Three AM Anxiety

It's three am. Three eighteen to be exact and I'm not sleeping. I went to bed tonight a little past midnight hoping to get a good night of sleep so that I'm not a grumpy bear in the morning. I have things to do. Nevertheless, here I am unable to sleep. This latest spell of warm weather has me befuddled as to what to do with Georgia's swaddle situation. Georgia has been swaddled since birth and she does not go to sleep well without being swaddled. In the last few weeks, she has also taken to wanting to sleep on her tummy which causes me enough anxiety as it is, add to that the fact that she is swaddled and either busts out of her burrito or ends up sleeping face down, arms pinned to her sides. I'm a wreck. I'm paranoid about her sleeping on her stomach. I'm paranoid she's too warm, I'm paranoid she's too cold. I'm paranoid I'm going to go to sleep and she's going to get tangled up in her busted-out-of swaddle and be unable to breathe. I'm finding it hard to relax enough to get to sleep. Sure enough, as I laid there tonight worrying, I felt the familiar start of gnawing in my stomach, the sure-fire sign that the last dose of Dilaudid I took has left my system and I'm starting to go through withdrawl. So, I got up and took another dose, hoping it would take the edge off my anxiety and allow me a few hours of sleep. Instead I lay there thinking about Georgia and what would happen to me if something happened to her. I love her more than anything. I love her with every cell in my body. I love her for the connection she had to Calvin, I love her for him and for all the love I am unable to give him now that he is gone. I love her because she is my last baby, I cherish every bit of babyness she has and now I am starting to worry something could happen to her. Some days I think oh, this is good, things are getting better, I'm really doing okay. Then there are nights like tonight where I think I'm going nuts. My daughter has slept in our room in her crib for going on seven months and now because it's hot and she's busting out of her swaddle and rolling over to sleep I worry I'm going to lose her to SIDS. I hate this. I hate my brain and the paranoid way I think sometimes. I hate that I went through this with Lorelei when she was a baby and it developed into OCD with me checking her fifteen to twenty times a night, often in my sleep. God, I hope tomorrow is better....

Seven Things...

It would seem that my fellow babylost mama and blogger Lea has nominated me for a Kreativ Blogger Award and because of her nomination I need to talk about seven things I love and tag seven people who's blogs I love to read....so here goes:

1. My husband Shane. He is the most wonderfully kind man I have ever known. He has loved me unconditionally through some extremely trying times and has never stopped being good to me. He shaves my legs, he carries all the heavy things, he puts out the garbage and does all the manly man things around the house. He is sensitive and funny and tender and sweet and he is the one and only man I have ever had in my life who I trust completely because he seldom lets me down. He has laughed with me over silly things and he has cried with me when our world fell apart and our son died. There is no one on earth I would rather spend my life with than him.

2. My children, Lorelei, Georgia, and Calvin. My clock started ticking in my late twenties. I never really had thought about having children until I was about twenty-seven or twenty-eight. I married when I was twenty-eight to my first husband and we were separated eighteen months later. When Shane and I met, my clock was in overdrive and I told him within the first four weeks that I wanted a long-term relationship and kids so if he wasn't in it for the long haul I needed to know right away. Lo and behold he stayed and our journey to create a family began. We struggled through multiple pregnancy losses and finally had our first daughter Lorelei in 2005. I had never known how powerful parental love could be until we had our first child and for the first time in my life, I felt that walk through fire kind of love, the love that means you would sacrifice anything and everything for your child. I loved Lorelei so intensely I feared having other children because I didn't think I could love another child the way I love her. I was so wrong. I fell in love with Calvin and Georgia as soon as I knew I was pregnant with them. As my pregnancy progressed and the first hint of problems with Calvin's heart arose, I loved them even more. The day my twins were born was one of the best days of my life, it seems like minutes ago we were in the operating room and Calvin was being placed on my chest for our first meeting. The moment I looked into his eyes I knew I would do anything for him. I met Georgia last and it was her who has been my salvation in losing my son. Georgia has accepted not only the love I have for her, but the love I have for her twin brother who I can no longer hold in my arms. I love her for both of them, she in turn loves me back. We are extremely bonded. I thank God for my children, they have redefined the meaning of love for me.

3. Books. I love a good book although in the last fifteen years my life has not permitted me to read as much as I have in the past. There is nothing better to me than a Sunday afternoon with peace and quiet and a facinating read. I started my love affair with reading early with some of my favorite childhood memories being trips to the library with my mother. We would pick out eight or ten books, more often than not Dr. Seuss, and in the evenings after supper she would sit with me on the couch and read. When I was a teenager I would literally drown myself in Danielle Steele romances imagining the day when my tall, dark, and handsome man would whisk me away to some romantic land where we would live happily ever after. These days I mostly read books on grief and it helps to know I am not insane according to the experts on grieving...

4. Music. I love to sing, I love to dance, I love to close my eyes and listen. I appreciate all types of music. Depending on my mood I can be found listening to anything from Metallica to Mozart. Sometimes I go to sleep listening to music when I can't shut off my head and it helps to relax and soothe me when I'm anxious or upset. I dance with my children to music, I sing in the car. Shane and I have made love listening to our favorite "in the mood" tunes and music is with me whenever we travel any distance in the car. Music brings up emotion in me that I can't explain. It has made me feel pumped up, energized, happy, relaxed, sad, groovy...music makes me feel alive.

5. Water. I love the oceans, lakes, rivers. I love being near water. For seven years I lived on Skaha Lake in a beautiful outdated old house. We had our own dock and boat launch and on hot summer nights I would slip down into the backyard and sit on the dock with my feet in the water listening to the sound of the waves, feeling the cool swirl around my toes. I have always been drawn to water. Growing up in Ontario by Lake Erie, my family always had boats. When I was five, we would canoe in cottage country, spending hours navigating little waterways, paddling through reeds and bullrushes. I revelled in the scenery, listening to birds and insects buzzing in the warm summer air. A year later my parents bought a sailboat and we'd spend weekends sailing Lake St. Clair often travelling across the border and spending the night on the boat, the gentle waves rocking us to sleep. The sailboat gave way to a cabin cruiser and more time on the water, all of my parents friends boated, it seemed not just a recreation but a way of life. Since then, the smell of the ocean, the sound of water brings back some of the happiest memories of my childhood when there was peace and joy in my family. I find that simply being near water relaxes me and makes me feel good and on days when I am unhappy a stroll along the beach restores my calm and clears my head.

6. Sleep, oh how I love to sleep. I have always had a love affair with slumber and as soon as I was old enough to not be so excited about Christmas morning that I was awake at five am, I started sleeping in, realizing that goodness, the presents would wait. As a teen, I often felt sleep deprived and on the weekends would sleep as long as humanly possible without wetting the bed. Many school mornings my dear friend Lisa would walk to my house and literally pry me out of bed with a crowbar to get me going. I swear that it's only because of her that I ever made it to homeroom most days. My love affair with sleep has been consistent through the years, only interupted by the odd bout of insomnia that has me stomping my foot in frustration that I am being deprived of my beloved rest. My husband is a morning person. I am not. He has learned through many an exasperating morning that the best thing for us both is for him to get up with the girls whenever possible, and to wake me an hour or so later with a steaming hot cup of cappucino. *Also one of the reasons Shane is number 1 on my list....

7. I love order. If you were to step foot into my house today you would not for one minute believe me. My house is chaos. I hate it and feel frustrated by it alot of the time but I have learned to live with it not being up to my standards. An extremely active toddler, a six month old baby and a very messy husband leave me cleaning and tidying all day behind everyone. It makes me nuts to have to do it everyday, all day, to get it to where I like it. I started to notice I was angry alot so I just stopped. I pick up when I need to now or when it's so messy I feel like ripping my hair out by the roots one by one, otherwise, I mostly make sure our laundry is done and that things are somewhat accessible. Truly it sounds like a cop out, I don't know how women can manage cooking, cleaning and taking care of the children all day long and having their houses look perfect because I haven't managed without feeling like an underpaid maid. I crave order in my life like an addict craves heroin. I like to know where everything is. I like my bills to be paid on time and my house clean. I like everything to be put back into it's place and for things to be neat and tidy. I love routine. I like to have the girls in bed at a certain time and have their meals ready at the same time everyday. Order gives me a sense of security, like I'm in control of my life and that things are going as they should. I like being on time, for people I have plans with to be on time, I like to feel the sense of accomplishment when my husband asks me where his health socks are and I can produce them because I know exactly where they are. I love the sense of sanity order brings to my life and I can tell when things aren't going well by the state of not only my house but my bankbook...Ummm, no one come over without calling first, K?!! LOL

And now, for your reading pleasure, I nominate the following seven blogs for a Kreativ Blogger Award:

Kickyboots http://kickyboots.com/ Amanda

Truncus Arteriosus http://truncusarteriosus.blogspot.com/ Jesse

Sweet Salty http://www.sweetsalty.com/ Kate

Nie Nie http://www.nieniedialogues.blogspot.com/ Stephanie

All the Little Ponies http://allthelittleponies.blogspot.com/ Bir

Burble http://barbaraboucher.blogspot.com/ Barb

LaLa Land http://lindsaylala.blogspot.com/ Lindsay

Praying for Healing

My relationship with God hasn't been that great since my son died. In the days following Calvin's birth leading up to his surgery I prayed more than I had in years. When my son died, I prayed to God to bring us peace, to lead me to acceptance and I prayed for my marriage to stay together. About a month later I became so enraged at God for taking our son that I started to question everything I had believed in growing up. I started to doubt God's existence. I doubted God's goodness. I doubted whether I would ever see my son again because I couldn't be sure heaven existed. I have struggled between wanting to believe and hating Him. Today I sat down and had my first conversation with God that I've had in months. I prayed for healing, for my heart in all it's sadness. I prayed for my husband and our family. I prayed to be a better mother and wife, to live each day to it's fullest, and to let the small things that anger me go. I asked Him to help me heal my body, to eat healthier, to stop smoking, to get off painkillers. I prayed for a better relationship with Him, to help me trust and believe. I also asked God to take care of my son, to make my dad a better grandfather in heaven than he was a father here on earth. I prayed that my son know the love of all the people who have touched my life, who I have loved, and that have passed on to live in heaven. I asked God to let Calvin visit me in my dreams, to let me know he is okay. I prayed to be more family oriented, more involved in family activities even if it means facing my fears and becoming uncomfortable. I prayed that we find better ways to raise money for Children's Hospital and to have success in our fundraising so that maybe another family's child will live. I prayed to God to help me find the ways to express my gratitude to family and friends for all that they have done for me. Sometimes I find it so difficult to put a voice to my feelings, to let people know just how much they mean to me. I prayed to be more motivated and to live a less cluttered lifestyle and to be okay without having everything I want. I prayed for us to live smarter financially and for Shane to become more active in his business again. I prayed to God for His help in loving myself again, to let go of the self-loathing and guilt I pack around and to believe that I am worthy of a happy family and a man who loves me. I prayed for my girls, that they grow up healthy and sure of themselves so that they may follow their dreams. I pray my girls always know they are loved. I haven't prayed in so long I'm sure God was surprised at the length of conversation I had with Him today. I pray He was listening.

Looking Inward

It's been a few days since I blogged and although not much has really happened in my life, there have been a few things that have made me sit up and take notice. First of all, I'm starting to realize just how unhealthy I am and have been for months. During the last few months of my pregnancy with the twins, I was unable to do even basic things for myself due to severe back pain and pubic symphasis dysfunction. The weight of the babies on my belly was too much for me to even stand for more than five minutes at a time without feeling pain. Since that time, I have barely cooked. Shane did most of the meal planning in those last few months, much of which revolved around eating out so that he didn't have to cook. When Calvin died, I lost interest in food altogether and couldn't concentrate on even the most menial of tasks. The housework suffered, I didn't cook, I rarely left our bedroom other than to care for our girls in the following three months. Although I am no longer holed up in the bedroom and I am taking care of basic housework like laundry and dishes, I can't seem to find the motivation to cook or to really clean. There have been many days where Shane has asked what we're doing for dinner and my main priority is to make sure Lorelei is fed and after that I don't care. As a result, most of our meals have been either processed, prepackaged food or fast food. I don't feel well. I feel sluggish, unmotivated and heavy. I gained eight pounds of water weight over night a few days ago because I felt dehydrated and drank three bottles of water. I think my body is starting to rebel against my lack of care and I really need to do something about it. Not only that, but I'm unhappy with the way I look which makes me feel crappy on the inside. A woman I know to see asked me the other day if I was pregnant again. I was horrified and then angry. With a smile on my face I said as sweetly as I could muster "No, but thanks for asking." I could tell she felt bad but I didn't care. She made me feel not so great in that moment so her embarassment is well deserved. I don't get the lack of sensitivity or tact of some people. I think if I was pregnant, and wanted to share, I would tell people. If I don't mention it, than obviously it's none of your business. I'm feeling a little defensive about things, and I guess most of it comes from the shame of knowing that I have not been so kind to myself since my son died. There has been this aching empty feeling inside that I have tried to fill with food, drugs, shopping, sleep and whatever escape in the moment I can find. It's not working. I'm just feeling crappy about myself, about the food I eat, the money I spend, the drugs I take that I no longer need. Part of me wanted to die when Calvin died, maybe that's why I haven't cared to take care of myself since. However, sitting and talking with Shane after a bad movie watching experience the other night, opened my eyes to some things. One of those things is that I want to live to see both my girls marry and have children of their own. I want nothing more than to see my beautiful babies into adulthood, to see them succeed in life and be happy. I won't be able to do that if I keep up living the way I have been. I'm either going to get cancer, have a heart attack or die of an overdose in my sleep. I can't imagine how hurt the girls would be if I wasn't here to take care of them, to celebrate their first bras, prom, graduation and marriage and kids. I know how devastating it's been for me to be without Calvin, sometimes he's all I can think about. I want to change my life, it's going to be difficult at first but I think with small steps it will become easier.

*About our disastrous movie watching experience. We watched Marley and Me. Not the greatest movie to watch if you've recently lost a pet, which we did a few months ago. Also not the best movie if you've experienced the pain of miscarriage...That movie, while good, opened up a huge can of worms for me and my feelings and I spent yet another evening crying where I should have been enjoying myself.

Gone Fishin'

Shane took Lorelei fishing for the first time today. I guess a couple of days ago when he was watching the golf channel, a commercial came on showing a little girl and her dad. The commercial said something along the lines of "Take me fishing, because it'll be my wedding sooner than you think". So, realizing how precious our time is with the kid while they're still little, Shane decided to go fishing. I'm glad for him and for Lorelei. When I was little, my parents were divorced and my dad was supposed to take me every second Saturday. Nine times out of ten, he wouldn't show up. I remember waiting by the window for him to drive up, and waiting, and waiting....then I'd get upset. He wouldn't call and the next time he did actually show up, he never mentioned why he hadn't been there the time before. Needless to say, my relationship with my dad was pretty much always strained. I always felt let down by him and after awhile, I started to see through his excuses. I love the fact that Shane is an attentive dad. I know he is missing Calvin alot right now, he actually slipped up when he was mentioning getting in some father/daughter time and said father/son. It made me sad for him. So, while he's out with Lorelei, Georgia and I get some good one on one time together. It's awesome. I wonder how things would have been if I had Calvin here too, if I would be able to handle two babies at the same time. I wonder if I'd be so stressed that I'd make Shane stay home...sometimes I envy the fact that he feels free to just get up and do whatever he wants. I always feel like I have to ask him to watch the girls if I want to go out, I never just go. Maybe I've just "created" that situation in my head, but I wonder how he'd react if I grabbed my car keys and headed for the door with a "just got some running around to do" thrown over my shoulder as I left. Maybe I should give it a whirl and see how it goes over. LOL Yeah right...In the meantime, Georgia and I are hanging out, she's rolling all over her crib, trying to crawl and I thought I'd take a few minutes and blog. So, that's my post for the day...my creativity seems to have gone fishin' too....

Timeless

We ordered Calvin's marker today. Originally, I wanted to go with granite, I thought it looked nicer than bronze but after much discussion with the funeral director, we chose the bronze. Apparently granite only has a life-span of about fifty years after which it will then have to be replaced. I'll be eighty-eight in fifty years if I live that long and I don't want the responsibility of replacing Calvin's marker to fall on the girls. So, bronze it is. We were told that in two hundred years, it will still be legible like the day it was cast and the cost difference wasn't too much more. I'm so relieved. It's been weighing on my mind so much lately, the stress of not having a marker, what to put on it, how to tell the world how much our son was loved. Now it's taken care of and I feel an overwhelming sense of relief and peace with what we have chosen. Once the marker is laid, I will upload a picture onto my blog.

Other than that, the girls have colds and poor Georgia was up every twenty minutes or so last night until four this morning. We haven't had a night like that since she was a newborn. Could it be that a tooth is coming in? We'll have to wait and see. All I know is that I got very little sleep last night and today I have a roaring headache. As a result, this is all I'm going to post for now. Hugs to everyone.

Another Angel Got Her Wings

I just want to share with you who read my blog the story of Kayleigh, the beautiful one pound miracle who has spent the last eleven months fighting for her life. Kayleigh lost her fight and grew her angel wings yesterday. I'm so sad for her family. I've been following her blog for some time now and her family's love and strength have been inspirational. I can only hope that Calvin was waiting at the gates of Heaven to welcome her and to lead her to play with all of the lost angels in God's playground. Please say a prayer for the Freeman family. No one should have to know the pain of losing a child. Please take a moment to follow the link and check out Kayleigh's story of love and hope.

http://www.kayleighannefreeman.blogspot.com/