13 Weeks...

I know I write this all the time, but there are so, so many things always going through my head. Most days, I have about 5 or 6 different blogposts that I just can't choke out because I cry too much. So, they just swirl around in my head like little snowballs down a hill--building and building until they are just too big for me to do anything with save purposely will myself to STOP THINKING...just black out my mind.

That's not, nor has it ever been, something easy for me to do.

So...I ramble.

I just don't know where 13 weeks has gone, but still...I still have the silverware we used for Christmas dinner on the dining room table. I still haven't taken the tablecloths off, or really gone into the dining room much at all. It's sort of frozen to me--really just the tangible proof that I lived through days I don't remember much of and don't have the energy to clean up. It seems that long ago, and yet that yesterday. I got around to the much-needed chore of going through my bedroom/closet to weed through clothes and just couldn't get far. I don't feel like trying everything on to see if it fits or not any more (and odds are it doesn't), hence making it harder to get rid of it. My closet and several drawers still have my maternity clothes--and though I have put much in a container, the container still sits in my room. I don't even know what to do with them--put them up so they don't taunt me or keep them out because I hope and pray to be using them again in the next few weeks and months. Be glad that if I get pregnant this month or next I wouldn't have to buy much in the way of maternity because I have all my stuff from this*very*same*time*of*year* last year, or dread the thought of wearing the same things because I'll remember the kicks and hiccups and wiggles my little monkey made as I wore them? People try to rationalize this for me by telling me that I would have used the maternity clothes again and would have given his hand-me-downs to his little brother (if we had another boy) had he lived. Emphasis on the HAD~HE~LIVED part. He didn't. And so yes, most moms I am sure would not blink an eye at reusing maternity clothes or even *hoping* for another little boy so those clothes could be used again, but for me--the sorrow of them not even being used in the first place puts a whole new spin on it. Seriously, I have had people tell me that they hope I get pregnant and have a boy because then that boy will be all set. Like I should be GLAD that I have an entire, fully stocked nursery just waiting for some baby boy, any baby boy, to use it.

You just can't understand unless you're here, and I get that. I just wish more people who haven't been here realized they've never been here and didn't feel the need to tell me how I should/could/would act. Losing your grandma, best friend, mom, dad, sister, brother, husband, wife....it's not the same. I realize it is mostly well-intentioned, but it really just isolates me even more and makes me question why I purposely even try to re-enter the 'normal' world in the first place.

I do go into his nursery now and then. I look, I cry, I leave. His diaper bag still sits at the door, packed with all the sweet little things I planned to hug and hold him in. Most days, the tears cloud anything I see in his room, much like they cloud the words I now type. My heart still just weeps. It seems like I may not have as many days where my heart sobs; now it just constantly weeps, softly but surely, even as I go out day to day and put on my happy face.

That's why I hate the term 'grieving process'. I think to put a name for a 'process' you are supposed to go through when your world crashes is just psycho-babble. Process means there's a beginning and an end...baby dies, you go through all the 'steps' and then you've worked through the process and you're back to yourself.

Seriously? There is NO back to yourself. How in the world do I go back to the time before my sweet boy was born and died? How do I go back to the woman I was when I was a mother waiting for her answered prayer to be born?

I don't. And so, the grieving process is simply what the rest of my life is. The 'process' is simply how I deal with missing Matthew each and every day. I can imagine there will be a day that I don't even think of Matthew for but a few minutes...and maybe not even those will happen until the end of the night, as I lay my head down and close my eyes...but that will be a day where my sorrow was just a little less. The very next day might bring an entire 24 hours of heartache.

THAT'S grieving. You may be able to categorize different days and times of your life as ones that fit a mold of anger or denial or bargaining or depression or what-have you, but honestly, I feel like I may live every day of my life in acceptance (I mean really, what choice is there? Matthew's dead. He's gone. Death is final on this earth.) while still mourning him in some way. Whether it takes 15 seconds of my day or the entire day, I can be 109 and I will still mourn him every single day. I think that one of the (many) nicest things Dr. Polko told me at my post-partum check-up was this: "You are strong. There's a difference between acting in sad and depressed ways and being depressed. You lost your son. You will be sad a long, long time." She gets it.

It is now 4:56. 13 weeks ago this very minute my precious little boy was born. My heart is heavy.

And yet...I have quite the week coming up. I went for my ultrasound and bloodwork for our transfer on Thursday and my nurse said all was 'perfect'. My uterine lining is 11.3 mm (they'd like 8 or higher) and my estrogen was 945. Tonight I add progesterone in oil to my menu of hormones added (as if I needed more!) to my system. All in preparation for our little Yellow Fish to make him or herself home for a while. Matthew and his little brother or sister embryo were Red Fish (I think Matthew was Red) and Blue Fish and Cindy said that the one little embryo we had left had to be Sam-I-Am.

Well, we have since added a new dog to the family--a 'foster' we took in for the rescue and with whom John fell in love. How do you tell a man who just lost his son, "No," when he says, "He makes me smile?" You don't. So, Sam Ennis entered the picture. His tag even says (at John's insistence) Sam-I-Am, so I can't likely have two of them. Amber aptly suggested Yellow Fish.

How very, very sad is it that I am hesitant to use the boy or girl name we will give to Matthew's brother or sister because I know that even when your pregnancy brings you to the point you are OVERDUE, that doesn't mean you are bringing your baby home?

I don't know when we'll feel comfortable using a name.