Everyone But Me

There seems to be a baby boom in the babylost community as of late. There is nothing more joyful to me than seeing the announcement that another member of our elite club is expecting again. To me it signifies hope. The return of joy and promise. I hold my breath waiting to hear that everything is going to work out for those mamas and their pregnancies, often weeping tears of joy when the babies arrive safe and happy into arms that have ached to hold a child for oh so long. However I must say that lately those announcements of joy have brought a tinge of angst and sadness with them. It feels like everyone is getting pregnant and experiencing that joy and hope and promise for tomorrow except me. I was a fool to tie my tubes knowing full well my son's health was in question. I was a fool to have faith that the doctors could fix his broken heart and that we would live happily ever after, a family of five. I'm desperately wishing for another child. Each and everyday Georgia and Lorelei grow more independent, less reliant on me. Georgia is almost not a baby anymore, her sturdy legs carrying her as fast as she can away from me at times. It stings. I want another child but am so unsure of how to proceed or whether I should even bother.

Reading Birni's latest post at All the Little Ponies brought up alot of old feelings for me. It reminded me of my own heartache and disappointment as Shane and I first tried to conceive a child and I repeatedly miscarried. It reminded me of how my pregnancy with Lorelei was spent in total fear and anxiety that I would get to the end with no live baby and how that fear almost became a reality when I suffered a partial placental abruption and needed an emergency c-section to get her out alive. It reminded me of the shock and extreme loss I felt losing a baby girl to Turner Syndrome after Lorelei and before I became pregnant with Calvin and Georgia. The fear so strong you can taste it's bitterness in your mouth and you wonder whether you are the only person on earth afraid to move, cough, sneeze while pregnant lest you start bleeding again. I remember feeling a huge sense of failure at learning that Calvin would be born with a severe heart defect and that he might also be mentally impaired when they suspected he had DiGeorge Syndrome. Why can't I make babies properly? Feelings like this were what drove me to tie my tubes on the delivery table after the births of our twins, the fear of failure, of having two pregnancies back to back with genetic problems. Fear that I was too old to produce another child without problems and yet here I am today yearning beyond belief for another child. I want another baby. It's all I can think about lately and I wonder if I'm being unrealistic and ungrateful for not being satisified with the two beautiful girls I do have. I remember telling someone that I didn't feel "done" having kids when I had my tubes tied, that there was no feeling that "this is it, I don't want anymore". It was all about the fear and not knowing if I could cope with another loss. So why, why oh why am I wanting another child so badly after all I've been through? Why does each and every announcement of a new pregnancy bring that twinge of sadness that it's not happening to me and what the hell am I gonna do to deal with this? Is there anyone else out there that has decided not to have any more children after their loss? Is there anyone else who regrets their decision to sterilize themselves out of fear? How do I cope with the possibility that maybe I will never have another child of my own? I'm feeling sad and desperately alone in this right now and I don't know how to find the answers I'm seeking....

Today I Wept

It's been so long since I've blogged that when I sat down and actually thought about it this morning I realized it was because I've been living again, enjoying my summer and seeing friends and loved ones more frequently. It's been a nice feeling and one that I've learned to enjoy and accept for what it is with little guilt or regret. I've been to visit Calvin more often in the past few months than ever before and the quiet time I share with my son at his grave has become important in my healing. I miss him alot. And while I think of Calvin everyday, often several times over the course of my day, it's not often that I speak of him anymore. Not in any depth anyways until today. As I was chatting with a friend on the phone today, the subject of God was raised, my friend professing to not believe. Having struggled with my own personal beliefs in God since losing Calvin, I posed the question "So where do you think we go when we die?"

Asking this question brought me back to my own desperate wish to believe in God and His Kingdom following Calvin's death. As I walked backwards down the road of my childhood and the values I was raised with I realized that as a child I had never questioned God's existence, it was something I accepted as part of my life. It wasn't until I started losing people I loved that I began to question first God's goodness, second His existence. As I started to explain to my friend that as a mother who has lost her child, my desperate wish to believe in Heaven simply so that I may one day see my beautiful boy again, the tears began to fall. The next thing I knew, I was sobbing. Because I do want to believe. Because I do miss Calvin more than I realize at times and that there are so few people that I truly speak indepth with about him. Because it had been so long since the last time I cried that the floodgates were opened and all the hurt and doubt and fear came pouring out into that sympathetic ear. After explaining my want to believe and the struggle I've had with my faith, I asked another question...."Where do you go when you truly need comfort?" My answer to that question was to God. To church. To a place where I can lay my deepest sorrows in the Hands of the Creator and trust that in time things will work themselves out. I recalled days of being overcome with sorrow where I would find myself in a pew at the church praying, asking God to please, please just make things better for me and I realized that while God has never made any direct promises to me, that in whatever situation I had found myself in seeking God's guidance, that things eventually always got better. Things HAVE been better in my life, better than they have been in almost two years yet the pain is still there just under the surface waiting to be reawakened again. Surprising but not. Given a mother's love for her child and it's infinite boundaries, I expect the pain to be as just as limitless. Perhaps all I needed to feel that rush of pain, that rush of sweet sorrow and longing for my son was to open my heart back up to believing. Perhaps the comfort I seek in God is disguised in pain, having to feel it, eat it, sleep it, breathe it before healing can begin. Perhaps this is yet another message reconnecting me to the sorrow, reaffirming my need for spiritual direction and guidance. Maybe this was God's Hand gently guiding me back....today I wept for my son and oddly it felt good.