Business of Being Born. I had it on my list for a few months now…. I really wanted to see it but… Devin. Tonight I wanted to watch something; that movie popped up on Netflix and I thought, well, let’s try it. I had a positive birth experience and still hold close in my heart the image of next time, so maybe I’ll be able to watch it.

So far it is an excellent movie, like everyone has said. Really well done. Definitely worth a watch. (And it’s available on Play It Now on Netflix.) And I’m not having such a hard time with it.

I have conflicting thoughts about the whole idea of homebirth. I used to be in favor of it, though not passionately so. I would snort at the idea of needing a hospital to feel safe, and patiently explain to my husband that emergencies were rare and you would get transferred to a hospital if you really needed it. But now? How do I reconcile that with what has happened to me? Where do I stand now?

One thing that keeps going through my head is that what happened to Devin couldn’t have been prevented either way. Whether or not I was seen prenatally by a midwife in my own home or driving into a big bustling hospital with ultrasound machines, it didn’t make a whit of difference now did it. Between one visit and the next, boom, over. Nothing to be done.

On the other hand, now I’m exceedingly aware that things can go terribly wrong in an otherwise natural, picture-perfect process. I know that next time I will want extra monitoring, I will probably be a nervous wreck.

But does that mean I don’t trust in the natural process anymore? … I don’t think it does. While watching this movie I feel a sense of pride and peace when watching natural childbirth. I do believe in it. And I still don’t think doctors should be meddling when they shouldn’t and possibly making things worse. There has to be some kind of balance between a safety net and supporting things progressing naturally.

I think about the fact that my next birth will be in a hospital, I will more than likely not ever have a homebirth. Despite what I know and agree with regarding hospitals in general I don’t think that bothers me. When I think back to my labor experience I felt very supported. I had interventions due to needing to be induced because of Devin’s death, but I didn’t get any more interventions than I asked for or needed. And all the way through I got the feeling that if it were a normal birth and I had walked in wanting a medication-free birth I would have been supported.

They didn’t hook me up to the monitors right away, not until it had been a couple of hours and I had made some good progress. Then when they placed the monitor on me I sort of forgot it was there half the time. I didn’t even think to look at the screen. They would come in and check on the progress and I remember feeling surprized every time they commented on how I was contracting really well. I can see why natural childbirth books strongly recommend not staring at the contractions on the monitor. I was so focused inward that my perception of things was completely different. I’m really quite glad that I had that dissociation with what was “really” happening on the monitors. I connected with my body and listened to it, flowed with it. I was an active participant, not just an observer.

I really think my hospital is a good one. I’m sure there could be improvements, and it is still a hospital, but as far as hospitals go I feel very very good about it. I think one of the things I walked away from it all with was the belief that you really do need to have a care provider and birth setting that you can trust. I know some women feel like they can walk into a typical hospital and force things to go the way you want them to go – and you know, they probably can. But personally I would not want to spend my time arguing with people and watching everything they do like a hawk. I would not want to have to deal with nurses who don’t believe in what you’re doing. I don’t want to have to second-guess suggestions that my doctor makes. I trusted my midwife, so if she said I needed something then I knew it wasn’t just for protocol’s sake, as it wasn’t in their normal protocol. Of course I’m not going to just blindly go along with anything, either – and Den was looking out for my best interests as well – but I really think it helps overall to have a calm, peaceful environment, which involves having people around who are willing to support you in the way that you need them to.

I really really do look forward to my next labor experience. I have no doubt now that I can go medication-free. I’m really interested to see how a non-induced labor would go for me, if I get that chance. I wonder if the labor will be at all similar to my first one… will it, too, be short and fast? Relatively pain-free?

It occurred to me that my pregnancy will also likely be different from my first one. I wonder just how different it will be. Will I puke for half the pregnancy again? Will I be as pain-free and light on my feet again? I also really wonder what the last month will be like, since I never got to experience that. I wonder if I would have hit the “I’m done now” point and when it would have been. I wonder when I would have gone into labor.

So many things I wish could have happened. I hope I get a second chance.

** Title of post from a magnet I bought today: has a beaver and says “dam it.” Tee hee.

I have had a very shakey day today, emotionally. I’ve been very introspective, a lot of things are weighing on my mind, thinking about babies and Devin a lot. So I’m off-balance and little things that happen feel like big things. I’ve cried multiple times this evening, just falling apart pieces at a time. My mom is still here visiting and I still feel like I need to monitor my emotions when around her. I know she would tell me not to, but it’s hard to let down that guard. So I wait until I’m alone with Den, even just in the next room, and then I break down. Finally coming to bed, alone in the room, and allowing myself to completely fall apart and cry into my pillow was such a release. I can’t keep it bottled up inside me. I can’t keep avoiding the tears.

I felt my OCPD being more of a problem today. My depression still is not an issue, unless you count the grief that comes and goes – but personally I think that’s normal at this stage. The OCPD is one of those funny things though, so subtle sometimes even I don’t notice what’s going on. Today we drove up to Vermont just to do some sight-seeing. We hadn’t made any solid plans for it, but I kind of in my head assumed Den would come with us. Well yesterday he told me he had baseball practice and couldn’t come. And I was upset about that all day. Not upset like at him…. but it really raised my anxiety level about driving to Vermont. It’s really hard to explain. I wasn’t nervous about going by myself, and I’m fine with spending time with my mom, but I had expected him to go with us, in my head that was the way it was “supposed” to be and if he couldn’t come in then the trip would simply not be enjoyable. I really struggled with that thought all morning, as twisted as it is. I had to keep reminding myself that his presence was not a requirement. That’s what my OCPD is: I feel like things have to happen a certain way, how I picture it will, or I get really upset that it won’t be worth it. Normally I have it under control and I don’t struggle with those thoughts anymore, but today was just one of those days.

Once upon a time my dog was my baby. I lived and breathed for my little girl. My teenaged years were spent going home at lunch to check on the dog, and afterschool rollerblading with her. She was my best friend, my everything.

I drove people nuts with talking about my dog. This continued long after I went to college, moved out, got married, got new dogs. (My old dog, Oreo, still lives with my dad.) People would talk about their children, I would talk about my dogs. That’s just how it was. People who knew me understood that this wasn’t trivializing their children. My dogs were my children. I lived in fear that something would happen to one of my babies. I used to have nightmares frequently that something happened to Oreo, or that there was a house fire and she was trapped inside. I would wake up panicked and crying.

My brother’s dog died in January. She wasn’t my dog, but it hit me like a ton of bricks. She was only 3 years old, it seemed like such a huge injustice. I had lived with her before moving out, she was a part of the family. Her death was not sudden, it was long and drawn out due to cancer. It left us all heartwrenched. I cried deeply.

After that I got very nervous; every time my parents called I would have a tremble of fear that it was bad news about Oreo. I truly thought that was the worst thing that could happen. I felt like losing Tessa hurt so very much, and the thought of losing Oreo was horrendous.

How things change. The hurt of losing Tessa now seems so insignificant. Not that it wasn’t horrible, not that it was at all fair or easy. But the loss of a child is so huge… so freaking unimaginable… that the effects of Tessa’s death falls by the wayside. I find myself already at peace over Tessa being gone. Sometimes there’s an ache, but I can see how life moves forward. Other dogs will never be Tessa, but somehow it all just seems to be okay.

Devin not being here will never be okay. I am only 1 month out, but I know in my heart that this is never going to feel the same kind of peaceful. Ever. It will hurt a whole lot less. And there will be healing. But there is something fundamentally ripped inside me. The core of who I am has changed. This one event has shaken me more than any other event in my life – more than any event I could have imagined.

When I talk to my dad about Devin he, like I used to do, draws parallels with his dogs. I mentioned hurting and he said he still thinks about Tess all the time. Like it’s a similar thing. I know that it’s not, could never be. And yet… and yet I do not take his comments in a bad way. I remember when my dogs were the most important things in my life. He really does feel like what we are going through is similar – and in many ways, it is. To him, this is one of the most painful things he’s had to deal with. I find comfort in him sitting with me in grief.

My dad doesn’t know how immense my loss is. How could he? He has never lost a child. He’s empathizing the best way he knows how.

I am so glad I’m back to feeling numb again today. Days when I don’t feel numb hurt so much I’m pretty much unable to function. I’m glad they are interspersed together…. too many numb days and I feel guilty… too many emotional days and it’s too overwhelming and painful. I am so glad my brain gives me breaks.

Today I took the first physical step to losing weight. My mom left today and I came home ready to make a real commitment to this.

I had been doing a short daily walk with Den, but when he went back to work he started exercising at work. And I really hate walking alone, it’s so damn boring. I read about people who feel really good during and after exercising…. well, that’s not me. I hate exercise. I hate feeling sweaty. The entire time I’m exercising it’s with the point of exericising, and I’m trying to string myself along just a few minutes further before I can quit. Not surprizingly I am really bad about exercising on a regular basis.

I’ve been thinking about it and wished that I could be that person who actually gets something from exercise, who “feels good” and looks forward to it. It sure would make losing weight a lot easier. Then I thought about dance. I used to love to dance, I took some dance classes (hip hop, jazz) when I was around 12 years old. Loved it. But I didn’t continue, and I’ve always kind of wished I could get back into it. (But, you know, money and stuff.)

So today I had that itch. I pulled up the OnDemand exercise shows and tried out a couple of different dance shows, one of which was a Carmen Electra sexy dancing one. That was fun. Problem was I felt like I spent a lot of time learning the steps, and not a whole lot of time actually dancing. My heartrate was only up a little bit, and I just wanted to all-out dance. So… that’s what I did. I flipped to one of the music channels, the one with club dance music, cranked up the volume on our new stereo system (I do love the subwoofer), and danced. All over the living room I bounced and twirled and kicked. It was fantastic. I closed my eyes and just moved with the beat like I do late at night at DCon when the DJs are running the ballroom. Love it.

When I stopped I thought, THIS is it! This is my thing, this is how I’m going to lose this weight! It feels good – it doesn’t feel like work. I wanted to keep going, but my body was struggling and I figured it was probably a good idea to take it easy and not hurt myself. My body was flushed (and by “flushed” I mean “my face was as red as that time I got sunburnt in Tennessee”), my heart was thumping, my tendons were warm and loose. I felt like I was really doing something.

I did have to jump in the shower immediately, because eewwww sweat. But I was rosy and chipper the rest of the evening.

That was the first step.

Then there is drinking more water, which was greatly facilitated by the exercise. I need to get in the habit of drinking water instead of milk or it’s going to be a lot harder to lose weight. (And I know damnwell I don’t drink enough water.)

Next is food. I opened up my fridge and tossed all the old things past their expiration date and took inventory of what good stuff I have in there (yogurt, cottage cheese, some veggies…). For lunch I ate a turkey sandwich; for dinner we had spinnach and cheese ravioli; for evening snack I had a little bit of cottage cheese and a piece of toast with peanut butter. I feel good about that. I have been extremely bad lately with just popping chocolate in my mouth all the time. I think I have an attitude of, “I feel bad. So who cares. I need chocolate, it tastes good.” Immediate gratification. And I let myself do it while mom was here, but that was my limit; this is my time to change. I think for the most part I’m going to stick with the same aims as when I was pregnant, I’m just going to have to be more careful about serving sizes and fat content. I’m not really sure about protein intake… I’m not certain that high protein is good for weight loss, but I’ve heard it’s good for egg quality.

Hopefully I can stay dedicated to this. Every time I feel like not getting up and dancing I’m just going to have to look down at my midsection and pinch a fold of skin from my side. That should do the trick.

(Weight this evening – 148.4. I apparently stalled out completely at 148.)

My butt and thighs hurt! I feel like I did when I was pregnant, having to hoist myself up off of chairs…. only this time it’s simply because my legs squeal at me like tiny mice stuck in a frying pan. But I don’t complain – I’m actually quite pleased. I really must have done something with that exercise. And at the time I really didn’t feel like I was doing much.

::

Today I had to tell someone that my baby died.

It was my first official day back at work today. I had stopped in previously to work on some paperwork and for meetings, but today I went in for-real to actually do my normal job. First thing on my list was making a run to Costco to pick up an order. While I was off work no one picked up orders; someone else just stopped at Costco to buy things in the evening. Which means no one has had contact with the people who help me in the mornings with the orders. They didn’t know.

I knew from the start that it was something I was going to have to face, and to be honest that’s part of the reason I pushed it off this long. I felt like today I could handle it. So I rung the bell and they opened the door. He looked me up and down, smiled big and said, “So… boy or girl?!” Then the woman who helps me out walked over and said cheerfully, “What are you doing back?!”

I paused for a moment, then stumbled a little through my words. “Well… actually… we lost the baby.” I crumpled for a minute, hiccuping with a sob.

(I know some – many – women don’t like using the phrase, “We lost the baby.” I thought about it a lot today and concluded that sometimes it just works best for me… and for whatever reason it doesn’t bother me. I don’t like saying, “The baby died” – at least, not for the initial news-breaking. It sounds too flat to my ears. I go back and forth. Maybe it’s just my own hang-up.)

Faces fell in shock and horror. The woman immediately hugged me tight and said, “Oh Natalie… I’m so sorry!!” She looked so upset. (The men, they never seem to know what to say, beyond, “I’m sorry.” He started talking about other things. Not to brush off what had happened, I know – I saw the look of sadness and sympathy in his eyes. He understood… he just didn’t know what else to say. And frankly I didn’t mind; sometimes talking about other things is easier than sitting in the grief.)

I hate breaking the news.

It occurred to me that it’s not just having to go through the pain of explaining again that hurts so much. What hurts almost more is walking in to the big, expectant smiles and excitement. For a moment you get to see what should have been… the image flashes through your mind of how you were supposed to be walking in the door beaming with pride, telling them all about your baby, bursting with joy and happiness. Instead you stand empty and small, wincing in response to the sharp reminder, grief bubbling up when people least expect it.

I loved living in the moment, I appreciated everything. I want to be able to do that again, but it is so far out of reach right now. The moment sucks. Sometimes I run across some other posting that makes me think about my day and try to find something positive that happened. I usually can’t. I can sometimes identify things that “didn’t suck much.” I can identify good times I spent with my husband, or good conversations I had with a close friend. But “positive”? Not really.

I realized tonight that my sister-in-law is 34 weeks pregnant, a mere 2 weeks away from the point where I had Devin. It’s so strange how fast it’s going by, and yet it’s not nearly fast enough. I want this all to be over with. I want her to have the baby so I can deal with it and move on. Thinking about her being in her third trimester just sucks the breath right out of me. (And it’s not just her – it’s anyone in their third tri.) Over and over again I think about where I was supposed to be. Big bellies haunt me. I can’t get it out of my head. And when I do I run across someone else who is there and it starts all over again.

I don’t know if her having a newborn is going to be any easier. Just thinking about watching her find her way through new parenthood makes me ache. I was supposed to be blazing the trail before her, sitting with her sharing stories. Now I’m just an observer. Worse than an observer. So no…. I can’t see it being much easier. But it will be different. It’s an unknown. I’ll take my chances if I can just get past this part now.

::

I looked up Devin’s sign. He was supposed to be an Aries, but being born early he would have been a Pisces. For some reason that makes my heart ache more. I can see myself parenting a Pisces. I imagined him with a personality like that.

::

I am looking for information about returning cycles after pregnancy. I found this note: “After pregnancy, about 50% of women ovulate before their periods return.” But then on another site: “90 percent of women will not ovulate before their first period.” Great.

I love this quote: “Women who don’t breastfeed find that their cycles resume very quickly — as early as four to ten weeks after childbirth.” 4 to 10 weeks. Wow, that’s really… helpful.

Blarg. I’m going to bed.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve opened up this screen to type something today… and nothing comes out. Or I start writing and it just sounds wrong. I hate it when I have so much floating around in my head, but it’s such a muddle of thoughts that I can’t really make anything coherent out of it.

I find myself thinking outloud a lot – like I wrote before, sending a “prayer” out into the nothingness. I catch myself doing it and question what the hell I’m doing. I decided my belief hasn’t changed – I still don’t believe in a god who is listening to what I say. It’s more along the lines of my writing. Before I started blogging, when I was in high school and even before then, I kept a diary. Part of my writing is to have a record of my life, something I can look back at. But part of my writing is the simple urge to express myself. It really doesn’t matter if I have someone listening or not (sometimes that can be a hindrance) – sometimes, like in the case of my personal hand-written diaries, I took steps to ensure no one did read it. I wasn’t writing to a divine being, I was just writing to write. Just as now, when I stop about my day and mutter and swear and beg and plead. It’s a release, it’s a meditation. It’s about awknowledging those emotions that try to overwhelm me.

The whole god thing really pisses me off a lot lately. Once in a while I’ll come across some post or another where someone very innocently mentions how their faith, their prayers, have kept their baby safe. Even a simple praising god for the safety and health of their child, their pregnancy. It just overwhelms me with frustration. Do these people believe that their god didn’t like me enough? Or maybe they think that my lack of faith is why their god killed my baby? How the hell do they reconcile themselves when someone of their own faith loses a child? “God has a plan.” Well if that’s the case, then their prayers for their baby had absolutely NO effect, either god’s plan was for the baby to live, or the baby to die. I will never understand, it just seems so non-sensical. I see many people finding comfort in their faith after a loss… I simply cannot imagine it. If I really thought there was a being, a creator, who allowed my baby to die, who lets me suffer like this, I would be pissed beyond belief.

I also don’t believe in an afterlife. I don’t believe I’m going to be reunited with Devin one day, I don’t believe he’s “alive in spirit.” I wrote about Tess and the rainbow bridge, and I said “IF there was a heaven.” I really meant that if. To me the rainbow bridge is another myth, a folklore story. It’s a good story, it’s good symbolism. But it’s just not real. Devin is dead. He lived for a little while, and now he is gone. I weep mostly for the potential him that was lost. I think about the life he should have had – that’s what hurts the most. I hurt for me and my husband, who know what we lost. Death itself doesn’t scare me. Maybe that’s strange to people. My own husband (also an athiest) is terrified of death. But to me… once you’re dead you don’t think, you don’t feel, you don’t hurt. You can’t feel sad about the things you never got to do, you can’t miss your loved ones, you can’t wish for something different. The part I fear about death is other people dying: my husband, my brother, my parents, my friends, my pets. My baby. I fear their deaths – I fear them leaving me.

Despite all of that, I do find myself feeling a little more… spiritual, as Kel put it. It started before Devin died, though… it started when I got pregnant. I felt a connection with myself – and with the earth – that I’ve never felt before. All my life I felt like I was searching. When I was 13 I researched paganism and practiced meditation. Later, when I was 16 or 17 I found Pantheism. Over the years I have journalled extensively, trying to dig myself out of my depression and anxiety by self-analysis and introspection. People have commented to me many times in the past that I am extremely self-aware. I was like a scholar who studied something and knew the facts inside out, but lacked a true understanding, a connection. I somehow have found it. I don’t know if I still have it – lately my anger at the world has gotten in the way of any kind of appreciation – but I still recognize how it felt and sometimes I get it back.

The thing that keeps me going is the thought that this is the only life I’m going to get and the best thing to do is to enjoy what I have, look forward to the future, and remember the past. I won’t lie, there have been times since we lost Devin where I wonder what the hell the point of continuing is. Not in a suicidal sense, but it is so tempting to just… give up. To crawl into bed, pull the blankets over my head, and stay there. I mean, who cares about work or finances or anything else. My baby is dead. Nothing else seems to matter. But then reality hits and I realize I can’t do that… if I give up on everything I might as well write off the rest of my life. Who knows what else is out there? I remind myself of the times in my past where I was at the bottom of a well and wanted to give up. But I got out of it, I moved forward, and I found wonderful things like my husband.

Life sucks… but life doesn’t have it out for me. It’s a roll of the dice, it’s a winding road… probabilities and statistics. I’ve always found comfort in running the numbers, studying the facts. The world is scientific. It is bare, it is cold. It’s the human aspect that creates meaning. It is a human blessing that we can think about the meaning of things. We can wonder why… look for answers. We can imagine. We can grieve what we never had. It is also our curse.

I am happy to say that most people are respectful and understanding. But to the few who aren’t…

Apparently I need to state this outright, which is a little sad in and of itself: I have a religion; I do not need yours.

I feel that I have a right to express my religious beliefs, to talk about them, here on my own blog – without people trying to convince me that I am wrong and there are better ways out there. I don’t think the people who do that really realize how rude they are being. Well here, let me put it out there for you: IT’S RUDE. It’s disrespectful. Before you post about your religion, take a good look at what you are trying to say. Ask yourself why you’re posting. If you are trying to convince me about your religion/beliefs… if you’re thinking “Well if only she knew about ___ then she’d understand”… if you think you can “save” me from hell or grief and show me a better way… then stop.

I do not go around to other peoples’ blogs and tell them that I think their belief in god is unfounded and, really, they’d be better off if they tossed it aside and became an Athiest. I do not go into someone else’s blog and, when they are talking about how their god is helping them through tough times, tell them all the evidence that I believe disproves a god. Or I don’t go in there and tell them all about the wonder of Zeus, or how if they just tried really hard to pray to Athena that she would save them. I just don’t do it! It’s rude! I have many friends of many different religions. I am just happy if they find peace with their beliefs, if they are kind, compassionate people, if they are good friends. I post supportively and let them find their own faith. It’s none of my business what god they believe in or don’t. I expect the same courtesy.

I don’t know why it is so hard for some people to grasp or accept. I am an Athiest. I have always been an Athiest. I do not believe in Allah or Shiva or Yaweh or Zeus or “God.” You may believe that one of those exists and that I am going to hell if I do not pray to get saved. I don’t care. I don’t believe in your hell, or your savior, and I am not worried about it. If you are so worried for me about this you can pray for me and whatever else you want to do. You can talk with people who share your beliefs about how sad it is that I don’t believe. Whatever. Just don’t come to my space and preach to me. I don’t want to hear it. It’s never changed my mind, it’s not going to change my mind, and it will only piss me off in the meantime. I’m pretty sure that is not the effect people are going for.

I am just quite flabbergasted that some people just don’t get that they are being undeterminably disrespectful to other religions.

Devin’s tree is budding, little bits of green growing on its branches, slowly opening. The green buds with the reddish bark is just gorgeous.

The funny thing is that up to the weekend of Devin’s memorial it was quite cold. But for that day we needed the extra space, so we opened up the 3-seasons breezeway. And we never had to close it back up…. from that weekend it’s been quite nice, becoming nicer. Devin’s memorial ushered in spring. Somehow that seemed just right.