Anxiety lives here now

It's been over a month now since I've blogged. In my last post, I talked about my returning anxiety and how it had been worse than ever. I talked about how I hoped it would go away. But the truth is, it hasn't.

I have anxiety almost daily now. More often than not, I live in fear. Jude gets a heat rash and I worry and obsess that it's something worse (ruined my Mother's Day over that one). I see a fictional male character on a TV show that has cancer and I get worried that Daniel could have cancer. I see a child on Instagram who died of cancer and I worry that Jude could get cancer and die. I worry that he could get meningitis and die. I worry that he could have another febrile seizure. I just worry that he could die. (I still make sure he's breathing when he sleeps.) I get a headache and think about brain aneurysms. I live in dread of my monthly blood check appointments. I worry that my blood pressure will be high (so then it is). I worry they will find something wrong and make me go to the hospital. I worry they will charge me too much money when I already can't afford it. I get a pain in my stomach and I worry that my medication is making me bleed internally. I get a pain in my leg and think about clots, which is the exact opposite of the previous thoughts. I find myself just waiting for one of those sudden gasp moments when something awful occurs. Why do I let my mind dwell on these awful things? I hate what I have become. I really can't live like this.

I'm so desperate for peace at this point, that I'm willing to look into medication for my anxiety. A phlebotomist at the doctor's office recommended the medication she takes so I looked it up and found that people who take blood thinners shouldn't take it. Great. I wonder if this is the case with all or most medications. I really hope not. Someone also recently told me that vitamin K is a good natural supplement for anxiety... and vitamin K is exactly what I cannot have also because of my blood thinners. It counteracts it. I guess I have a lot of research to do before I fork out the money for another doctor to see me.

I have my monthly blood appointment in just three days and I am filled with dread. They are every 28 days but I feel like I am there so often. I feel like my life is consumed by this, by my medical health. It makes me feel like I'm unhealthy, even though I have no real reason to believe that. My medication prevents any possible clots from forming and my appointments make sure my dose isn't making my blood too thin or keeping it too thick. But my mind has a way of twisting that and turning it into something to fear and hate and dread. I cannot help it. My doctor is a hematologist at a cancer center so I go to a cancer center for my appointments. I sit with all of the cancer patients and I guess sometimes I feel like I'm as sick as they are. But I'm not! I am alive. I am well. I am not fighting for my life. I know that. But with any and every discomfort I ever feel, I worry. I worry that my heart is bad or that something is wrong. Why can't I just remember always that I am young and healthy and that my medication is keeping me even healthier and safer so I shouldn't worry?

I also wonder if I have depression as well as anxiety. Sometimes I just cannot handle my life. I am not exaggerating when I say that I come across a new pregnancy announcement every day. Lately, it has sure been that way. And I can't take it. It makes me angry. It makes me sad. It makes me hate myself. I despise this path I am on. I hate what God has allowed for me.

I don't want to adopt. It doesn't solve any of this. Surrogacy is so extreme and so difficult. I'm not even sure if that's possible for us. And it sure as hell is not the same as being able to carry and birth my own baby. Can I really allow someone else to carry my child? To share all of those beautiful full-term things I lost with both of my babies? I'll do what I have to, I guess. I just don't want Jude to be it. I want to experience these sweet things again. Baby things. I want my baby girl I was supposed to have. Or another baby boy. I don't care. Just someone alive. Someone healthy. Someone mine.

Even if you remove all of these emotional issues I have, I'm still so insecure, it's ridiculous. That's always been a struggle of mine, but through all of this, I think it's been magnified. I'm always pulling at my clothes, worried about how they are accentuating what I hate most about my body. I can't just enjoy being with people without worrying what I look like. I've never liked my body and I have never felt good about myself. That's just the truth.

I apologize for this being such a dark and ugly post. But it's what's real and it's what my life is right now. I feel like a failure for allowing this darkness to take a hold of me. If I could help it, surely, I would. I pray I can come away from this, medicated or not. I just want to live. I want to feel joy. I want to enjoy my family and what I do have. I want to be foolishly optimistic. I want to be unrealistically happy. I just want my life back.

The Inevitable

I've been a part of this awful wonderful community of women since I started my blog in June of 2010. The community of baby loss moms. Before I started my blog, I was alone. I was the freak of nature whose baby died inside her. I knew no one like me. The only outlet I had was, sadly, Facebook... the vast sea of normal people with constant pregnancy announcements and photos of living chubby pink babies. I felt so alienated. So isolated. I didn't start getting better and healing until I started finding mothers like me.

I had so much anger, so much pain, so much grief... I didn't know what to do with it. How to express it and how to just release all of the pent up emotions that were plaguing me. Finally, when another baby loss mom's blog inspired me to start mine, it was the best thing that could have happened. I was able to get all of those tormenting thoughts out but I also found so many other women out there who had been thrown into this journey around the same time I had.

We'd all lost our firstborn babies within months of each other. We were all in the very early raw stages of our grief, some of us still trying to process our losses, some of us still waiting for the results to tell us what had happened to our babies. We went through so much together, pouring out tortured posts and leaving each other encouraging and loving comments. We started adding each other on Facebook and being a part of each other's lives. I didn't feel so alone anymore. It made such a difference to have people that understood this. It was vital in trying to heal.

The next step we all worked toward was being ready for our Rainbow Babies (a baby born after a loss... the rainbow after the storm). It seemed we all started getting pregnant around the same time, one after another, until we were all pregnant again together. It was very exciting and hopeful, sharing these sacred pregnancies together, sharing our fears and understanding each other's worries. And of course our babies are all pretty close in age (though Jude came a bit earlier than he was supposed to). One by one, we had our precious Rainbow Babies. Each miracle entered the world, healthy and perfect. It was glorious.

But then things changed... It was me who quickly found out that Jude would be my last. It was me who was told not to have any more children. Even though I have come to know a few other women who have the same exact blood clotting mutations I have, I was the only one who didn't have a successful Rainbow pregnancy with the same corrective medical regimen. The other women carried to term. None formed blood clots. None had their future children taken away from them. It was just me. My body still failed to sustain my unborn child. My emergency c-section almost killed me... twice. I was the only one with complications. What is wrong with me? Why can't I just be like them?

Even though all of these new realities came to be, I was, for the most part, still the same as these mothers. We were torn between happiness and sadness. Thrilled to finally hold our living, breathing children like we'd always dreamed. But we were sad because it reminded us all over again what we'd lost with our first babies. We were all experiencing what we'd bawled our eyes out for through dozens of agonizing, sleepless nights. It was glorious. And we all shared it together. First smiles. First visits to the cemetery to meet big sister/brother. We all understood each other. I felt like I belonged so well, though I knew one day, it would change again...

And that time has come. I knew it would. I was fully aware it would happen. I don't think I expected it to start happening so soon, but it has. My baby loss friends are slowly getting pregnant again. I'm surprised by how much it bothers me. I am, without a doubt, happy for them all. I would never want any of them to be in the same boat as me. I wouldn't want them to never have more babies. I know I would if I could! I would never want any of them to think they have attributed to my struggles. Trust me, the struggles were already here! I have no bitterness or ill will toward them. Am I jealous? Sure. My feelings all stem from how I feel about myself... how I feel about the cards I have been dealt... the horribly unfortunate flawed nature of my body and its inability to do the one thing I desire more than anything. The sadness I feel is not geared toward these lovely mothers. It is not their fault. They're just doing what they have every right to do... what I wish I could do. And I feel sorry for myself. I'm slowly becoming different again. But I'm so glad they're not like me.

I feel stuck in my grief. I like I can't move on like I would be able to if I could continue having more children. I feel like I grasp onto Avery tighter than I would if I could have another daughter. Not that she could or would be replaced. But that ache in my heart to raise a daughter could possibly be quenched. I wouldn't know what it would be like to raise Avery and watch her grow up, but I could experience a daughter and all the girly sweet things I would have experienced with Avery. Now, none of that is possible and I am left with dreaming of what could have/should have been. I can't fully move on because I am still being injured by all of this. What took Avery nearly took Jude and it's taken away all of the babies I thought I would have... All the babies I wanted so badly and still do. I will never feel life fluttering away inside me ever again. I will never bring another life into this world. I will never caress another newborn cheek in the middle of the night. I'll never cradle another tiny body close to my chest. I still can't get over that. I can't get past it. It's all I've ever wanted. I'd do anything to change this.

I get so angry when I think about all of this. About this life I have been given. This life sentence of losing so much of what I wanted for my life. I planned it all out since I was a kid. But I'll tell ya... This body of mine has really screwed up so much of my life. I've always hated my body, but never more than I do now. There's this sense of betrayal. A sense of failure... That because of my body, I cannot do what a woman is made to do. That a life was lost because of my body and another was severely compromised because of it as well. It really takes a toll on how I feel about myself. I know it's not my fault. But my body, inside and out, has always been what's wrong with my life. I always feel like I'm trapped inside this disgusting shell. I wish I could just break out of it and be normal. Be happy.

I wish we could start talking about another baby and decide when we're ready to start trying again. I wish we could make another pregnancy announcement and tell the world with excitement that Jude is going to be a big brother. I wish we could reuse all the precious clothes we loved on Jude. I wish Jude wouldn't grow up alone. I wish he could know what it's like to share life with a brother or sister who would always be a friend. I wish I could watch my belly slowly get bigger, counting the weeks with joy. I wish I could feel the kicks and the rolls once again. I wish I could feel the excitement of the ultrasounds and the thrill of the gender reveal. Keeping the list of names. Journaling every little tidbit. Dreaming of who it is dancing beneath my heart. I miss it. I miss all of it. I hate how much I want it. I swear I was given the wrong fate. Why has God allowed me to grow up with this insatiable desire if He knew I'd be denied it? I just don't understand.

Day 9: How Three Years Feels

I still cannot believe we're already hitting the three year mark on this road without Avery. So much has changed and yet so much has not changed at all.

I live my day to day life in a relatively normal way, enjoying Jude and Daniel, and taking care of our home. It's the moments that come and the occasional thoughts that haven't really changed. I still want my daughter here. I still miss her. I still feel the scars of those traumatic days that I somehow lived through. They were so emotionally scarring, something impossible to get over. I live on but I don't move on. That is my child. I carried her. She's me and Daniel, just like Jude is. I dreamed her whole life out. That love doesn't just stop. The pain of losing that entire life doesn't just shut off when the pregnancy is over.

I really believe I'd be a bit better off if my situation were different. If Jude didn't have to be the last child we have, I think I'd have a healthier heart and mind. I wouldn't ache so much inside. I will never raise a daughter. I will never buy those irresistibly sweet little girl outfits that rip my heart out when I see them in the stores. All I'll ever have are the few outfits we bought for Avery that still sit in a box in the top of my foyer closet. I can't part with them; they're a fraction of all I have of her... which isn't much to begin with. I lost Avery, and the future daughter I wanted to have. I never thought Jude would be it. I always hoped we had learned all we needed to know from Avery to save Jude and the rest of our children from the same fate she suffered. I thought I had the magical fix during Jude's pregnancy. But that still wasn't enough. It started to happen again. It would have happened again.

I try to be graceful. But sometimes I feel angry. Sometimes I just feel so bitter about all of it... that we couldn't change it, couldn't fix it. That the agony didn't end with losing Avery. We had to lose our future babies too, and endure a rough and frightening start with Jude, that nearly took my life and left me medically dependent. Most times, I just don't understand.

I know if things had turned out differently-- if the Lovenox injections and folic acid pills had been the successful regimen it was supposed to be-- I would still miss and love and ache for Avery, but I think the pain would fade a bit into the background, and not be such an agitated sore. I felt myself healing and accepting Avery's absence when I was pregnant with Jude. As soon as things went wrong at 31 weeks and my doctor gave me the news the changed my entire future, I felt that band-aid rip off, tearing flesh with it. A new wound, a new scar, a new loss. And that's where I am.

Yes, it's been three years since we lost Avery. It sounds like a long time from the outside. It sounds like enough time to get over a baby we didn't know... if you have no idea what losing a baby feels like. Three years is like three months. It doesn't take long for the time to pass, but time and grief are irrelevant to each other. If anything, the passing of time makes it harder. It's been longer since we've been with Avery and were able to touch her, feel her, hold her. As time goes on, everyone forgets. The world moves on even when we don't. I am always feeling like most people in my life forget her, don't count her, and don't remember what we went through. If they do, they don't show it. Some do. Most don't. I wish people would approach the situation through my eyes and not theirs. It's my situation after all. I need the acknowledgment. I cannot be denied her or what I've been through. It makes the difficult life even worse. It makes it harder to truly heal.

My desire is to be the kind of person Avery would be proud of. I want to be strong and happy and inspirational. I don't want to be praised or applauded, but I don't want to be the walking sad story who drags around the darkness of her struggles. I'm trying to be better and feel better. I'm trying not to want what I've always wanted because it hurts too much. I am a work in progress. Always.

October 16, 2009

This day, three years ago, is the last significant best day of my life. This day, I found out I was finally pregnant with my first baby -- the day I waited my whole life for. It's odd to think that it set my hell in motion. I was a week shy of 26 years old, but to be honest, had been a mother in my heart since I was old enough to play with dolls.

I can still remember my bliss and my utter excitement. I have never been happier than I was in that moment. Even my most beautiful moments with Jude have been bittersweet and tainted by the doings of my flawed body.  Regardless of anything, I miss that day three years ago. I miss thinking my dreams were coming true. I miss having Avery alive, so close. I miss the time when my life was normal, before grief ravaged and frayed every fiber of my being.

I wonder if there will come a time when I don't remember this day... When October 16th rolls around and I'm no longer aware of its significance. For now, I don't see that happening. I can't shake any of this. I feel like this monumentally beautiful day was taken away from me the moment we lost Avery. This day is sacred to me. Pregnancy is so sacred to me. It always was. And after what I've been through, it's intensified. In a world where it's seemingly fashionable to complain away pregnancies and take 'needy' babies for granted, it's proven unbearable.

But I live on like I always do. Remembering my girl on every little special day I can. Because that's all I have left of her. And it will never be enough.

Right where I am 2012: two years, two months, eighteen days

Angie at Still Life With Circles has once again asked babylost parents to speak about our grief, where we are right now in it. I didn't participate last year, but this time I'm giving it a try.

This time last year, I was about 22 weeks pregnant with my Rainbow baby. I remember seeing Angie's post about Right where I am and thought it was a great idea but I was trying to hold onto my hope instead of focusing on my grief. I was still not guaranteed the life of my unborn son, thus my reason for trying to ignore my negative thoughts. Nonetheless, I was still very anxious, being just three weeks away in my second pregnancy from the week I lost my Avery. And being pregnant again brought me back to what it felt like for Avery to be alive. After a while, all I could remember was her death and her absence. It swallowed up her short life so quickly. Her being alive inside my womb felt more like a dream. Being pregnant with Jude brought it back to me. I could remember again how happiness and life felt.

Now, this year, Jude is ten months old (eight months adjusted). My grief is better in some ways and worse in others. I healed so much in the year after Avery's death and stillbirth. It had taken so long for me to forgive God and not blame Him. It had taken months to recover any semblance of normalcy or to even function without any debilitation. Now, the grief has changed. I have times of bitterness and anger.

When Jude was born nine weeks early (via emergency c-section) so much of my healing wounds were torn open. Jude was supposed to be my Rainbow after the storm, not the calm before another storm. What took Avery nearly took Jude as well (I have blood clotting mutations) and I nearly died of pulmonary embolisms just four weeks after his birth. That and the four and a half long weeks in the NICU were so emotionally taxing.

All of these complications led my doctor to strongly advise that we not have any more children. Since then, I have been mourning the children I always wanted to have, their names already on a list in the back of my journal. All I ever wanted in life was a house full of children. But I have to erase my dreams of them and forget the names I love and will never get to use. Jealousy creeps in when I see siblings together, since Jude's only sibling is dead and we can't give him another. I fear he'll grow up feeling alone. And sometimes that makes me feel guilty.

I wanted so badly for my pregnancy with Jude to be perfect and successful. Since it wasn't, it took the wind right out of my sails and set me back a ways. And it's a different path than I was on before. The old path was raw and new but it held a lot of hope for the future. This new path is so final and dark and I have to fight my way off of it. My faith has been shaken a lot. I struggle in my walk with God. I don't know why He allows these things, and especially to me who deeply desires exactly the opposite. That is a daily struggle for me.

So is the struggle against bitterness. I find it so hard to watch other women have typical pregnancies and births. I feel so cheated of a full-term pregnancy and a normal, exciting delivery. I wasn't even there for Jude's. I had to be put under because of bleeding issues. And with a stillbirth, well, that's just not a normal birth at all, needless to say. So when I hear people cringe and complain over how many hours they were in labor for and how awful it was to push out a living-screaming-breathing- healthy baby that they get to take home in just a couple days, I just want to scream my lungs out. I didn't get any of that. I would give anything for it. Same goes with pregnancy. I am paralyzed with anxiety when I hear some women complain about the discomforts of a healthy pregnancy when I feared death all through mine, while enduring daily injections to keep him alive. That, there, is my bitterness. I desperately want it to fade away. I don't want pregnancy and childbirth to be a sore topic for me. But right now, it is.

I still consider Avery my daughter. When so nosily prodded by strangers in public, I answer that I have two children, and I am never afraid to let them know that one of them is in Heaven. I just cannot deny her existence. Maybe there will come a day down the road when I won't count her to meaningless strangers, but for now, I can't imagine doing so. She is waiting for us in Heaven, after all, and we, and all of those that deny and forget her will see her face to face.

I'm also in a place in my grief where I am angry. I'm angry that my only daughter is not here and that it doesn't appear that many people care. I've been informed of some very ugly comments that have been made in the past by people who've known me my entire life. I am angry that I have to justify how I've gone about my grief (considering my own flesh and blood to be my own flesh and blood) and how I handled the most devastating and horrific situation of my life (that I actually saw and held my daughter when she was born, just like countless other mothers of stillborn babies).  I resent that other people, who have absolutely no idea what it's like think that they have the right to give their opinion. That we should have to abide by their timeline and what they think is "normal" for such a tragic event. It wouldn't hurt them to love and support. If it makes me happy to rightfully consider Avery my daughter, then they should consider her my daughter as well. It wouldn't affect them at all, but it would make my life a lot easier.

People around me actually make my grief worse. Those that don't support me or who have obviously forgotten Avery just make it harder for me to heal. If they would just embrace what's happened to our family, I wouldn't feel so alone. I would feel less empty because Avery would be remembered and I'd feel like she meant something.

On the other hand, I am happier than I have been since Avery was alive. Jude is beautiful, healthy, and smart. He is the joy of my life. He is my love. I cherish him, every little thing about him. I am reluctant to watch him grow so quickly, but I'm so grateful he has the chance to. I practically mourn each piece of clothing he grows out of, as well as each precious stage he surpasses. It seems as though I'm constantly in a happy/sad state. So happy to be sharing these amazing and priceless moments with my sweet boy, but so sad that I'll never experience these moments again, with him or anyone else. I savor each second of his small body in my arms, his chubby cheek resting on my chest, and I thank God he is here. I marvel daily that Jude is mine and that he made it... that he came to stay.

And that is where I am, grasping onto the beauty in this life. I still miss my sweet girl. I'm in awe of my little boy. And oh, how I love them both.

Another new reality

These past several weeks have been a whirlwind to say the least. Life with Jude is amazing and beautiful, everything I knew it would be. I have also been spending this time healing physically from the blood clots that formed in my lungs about a month ago.

In a nutshell, I was hospitalized for about five days, at the end of Jude's NICU stay. We were both discharged the same day. It was a very horrible ordeal. At the risk of sounding dramatic, it left me somewhat traumatized. I don't want to go into my hospital experience. I honestly hate talking or even thinking about it, but even after my discharge, I lived in literal paranoia that I was going to end up back in the hospital. Every little pain, even a normal headache, would throw me into a fit of fear. I would even sit there, looking down at my tiny son, worrying that I wouldn't be able to watch him grow up. It was not a way to live! And I felt so angry because I just wanted to enjoy my new baby, my miracle. The one thing I have been dying for (literally) my entire life.

But since having a follow up appointment with my hematologist, I can breathe again. He assured me that I will be okay. As long as I am on my blood thinners, I am protected from future clots. And the pain I am still feeling in my chest is the clots going away, and the damage in my lungs healing. I really could have died. It was a very serious thing. I sit here and shake my head, thinking about how I nearly bled to death having Jude and then four weeks later, almost to the day, I nearly die of pulmonary embolisms. No matter what, I can never just have a normal childbearing experience. The premature birth and long NICU stay weren't enough. I will never understand why all these crazy things happen to me.

All of this brings me to the subject that is really plaguing me. The one thing that has been wrestling my joy away from me. At a time where I long to be happy and blissful, this new reality is blowing the dark clouds in. In the weeks since Jude has been born, I have been medically advised not to have any more children. There it is. I cannot have anymore babies. I type that and I still can't believe that's my life now. No, I have not lost my fertility. I can get pregnant (not with ease). If I really wanted to have more children, I could. But to do so would be horribly risking my life and the life of my baby.

In a month's time after having Jude, I almost died twice. Even with all of the medical intervention, the injections, the extra ultrasounds, the specialists, I only carried Jude six more weeks than I carried Avery. That doesn't sound very successful to me. My doctor even said, if Jude had not been born when he was, he would not have made it through the week. The same thing that had happened to Avery was beginning to happen to him. For whatever reason, my body cannot produce strong placentas. They begin to die and clot. I was told Jude's placenta looked worse than Avery's... and I saw hers and it was horrible. :(

There have been some people who have suggested that this couldn't be true. That with other help or down the road when medicine has progressed even further, that I can have more children. I appreciate their optimism but the facts are all here. To go against what I see right in front of me would be selfish. I could have another baby to bury. Or I could devastate my family... Leave Daniel without his wife, Jude without his mother, my parents without their daughter, my brothers without their sister... I don't know about you, but that sounds a bit risky to me. And even as someone who desperately wanted several children, I'm convinced that this is the right decision. As reluctant and heartbroken as I am.

The realization that Jude is the only living child I will ever have has really left me in a strange place. I feel ungrateful for being upset that I can't have more. I am thrilled to no end over Jude, but at the same time, I am sad. I can't help it. I gained him, an amazing miraculous gift, but I have also lost all the hopes and the dreams of the future children I also longed for. Jude will grow up alone and I never wanted that. I loved growing up with my brothers. To this day, they are my best friends, truthfully. He won't have that. His sister is dead. I wish this had been my choice. It's not fair to have the decision made for me.

I was the little girl who loved her baby dolls. Who played house incessantly. Who always named all of her dolls. Who kept lists of her favorite names and always knew at any given time what all of her future children's names would be. Sure, the list changed every so often as I got older, but I always had one. Scribbled down in the backs of my journals. First and middle, sometimes paired up with the last name of the guy I liked at the time. All silly, but that was always me. Daniel and I had our children's names picked out before we were even married. Jude has been named since 2007 (He was Jude Lucas then). Avery was named around that time too. I just always knew what I wanted. I have planned it and dreamed it forever. So why am I the one that loses it all?

In my actual physical circle, out of the people I actually know in real life, I have never run into anyone who has had it this way. I hate to complain, but mostly everyone gets to choose how many children they have and most get to do it with thoughtless ease. (Most, not all.) And even those who have run into difficulty haven't been forced to bear the excessive devastation I have. Again, hate to do the "woe is me" dance... I don't like to be that person. But I can't help but notice and wish I had answers. WHY ME?

I really thought my cross to bear was going to be the death of my daughter. I thought an entire life without her was enough of a burden to live with. I can't believe I have to endure this as well. I feel like I've lost my future children as well. I mourn Avery and I mourn the children I will never get to have. They had names. Uriah... Jonah... Cadence... I always pictured them being here. They never will be.

I despise that this is my new reality. Every time I have a baby I get a new reality. I hate that I am experiencing some of the same feelings with Jude that I also felt with Avery. Avery died. Jude didn't. I hate that circumstances have left me feeling slapped across the face anyway. I just want to be happy and have my babies. Why does that have to be the one thing I am denied? Disgusting, unworthy people across the globe can pop 'em out like it's nobody's business. There are women who kill their own children. Yet they are the ones who find it effortless. So many beautiful and deserving women struggle to even get pregnant let alone make it successfully through a pregnancy. I will never understand this and it will always anger me.

Before Jude was born, I struggled with bitterness against women who complained about being pregnant or who complained about the inconveniences of their children. It bothered me because I wanted so badly to have my daughter in my arms instead of in the ground and it was so painful to feel like other "normal" people were taking it for granted. Now I feel like I'm left with another reason to fight bitterness. Not only is my daughter dead, but now I am not able to have anymore babies, thus making pregnancy and childbirth even more sacred to me because I am now denied it. It's really hard to feel that way. Like even today at the store, there was a stupid onesie that said, "My mommy is exhausted." It made me angry. I gladly get up all night for Jude. Because I know I am so blessed to be able to. I lost all of that with Avery. I was up all night crying for her instead and that is not better. I love waking up to his sweetness all night, whether he's crying or not, because I know this is all I get. He's going to grow up and I will never experience the joy of my baby again. So, needless to say, my perspective is severely warped when it comes to this. It may be unfair and it may make me a jerk, but I'd like to think I deserve a little grace after all the hell I have been through that's made me this way.

This is all very raw and new right now. I am still angry. I'm feeling mad at God. I just feel like it's all so unfair. Oh I know, "life isn't fair." Regardless... Jude is here safe and healthy like I prayed so desperately for but I'm so mad that instead of being able to bask in the glow of his presence, I am mourning the loss of my will. My dreams. My own choices. I have my days where I feel like I'm accepting it. Where I know Jude is enough (because he is) and I'll be okay without what I wanted for my life. Then other days I just cannot believe that this is my life. That I am on coumadin (blood thinner) possibly for life (which will cause severe birth defects or kill my baby if I were to get pregnant on it). That I don't get to have my babies... I know I'm getting redundant now. But this has been festering in my mind for weeks and I haven't had the chance to spill it out until now.

I'm sure some people will like to think that I'm ungrateful for finding something wrong during a time where something beautiful has also happened to me. I am completely and deeply grateful for Jude. I am SO beyond happy that he is here. I am fiercely in love with him and am cherishing every single second with him. But because I love him so much and wanted him so badly and because I wanted several children so badly, this affects my happiness. It's not fair that he's all I get after everything that's happened. I never get to have my cake and eat it too, I guess.

Time will pass, and I will get used to this. I'll never like it. But I'm sure I'll learn to accept it. Until then, I have a lot of anger to work through. I want to live a happy life with my little family. And for the most part, I do. But I am still carrying so much pain. I just want all the disappointment and loss to be over. I just want to have all those everyday "normal people" problems. Not these ridiculous earth shattering ones. I know life happens and no one is exempt. But I could really use a break for the next few decades. Either way, for now, I am spending each day with my beautiful tiny boy... and letting him heal my broken heart.