Dark Spaces

I have been struggling with flashbacks.  Some would say that I am suffering from PTSD.  This may be the case.  I really don't care what it's called... it what is happening.  And it sucks.  These flashes take me to the darkest places of my life.  Some of them I don't even remember until that moment.  Others I replay over and over like a movie reel of my worst nightmare.  It sneaks up on me.  Sometimes I am singing along to Taylor Swift in the car.   Then I am at the cemetery watching two men put my son into the ground.  I am walking into the chapel and seeing a casket far tinier than it was in my imagination.  I am in the NICU and my son is hooked up to 7 thousand wires to try and find out why he is having seizures.  I am in a private room because I was swearing in the hallway of the hospital and disturbing the other parents, because they just told me we were out of options.  I am tuning out the doctor who is trying to talk to me while I'm holding my son for the first and last time.  I am in the hospital at the end of April listening to a doctor tell me that if I deliver my sweet precious boy that day... he has a 0% chance of surviving.  I am seeing the doctor check his pulse and telling us he is gone.  I am picking out a burial plot, trying to decide where Owen might like best.  I am talking to Owen in my belly on bed rest.  Telling him how many more days he has to stay in there to give him the best shot we had.  I am sitting at the hospital on delivery day, and the anesthesiologist is telling me that if he dies right away, they won't be able to bring me out of it to say goodbye. 

I am trying so hard to get some control in my life... and it feels like the powers that be don't care how hard I am trying.  Life just keeps getting more difficult and no one sees that I can't take one more thing or I am going to drown.  I am trying everyday to be positive and be hopeful.  And I am constantly sucked back to those days, to the most horrible moments of my existence... which unfortunately are intermingled with the absolute best moments of my existence.  I don't know how to reconcile this. I don't know how to live with it yet.  I don't know how to separate the light spaces from the dark spaces.

Sweet baby,

I miss you so much. I cry and I cry and I just wish I could hold you again. I would give anything for us to be together. I want to know where you are and what you look like now and what you're doing and what your laugh sounds like. Will I ever get these things? It just feels like my heart is so full of love and it hurts because I can't give it to you. It just sits there and I want you to know how much you are loved and how badly I wanted you. You were supposed to get to grow up and go fishing with your dad and I was going to make you waffles on sundays. I could imagine you and I having conversations in the morning before your dad got up and I was so excited to get to know you and your sense of humor. I don't know why we didn't get to have that. I don't know why you had to leave. 8 months ago today, you were still alive and I could touch you and smell you and talk to you. And now you're gone. The finality of it all takes my breath away. I guess there's nothing new to say, I love you, I miss you always. Sunday is your 8 month angelversary... I will eat waffles and I will hope you're with me.

Love,
Your Mom

Medium

So on Friday night, I went to see a medium.  It was a group of about 12 people, so it wasn't a private session or anything.  I know many may have thoughts or judgments about me believing in mediums, psychics, what-have-you, but I believed in all of it long before I lost Owen (i.e. those people should keep their comments to themselves).  I was very anxious for this session because I so wanted it to leave me feeling a bit lighter.  I was also prepared for the fact that it may not do anything for me. 

I am glad to say that it was a very positive experience.  Again, there were about 12 people in the group, so I got about 10-15 minutes of reading just for me, but I just feel better.  I would absolutely do it again in a private session.  I am not going to go into detail about what was said to me, but everything was full of hope and beauty and love.  I feel more hopeful today than I have felt in a year.  We found out in January of last year that something was wrong... and I have been living in my own personal hell since that day.  My son brought so much into my life, and when he left, my heart went with him to Heaven.  Last night was the first time since he died that I felt like I was a mother, and that someone else could see that I was a mother.  She could see my love for him and his love for me. 

Today has been the best day for my husband and I in a long time. He did not go with me last night, but I know he can feel my new sense of hope.  I feel like some of the weight of my constant grief has been lifted. It is still there, and this experience of course does not make me miss Owen less, or make my anger go away, but I feel like it's less heavy.  I can breathe without feeling like there is a boulder sitting on my chest. 

Many tears were cried last night... and even as I write this... but I feel for the first time like the tears are not only for my despair, but for my love too.  

I hope that this feeling lasts, but I'll take what I can get for now. 

Trying

I have taken a bit of a hiatus from the blog since New Years. I wish I could write that I had some philosophical purpose for this... like I was using this time for reflection or to start the New Year off the right way, but I can say no such thing. I just....I just felt like writing wasn't bringing Owen back to me, so why bother. I have felt more alone lately than I have ever in my life. I have tried to put things in place so that we can "move on" (I'm not really sure what that even means), but it's not making me feel any better inside.

We have been trying to get pregnant. I haven't told many people this... mostly because I don't want people to ask me if I'm pregnant (so if you know me in real life... please don't ask me how it's going). I struggled with infertility for 3 years before I got Owen. I do not, under any circumstances, believe that it will be any easier this time around. One would think that if the universe was fair... it would just be easier this time. It's not. Failed cycle after failed cycle. It hurts every single time. Sometimes I feel like maybe I am an insane person... I keep expecting different results from my same stupid body, even though it has given me no reason to believe it will do what I want.

A small part of me feels like I am being punished for wanting another baby. This is very upsetting to me, and I'm not going to write any more about it.

We have also been proceeding with trying to adopt a baby. I try so hard to feel excited... and feel like I can hope for having a family. I am so afraid that no one is going to choose me to be their child's mother. I couldn't keep Owen... I am afraid that they are going to look at the adoption book that I worked so hard on, and think that I'm too damaged to be a good mother.

Part of me wishes that I could just reach into my brain and turn off the part that so desperately needs to be a mother. That I could just take even the smallest break from feeling broken. I feel like I am just sinking deeper and deeper into a depression and I don't see a way out. I feel like... I do ok on a day to day basis... I can function... I can laugh... I can "move on" with my life. But I have lost my hope. I don't want that to be the case. I try SO HARD every day to be hopeful. To find small things to be happy about. To be grateful that I had 6 days with my boy. It's not enough. I keep thinking that I can fake it until I make it. People tell me that it will get easier. I have to believe them, because it can't stay this hard forever. It just can't. So for now... I am going to keep trying. I guess that's as good of a place as I can hope to be in right now. I haven't given up on trying.

If you read this blog, and you pray, or think positive thoughts, or howl at the moon even... could you just do it for my family? We could really use some good news and some hope.

This Day, This Year

This has been an absolute roller coaster day. I almost went back to bed after the first hour of my morning... 1. It has been 7 months today that Owen is gone. It seems like sometimes I am right back there in the NICU and there's no way it could have been that long. This should have been his first Christmas, and it wasn't. It was our first Christmas as the new people we are now, and it was not anything that it should have been. 2. We applied for a home equity line of credit to do some upgrading to our house, and I found out this morning it was denied for a really lame reason. We can still do some of the upgrades, it just means taking money out of savings and that's just not something I like to do. 3. I got a reply email from our social worker yesterday saying we would probably not hear anything back on our adoption certification until sometime in January... that our file had been transferred to a different judge who only looks at adoptions once a week.

At this point I just wanted to stay in bed until January 1... 2010 had broken me.

Well, I met another BLM friend of mine for coffee (a 3 hour coffee) and felt much better after that. I went to the flooring store to order the stupid flooring anyway and the sales people were very nice. The day was going better than I anticipated.

At 5:03 pm, the social worker calls to let me know our approval came through today. Today! It was as if 2010 felt some remorse for the way it had twisted my life and taken everything from me, and it wanted to give me this one thing back. I am glad. It makes me feel like ok... this is the new standard for 2011. I need joy in my life. I need to believe that I can have a family that gets to stay. I need to believe that I can be a mother with a child on Earth. I don't care how it happens. I don't care if we adopt or have another baby or if a stork drops a baby off on my doorstep. I need to believe it can happen.

I am not disillusion. I know that having a baby will not make me less sad. But I also know that it will make me more happy. This may sound insane, but for those who have been there, it does not. My heart is broken, but the pieces still have the possibility of falling in love with another child and feeling happy... even though it will never look the way it did before. My life can't look the way it did before. For that I am glad. I don't ever want to be 100% "better"... ever. I need to carry Owen with me, and that is as painful as it is necessary. I do look forward to a time when I have moments of happiness, not just "not awful"-ness.

I know this is a rambling post, but it just feels like a lot of things are tied together at the end of this year.

Lucas and I are ringing in the new year quietly, at home. I look forward to saying goodbye to 2010... the worst year of my life. But in some ways is was the best year of my life as well, and to say goodbye to that makes me feel very sad. I am leaving behind the year I got to see my son... to smell him, touch him, hold him, and look into his eyes. I got to hope for him and fight for him, and do the things a parents does for their child. It ended in the worst way possible, but I wouldn't give up those 6 days for anything on this earth. I don't want to keep moving farther away from the incredible time that I got to be hopeful. Time can heal, but time can hurt as well.

I wish everyone a 2011 filled with hope. I feel like I'm beginning to get some back.

Forgotten

I understand that Lucas & I are the only people in this world who remember that Owen should be here every second of every single day. I obviously don't expect anyone else to remember like we do or feel like we do. We are his parents.

Am I asking too much if I believe that at times, other members of my family, of Owen's family, should remember him as well? I am very hurt by the glossing over of his existence. I do not care if it makes others uncomfortable when I answer the question, "so, do you have kids?". I answer yes. Every time. I don't really care who they are. I don't care how they react, and I honestly don't care how they feel about it at all. I am not going to discount my son's life to make someone else comfortable. I just can't decide if I am expecting too much of others in thinking that they should do the same.

I am not saying they should shout from the rooftops what their relation to Owen is, and that he is gone. But there are certain circumstances where I believe that acknowledging his existence is appropriate, and the denial of which is unacceptable. Maybe I am being too harsh, but it physically pains me to see him written off as something "uncomfortable" to mention by his own family. I feel like if I don't stick up for him and demand that he be acknowledged, I am letting him down. And letting him down is something that I absolutely cannot do.

Any thoughts??

Oh...

I got a new student in my class this week. She comes from difficult circumstances, but is a very sweet little girl. She really likes me and talks to me often. This week I was giving her a language assessment to determine her proficiency in English, and she saw my cell phone with a picture of Owen as my wallpaper. She asked, "Is that your baby?". "Yes". "What is his name?" "Owen".... at this point I am doing ok. I have gotten to this point in a conversation with other children... and this is usually the time where they lose interest and move on. She asks "How old is he?"....

"Well..."

"I'm going to get him a Christmas present"

"Oh..."

I don't know why I couldn't just say that he was gone...I've said it so many times before. I just couldn't make the words come out and see the expression on this sweet little girl's face. It's just too much. Thankfully at this point another student walked up to ask me a question and we got back to testing after this. I am also extremely thankful that she did not bring me a present for Owen. I am grateful that children at that age forget easily. And I wish I lived in the alternate universe I imagine where I could have said "Oh, he's almost 7 months old!! He would love a present from you!!"

Missing him never stops. <3