I have no interest in Christmas. It is not too surprizing, given the situation this year, but it feels very strange to me. I love Christmas. I forced my husband into setting up a tree every year, decorating, playing Christmas music for weeks.<\/p>\n
I’m not feeling anti-Christmas. Sights and sounds and thoughts do not cause a negative reaction. I simply have no<\/i> reaction. Just silence where there once was joy. “Oh… that. Right, I forgot.” I have not started shopping, I have not started list-making, I have not started… well, anything. When Den mentioned the money we’ll need to buy gifts for everyone, as usual, my response was along the lines of, “Oh. Do we need to do that this year?” I just don’t care. I’d be totally okay with skipping a year.<\/p>\n
I really don’t know how I’m going to react to the holidays at this point. I have forewarned my husband that I may<\/i> want to leave early or not even attend. I think I’ll be fine, but there really are no promises… just look how I reacted to my neice’s baptism, and I totally didn’t expect that. I’m keeping my options (and doors) open.<\/p>\n
::<\/p>\n
The big deal with this kind of grief is how suddenly it hits you, how your entire life gets turned upside down, all your plans destroyed, all your promises broken. No wonder it takes a long time to grieve, to come to some kind of acceptance that this is how things are.<\/p>\n
I think it’s getting a little easier for me the last couple weeks. Slowly this is becoming my real life, slowly I’ve stopped thinking so much about what I should be doing, what I should be living. Devin is my angel baby, my stillborn son. At first that thought cut like knives through my heart. The thought turned over in my head like curdled milk – knowing it was real but desperately denying it. I spent 8 months thinking of Devin as my son that I would get to raise, picturing how I would take him home, how we would get through the sleepless nights, how I would wear him in a sling and get him to laugh and capture his smiles on camera. Then in one moment that all got taken away. Not just the him who was inside me, but the him who was in our future. It leaves a gaping hole, a huge dissonance.<\/p>\n
In time that pothole fills with other things, though. It’s still a hole, but it’s filled with sand instead of left gaping. It comes a lot easier to my mind now, thinking about Devin as he is now and forever will be. He has a tree we planted, a grave, a box of memory items. Now when we talk about Devin in our future we talk about taking photos with the tree, of keeping sheep stuffies in our house, of bringing our children to visit the grave. In time there is acceptance, instead of screaming rejection. It is not a happy acceptance, but it does bring some sort of peace.<\/p>\n
More and more now I am able to look forward to our new future. Another child. With IVF in motion it becomes much more likely that I will be pregnant in the next 4 months. Suddenly that doesn’t seem so far away. Once in a while I find myself clicking on something baby-related – not because of Devin, but because I’m thinking about next time. I am hopeful.<\/p>\n
I do not think I will be completely paranoid and unable to enjoy myself next pregnancy. I just can’t see it of myself, not after everything I’ve struggled through and everything I know about myself. It will never be the same as last time, no. But I still see much joy.<\/p>\n
I will get my chance to bring home a baby from the hospital. I will not stop until I do.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I have no interest in Christmas. It is not too surprizing, given the situation this year, but it feels very strange to me. I love Christmas. I forced my husband into setting up a tree every year, decorating, playing Christmas music for weeks. I’m not feeling anti-Christmas. Sights and sounds and thoughts do not cause […]<\/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":[76,69,74],"class_list":["post-1359","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-ivf-3","tag-loss","tag-ttc2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/lunardreams.net\/baby\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1359","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=1359"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/lunardreams.net\/baby\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1359\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/lunardreams.net\/baby\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1359"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lunardreams.net\/baby\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1359"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lunardreams.net\/baby\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1359"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}