I don’t do these often, but eh. I feel like it.

A – Attached or Single: Attached
B – Best Friend(s): Kel
C – Cake or Pie: Cake
D – Day of Choice: Saturday
E – Essential Item: Devin’s necklace
F – Favorite Color(s): Blue
G – Gummy Bears or Worms: Gummy Bears
H – Hometown: near Vancouver, British Columbia
I – Indulgence(s): Chocolate.
J – January or July: July. I like the warm weather.
K – Kids: Our Doodles. Hopefully another (or more) someday.
L – Life is incomplete without: Dogs (and cats!). Furry love.
M – Marriage Date: July 16, 2005
N – Number of Siblings: 1 younger brother
O – Oranges or Apples: Apples, specifically Fuji
P- Phobias or Fears: No phobias. Fear of being inadequate.
Q – Quote: At the top of this page – “I still miss those I loved who are no longer with me but I find I am grateful for having loved them.” — Rita Mae Brown
R- Ring size: 4 (yes, really)
S – Season: Summer.
T- Tag 3 Friends: I never tag people… do if you want to.
U – Unknown fact about me: I used to suck at math really really bad – and I hated it. Then it clicked and in highschool I won several math contests.
V – Very favorite stores: Target
W – Worst Habit: Overanalysing and obsessing
X-ray or Ultrasound: Ultrasound… because that would mean I would be pregnant.
Y – Your Favorite Food(s): Cheese.
Z – Zodiac: Virgo

ETA – I went back and added in U because I had skipped it and then forgotten about it.

D-day is here: baby H is on her way. We’re waiting for more news.

I’m feeling surprizingly okay, though wound very tight in anticipation of the news. I started off with excitement, then later got teary thinking about how I was supposed to be bringing Devin to the hospital to meet his new cousin.

I have a lot to say about yesterday and today, but no time to write about it… I need to get work done today and my brain feels about a hundred miles away. I keep screwing shit up.

::

As for me… I had that positive OPK Saturday morning, tons and tons of EWCM, Sunday I had some weird pangs, and then it was no more EWCM. So I’m guessing I ovulated on Sunday. I have hope…

Yesterday I went over to SIL’s for a few hours to hang out with her and chat. Being overdue, she was going to have the baby soon and I wanted to spend some time with her before then.

Her mother (I’ll call her K) dropped by while I was there, and she arrived with a gift bag. Much to my surprize she handed the gift to me instead of her daughter. She said it was for me… for Devin. She’s a quilter, and she sewed a beautiful pillow, in fabric of blue and teal with moons on it, with ruffled edges. In the center was a panel with a poem on it:

The outside was like a pillow case, and when you take out the inner pillow she had sewn a panel with Devin’s picture on it. The whole thing just made me tear up. I love momentos for him… gifts for him. Things to keep, to touch, to hold.

K told me how devastated she had been when SIL had called her to tell her the news. She used to be a maternity nurse and she said she had been present for two stillbirths… how horrible it was, how hard it was. So when she found out about Devin it took her back those she had been present for. She understands better than most what we went through that day. We both had tears in our eyes as we talked about Devin. Another reminder of how many people Devin has touched. How very loved he was and still is.

She also told me how utterly devastated SIL had been. That how now, forever more, BabyH would be a reminder to us of what we lost, a reminder of Devin. K said she was just so very amazed at how we’re handling this, how we are maintaining our relationship with them and BabyH. She said that she is grateful, because SIL never had a sister.

::

SIL was at the point of wondering if the baby was ever going to come out, worrying about induction, exhausted yet still working every day so as not to miss out on any maternity leave. I told her I had a feeling that the baby would come early this week. Since obviously nothing had happened that day, it would have to be Tuesday.

This morning we got a text message saying her water had broken.

My first reaction was excitement, anticipation, and a healthy side of “I knew it!” I actually felt quite giddy. A couple hours later, however, I was thinking more than reacting. Thinking about Devin, about how he was supposed to be here to greet his cousin. How things were supposed to be different. I was tearing up on the way to work…. not in utter despondency, just a sad, empty ache.

I was a complete airhead all day at work… I screwed up everything. I’d look down and realized that yet again my brain had wandered and I had just written down the same thing four times. Or I’d count something out, arrange it, and realize I somehow arranged half one way and half with something else. I just couldn’t focus for the life of me.

Surprizingly I haven’t been preoccupied in the way I feared I would. Oh there were moments where that sadness hit, don’t get me wrong. But I keep thinking about BabyH and how much I want to meet her. I feel so connected to this child, my neice. I feel like in some ways she’s a connection to Devin, and not necessarily in a bad way. They were always connected. They still are. So I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about the perfect gift for this baby, of ways to honor that connection. I’m still thinking about it.

I thought long and hard about whether or not I wanted to visit the baby in the hospital, if I wanted to wait, if I could possibly arrange for us to meet her when no one else was visiting so we could have some privacy with BIL, SIL and BabyH. Yesterday I did ask SIL about that – what her preferences were, of course, and if there was any way we could come when it was quiet. She said she expects people to be in and out a lot – not somethinig I had really anticipated. Then I thought back to a few months ago when I visited a friend in the hospital with her newborn, and how her hospital room was a rotating door of family and friends coming to see the new baby. I know I’m going to cry – I can tell you that right now. I’m holding it together right now, but when I get there I am going to have to deal with my loss and my joy for this new being all at the same time, and it’s going to be hard (but not terrible). But, despite the prospect of other people being there, I decided I really do have to see her sooner rather than later. Waiting will let me overthink things way too much. I need to face this, I need to meet my neice, and I need to see my SIL and BIL. I don’t want to run away from this. For BabyH’s sake… for SIL and my relationship’s sake… for MY sake… I need to face this head on.

::

A lot of the reason I’m feeling okay about all of this is that, well, okay, first of all I’ve been VERY good about taking my medication this week. Knowing this all was coming I was staying on top of it to not give anything a chance to fall apart on me. But more than that… I’m feeling positive. I’ve been doing a lot of daydreaming imagining my next time. And I’ve been thinking a lot about Devin and what more I want to do to honor his memory (I have a list).

I realized today that a lot of the opinions I held, the plans I had, have changed since Devin… especially about labor and delivery and my hospital stay.

I think one of my biggest regrets during my hospital stay was not keeping people informed. I actually feel bad that I didn’t update anyone after he was born… not even a text message to Kel. I had let them all know that he had died, that I was being induced and then nothing until I got home the next day and got online. And sometimes I sit and think about how horrible that must have been for people… I didn’t realize how deeply everyone ELSE was mourning. When I finally did call my mom the next day she was hysterical with worry and grief. My MIL showed up on our doorstep, also freaking out. And I didn’t realize… I just never understood how deeply everyone would care. And how could I? I have never, ever experienced that kind of grief before… not from their perspective. And I was lost in my own. And it wasn’t until I got home, until my MIL rushed in the door and hugged me and cried with me and listened to me that I realized how much it helped me.

But now I know. After seeing the outpouring of grief and love and support from everyone in our entire circle of family and friends… I feel so much more connected to them all. Last time, when planning my ideal labor and delivery and post-partum stay I didn’t really want anyone “intruding” on our time. Now that sounds kind of selfish. Next time, when everything goes right, I want to share our joy and excitement with all those people who stood by us in our darkest hour. I want the family to crowd in our hospital room after the baby arrives, to hold him/her, to celebrate with us. And now that I know what to expect during labor I don’t even think that having people there when I’m in labor is a horrible idea. Not that I want Uncle Jo watching me give birth, but my SIL, my MIL, both of whom I love dearly? I would love to share that moment with them. (I’d include Kel and my mom in that list, but they both live so far away they would simply be unable to make it for an unplanned labor!)

And if, light forbid, something does go horribly wrong again, I would want to share that too. No matter what happens I WILL keep in touch better during my labor. Good or bad. I will let people in.

::

Speaking of Kel… she has been my lifeline through so much of this. The week after we lost Devin she was right there on email, every day, letting me talk through everything, letting me share all the memories and emotions I had. I did worry, though, that when her baby came she would be busy. I would have totally understood, of course, but I just figured that the time was drawing short when I was able to just talk with her back and forth all day. And she is busy, don’t get me wrong. There are times when she’s not around. But here we are today, emailing back and forth, keeping me sane. She has had her own struggles these last couple months with Daniel and his unexpected health issues, and I have been there for her in the same way – and I know she feels grateful for that as I do for her. There is not enough to say for a relationship like ours. I am so grateful it overwhelms me.

I feel like I have two sisters now – not sisters by blood, but sisters in heart. Kel, and my SIL.

BabyH is here! (And no, I will not be posting her name, nor any pictures… sorry all, but it’s not my baby to share.) She was born at 12:29am on June 4 via c-section. She is healthy, SIL is healthy, so all is well.

But boy do I have a lot of shit going on in my head right now. I debated posting this or not… but I decided I am dedicated to preserving in this blog what it was really like on this journey.

I thought for sure she was coming on Tuesday. I really really wanted her to come on Tuesday. Why? Because when I got the message that SIL’s water had broken I realized that the date was 6/3… Devin was born on 3/6. I felt that meant something good. But she missed the date by 29 minutes. And I know it shouldn’t matter what the hell date she came on, but in my head it matters. I’m upset over this. I’ll need some time to adjust.

Secondly I’m really sad that SIL had the c-section that she wanted so badly to avoid. When I got the message that she was being induced – hours after her water had broken – I was a little worried for SIL. Not a good start to the labor. And when midnight passed with no word I started suspecting a c-section was on its way. And sure enough.

There’s more reason that I’m upset by the c-section than just being sad for SIL, though. She didn’t have a vaginal birth, like I did. I guess in my mind that would have been one more thing we had in common to talk about, to share. Since the obvious is missing – raising a child, having a live baby – I feel like every little bit counts.

It doesn’t help that by the time the text message came I was wound as tight as a spring and was literally feeling sick at the tension. Now it’s all hitting me. Picturing them proudly rejoicing in their healthy baby, in their new parenthood… remembering how my birth had such a different, grief-stricken end… just makes me weep.

My instinct is either to run far away or run straight into the thick of it. Since running away simply isn’t an option, I need to jump into it. I need to see her as soon as possible – preferably before I start really driving myself insane. I need to meet her, to take photos of her so I can sit at home with them and let it all sink in. My imagination is a far worse threat than reality.

Next to losing Devin this may well be the hardest thing I’ve ever faced. Light grant me strength. I feel so lost.

I don’t even know how to describe my emotions over the last few days. It feels like I’m on a roller coaster, never knowing when the next drop is. My stomach falls out from under me frequently, just like on a coaster. I feel sick… excited… sad… hopeful… everything at once.

Yesterday I had a complete meltdown. Den was unable to go to the hospital with me so I wasn’t planning on going… but instead I spent my time obsessing, my imagination running wild. I pictured the happy family, everyone crowded around in celebration, and I could barely breathe. I started getting panicky, upset, nauseated… literally nauseated. I wanted to go so bad, but I didn’t want to go without Den. Finally Kel sent me an email and told me to JUST GO. So I did.

I was shaking on the drive up. I felt glad that I was going, but I was so so nervous. What if there were a lot of people there? What if they didn’t want to see me? What if, what if. I swallowed it down, took a deep breath, and walked into the hospital. My voice was quiet when I asked for what room she was in. I found my way to the room and there was a “Do Not Disturb” sign on the door. I asked the nurse about it, and she buzzed into the room and asked if it was okay that I go in.

I walked in to a dimly lit room, TV on, my SIL laying in bed. No one else was there, not even the baby. I gave her a hug and then I sat and we talked for a little while. She was tired, in pain from her surgery. She told me about how her labor went… I listened and added little remembrances of my labor. I’m really glad we got to sit and talk.

I gave her a gift: I had been shopping earlier in the day, trying to find the perfect thing. I found this and added my own poem to it.

H,
I’m sorry I’m not here to meet you today,
and that next year I won’t be here to play
But I’ve got an important job to do
Forever I’ll be watching over you
~ Devin

Tears welled up in her eyes, and mine too. We cried a little for him.

I didn’t stay too long, she looked so tired. I had just wanted to go, talk to her, connect with her. I just had to go see for myself so that my imagination would stop taking off with me.

Oh the way out I stopped at the nursery windows. A nurse was holding BabyH and brought her up to the window for me to see. She looked precious… and I think a little annoyed with being outside the womb, heh. I waved to her and left.

I felt so relieved going home… relieved that I had survived it, relieved that SIL and I had talked. (I had had a nightmare the night before that SIL hated me… it was one of the contributing factors to the really horrible day.) I was really glad it happened how it did… no other visitors, just SIL and me one-on-one. A quiet way to reconnect. It did me a world of good.

I remained feeling okay the rest of the day, but when night time rolled around and it was time for bed I ended up spending some time curled up on the couch sobbing. Missing my little boy so much I just wished for the earth to swallow me so I never had to feel again.

This morning Den and I went to the hospital to visit and see the baby. SIL looked far better after a night of rest. Baby was nursing when we arrived, so Den stayed out in the hallway for a while – I think in some ways he appreciated the delay, the time to prepare. I went in and just sat quietly, watching with a sense of wonder and longing. My breasts were made to do that… were ready to do that. SIL looked so relaxed and comfortable with it. I am proud of her.

I get a very different vibe from BIL since we lost Devin. I was always intimidated by him for one reason or another. It’s not that he was in any way rude or mean, but I always felt afraid of screwing up in front of him, like I didn’t know what I was doing. I was young, inexperienced. Now he looks at me differently…. with empathy. Now when we talk, I feel like there’s a real connection there.

I got to hold BabyH for a while. It felt so right, like I’ve always known what to do. One day, that will be my child in my arms… and I will be a good mama. I will be a GREAT mama.

On the way home from the hospital Den and I stopped for lunch and had a good talk about Devin and babies and how hard all this is. It was a really good thing to connect, I think we needed it. Throughout our infertility struggle I had brief periods of hope interspersed among an overwhelming sense of pessimism. Den was the one who always stayed positive, always told me to keep my chin up. Well, now it’s reversed. Now I’ve been through pregnancy, I’ve been through a good labor. I’ve seen what’s possible, that it IS possible, and I am hopeful. Den, however… he feels like the one time we were given hope it was snatched away from us. He hurts just as much as I do, but his response is to run away from it, to protect himself from more hurt. And I’m not saying that’s wrong – not at all. He’s trying to protect his heart, and I understand that… we just have different ways of handling this grief that’s getting stirred up by BabyH. And that’s making it hard in a way…. with us both needing opposite things, and both hurting so bad right now, it’s a bit of a strain. There’s been a little distance. We’ve been unable to really lean on each other. So at lunch when we just sat and talked and aknowledged it all… well, it doesn’t help how we feel, but we understand each other.

We both had to go to work, but I got home earlier. I downloaded the photos from my camera, editted them, and wrote a little bit. Then I got really sleepy and ended up taking a long nap. Den later asked if I was feeling sad and was that why I napped? I realized that… no… the opposite. I felt pretty peaceful, and for the first time in 48 hours could actually sleep without the feeling of a ten-ton weight sitting on my chest. I figured I had better take advantage of it before my mood took a nosedive.

The rest of the evening after my nap has indeed been not as good as my afternoon. I feel so… empty. One of my biggest fears isn’t that I’ll never get pregnant – it’s been proven that I can get pregnant, and get through pregnancy, and even have a positive labor – but I worry that even getting pregnant won’t help me feel any better. That having another child won’t do a thing for me, that I won’t bond to it, that I’ll spend my entire life crying over Devin. But despite that fear, I still cling to that hope…. the hope that we will have something good in our lives again, that we will have our day to look forward to. A chance at the right ending.

So I did it, I handled it. I survived. Now I deal with the aftershocks and try to find my feet again. I feel like I’ve lost myself all over again.

3 months tomorrow. Feels like a lifetime ago… and yet I can’t believe it’s been so long. 3 months feels like a blur of grief and healing.

I do not feel strong today. I feel weak. Lost. Hopeless.

I keep thinking about getting pregnant again, but even that thought isn’t upholding me today. So what if I get pregnant again. It’s not going to be Devin. Even if I do have another baby to love and hold, it’s never going to erase this hurt. I’m never going to feel better about this. I’m never going to feel complete.

And I’m overwhelmed. The thought of living the rest of my life hurting, missing Devin, is too much. I don’t want to. I don’t care what the rest of my life holds. He’s not here. I feel completely empty except for the pain.

I feel myself going into survival mode. Turning off my brain, my heart. Going back to putting one foot in front of the other. Not caring about anything, unable to see beyond myself. Everything is dark, everything is grey. There is no joy, there is no hope. Just pain.

I started crying at work today. Luckily my coworkers understand. A. sat and listened to me, talked with me as I cried. Her eyes welled up too. I said, “It’s been 3 months today.” She said, “I know.”

I have mentioned how sad I am that I do not have more pictures of my son, and that what few I do have are relatiely poor quality, taken with a simple point-and-shoot camera. I did not have my camera, or anything of mine, with me at the hospital, even if I were of any kind of sound mind to attempt to take pictures.

But I have this one photo. And recently I have marvelled at this one photo, how perfect it is that it has his little hands folded in front of his face. I do not know if that was intentional on the part of the nurse who took them, as I had mentioned several times how much I loved his hands. But either way, it is just right.

I do not have many photos, but I have one I really love.

::

I realized I do need to put some temporary distance between me, my SIL, and BabyH. As much as I do love my neice, right now I just can’t handle it all. I could handle the pregnancy and the labor, as I had been there before. But I cannot handle the homecoming. I cannot handle the happy new family. I cannot handle the stark reminder of what we were cheated. In a few months it will start to get easier, because they will start to move into a new normalcy of life. But in my head Devin is still a newborn, one I never got to bring home. Those thoughts are the most painful to me.

::

Sometimes I actually think back to those first few weeks with a bit of longing. We both felt so lost in grief, but Den took the time off work and we spent the time cleaning the house, watching movies. Now we need to go to work. He goes to baseball practice, I go to meetings. Life marches on, and I long for that time where we could just watch movies for a week, doing nothing but holding each others hand.

::

Relief. That’s what I feel when I read this entry on Glow In The Woods. Just the thought that maybe, someday, this hole in my heart will be more of a shadow than a gaping wound… that gives me hope more than anything else. I can go through hell if I know it’s temporary, if I know I’m going to heal and feel real joy again. I just know that I can’t go on feeling like this forever. I would crack under the weight.

Need I say more?

ETA: Actually, the right side makes perfect sense. The left side requires some explanation:

I still have a feeling that I will be pregnant soon. Whether or not that’s intution or pure, desperate hope, I don’t know. But I decided that this next baby will be called Unicorn (until such time as we can actually attach a name to it), how Devin was called Sheepie. Why Unicorn? Because it’s mythical and unbelievable, and the logical, sane, adult side of you totally doesn’t believe in it anymore… but you just want to hold out hope that it really exists. There’s that small bit of innocence left in you that keeps that hope tucked down inside.

There’s that part of me that still believes in unicorns, in pregnancies without interventions and deliveries of healthy babies. The unicorn is my new symbol of hope. I believe.

Slowly I’ve been working on Devin’s memorial site. This blog still has all the nitty-gritty details and all the blog posts, but when I got pregnant I created a site just for my mom to read. I posted some things over there, the photos and little updates. After he died I started turning it into a memorial site… a collection of everything. Mom passed it to my MIL who passed it on…. so by this point I think the entire family, on both sites, knows about it. It’s a nice way to keep in touch with family, though I really don’t know who’s read it and who will come back.

Today I finally uploaded the new design I’ve been working on. I also added a new post – which is probably just a repeat of the things I keep writing here, but it’s nice to keep family updated. I also added a guestbook over there.

I’m pretty proud of it. It’s getting close to the point where I feel like showing it off to everyone.

My brain seems to be in hibernation, so I’m going to be doing some Show and Tell.

This is my cat collection. It would seem like a whole bunch of stuffed animals would not have been among the items I stuffed into my two large suitcases and a couple of spare boxes as I prepared to move to a different country, but that’s precisely what I did.

It started when I was 12. Shortly before my birthday I came across a stuffed leopard in a store (in the picture he is the tallest one in the back). I wanted it, and I pointed it out. I did not get it that day. But I was awoken on my birthday by my younger brother dropping a squishy wrapped present on my head. It wasn’t even in a box, just wrapping paper in a stuffed-animal shape. It was, of course, the leopard I wanted so badly.

I named him King Leopie (pronounced “LEP-ee”), and he was not quickly forgotten like most toys children get on their birthdays. I slept with him tucked under my arm every night from that day forward for many years.

Over the years I collected more cats, among them a white leopard I named Queen Amarylla (to the left of King Leopie in the photo). By that point poor King Leopie was looking pretty roughed up, so I switched to sleeping with her. Later I added a white tiger, whom I named Raja (to the right of King Leopie). Now I had realized that Queen Amarylla was looking dingy too, and I didn’t want to do that to poor Raja, so he’s only been squashed at night a couple of times. Many of the cats have stories: the cat with wings is from DCon; the orange tiger used to be my brother’s (but he gave it to me, because I liked cats far more than he did). Many of them I have long since forgotten how they came to be in my possession. Whenever I see a cat in a store I have to decide if it’s special enough to add to my collection. I’ve learned to be more discerning.

I no longer sleep with a stuffed animal clutched tight to me, though it was very hard to break myself of the habit. It still feels like I need something in the crook of my arm – there seems to be a space there just begging for something soft and comforting.

King Leopie will always be the most important of the group, though no one would probably guess from looking at him. Or maybe they would – he has that worn look of something well-loved. Such a small gift, an odd gift for a 12 year old… and yet here I am, 13 years later. He’s been with me for over half my life.

::

Next week I’ll tell you the story of the sheep. Promise.