![\"\"](\"http:\/\/img.photobucket.com\/albums\/v240\/lunarmagic\/Babies\/DSC_8721.jpg\")
<\/p>\nI 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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
H,
\nI’m sorry I’m not here to meet you today,
\nand that next year I won’t be here to play
\nBut I’ve got an important job to do
\nForever I’ll be watching over you
\n~ Devin<\/i><\/p>\n
Tears welled up in her eyes, and mine too. We cried a little for him.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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<\/i> 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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":71,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[76,69],"class_list":["post-1157","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-ivf-3","tag-loss"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/lunardreams.net\/baby\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1157","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/lunardreams.net\/baby\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/lunardreams.net\/baby\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lunardreams.net\/baby\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/71"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lunardreams.net\/baby\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1157"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/lunardreams.net\/baby\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1157\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/lunardreams.net\/baby\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1157"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lunardreams.net\/baby\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1157"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lunardreams.net\/baby\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1157"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}