Love in their Eyes

Cherish the children you can hold in your arms, cherish them everyday,
for who knows what could happen tomorrow.
Cherish these children with hugs and kisses
while cherishing the ones who could not stay, in your heart.
I must hug my son a million times a day.
And luckily he's not at the age where he minds too much.
How precious they are.... and yet how mortal.
How ephemeral is this love? And yet how passionate and true.

Cleansing My Spirit

I stood and cried while the water washed over me. It was not going to be a good day, I could tell. My temperature fell.
A little later my heart sank just a little, ever so softly, while staring down at the blood. But really, should I have been surprised?
The second time I stood in the water, all I could do was wash the blood away.

Trying to think of DH's words the previous week, "You don't want the first egg anyway,right?!"

Cycle 3 I bit thee farewell.

Anyone up for cocktails tonight?

The Observer

Every now and again, I feel like an observer of my own life. When I find myself in situations, I sometimes feel like I am not living it, but just watching the whole thing.
That happened the other day. I was sitting there, with my toddler by my side, two mommies in front of my (toddle-less for the afternoon), one baby across from me and a newborn to my other side. Mom 1 turns to Mom 2 who just had a baby a couple of weeks ago "So what is the best and the worst about having a newborn again?"
It's not that I got mad...or sad...or anything really. I sat there a little dumbfounded about how these two friends could be so damn clueless. But I'm used to the random comments now. They truly have forgotten everything.
I've been thinking a lot about who I used to be. Some other posters have been blogging about this and I've given it a lot of thought.
I many ways, I am no longer who I was 8 short years ago. When I go to my reunion I think about whether people will recognize me or not. I don't recognize me. Physically I haven't changed much, but as for everything else....well, much has changed.

And sometimes it is almost like I am watching me from afar, without emotion. Just observing.

In difference...

...or indifference, really.
That is the lack of emotion I am feeling these days. I almost miss those intense emotions I had before. The sadness, the anger. Some days it is like waiting for the storm that keeps looming, yet never materializes.

Am I becoming indifferent to my own child? *Gulp* And I didn't do anything for October 15th. In fact, the day didn't seem very personal to me. Others have taken their grief and made it a passion for outreach. A passion..again indifference.

I had a baby. She died. She left. She left me here to take care of the rest who are still here. I can't bring myself to focus on the dead any longer. I'm exhausted. I cannot focus my energies on the dead, when there is so much to focus on the living.

I have been so tired the past few days. Part of it, I think is due to the hormonal rises that naturally come after one finally ovulates. But I can't help but feel like part of the exhaustion has something to do with something else. I think I am exhausted with grieving; but therefore have I exhausted my grief?

I have a feeling the flame has gone out, only to be reignited at future time and date.
...yet those memories are still easily accessible, but maybe now a little further below the surface.

Pieces of me

Somedays I feel like a book who is missing a very important chapter. The pages have been torn out, torn up into a million pieces and now litter the ground. Once in a while a passerby will notice the pieces, but mostly it is the wind that picks them up, lifts them into the air, only to fall back to earth scattering again.
I can't help but wonder: "will the ending still make sense?"

What inanimate object do you most resemble?

Reconciliation

A few weeks ago, a friend, who happens to be a Buddhist, said, "Everyone who comes into your life has a purpose"
Since, then, I have been stewing over this thought.
Ever since Jessica left us, I have been on a rocky relationship with my beliefs, alternating between believing I was just a statistic, and that there may have been a "reason". Neither one of these two thoughts seems to leave me with a fulfilling feeling.
But thinking about her coming into my life with a purpose, well, somehow that seems to ring true.
I will never take life for granted again. I will never take my loved ones for granted again. I will never take motherhood for granted again. I will never take being pregnant for granted again.
Things I will change next pregnancy (things I have control over)
-no caffeine at all
-as little sugar as possible
-eat even healthier than before
-enjoy the time rather than rushing to get to the end
I long to be pregnant again, and even more so I long to hold a baby in my arms and at my breast.
Am I finally reconciling her death? The word reconciliation now means something to me. Reconciliation....a peace...a truce with my grief. When I first read about this in the book (Empty Cra..B H) I didn't know what this chapter was about.
Maybe there wasn't a reason, but maybe there was a purpose.
I cherish those 9 months with her. If I never have another little girl, I at least had her, for a time however brief.

Eeeewwww!

Why did I just tear the crust (stuffed with garlic and some sort of sauce) off a slice of leftover pepperoni pizza, spread crunchy peanut butter on it and think it was just the yummiest thing at that moment?
sounds gross!
In other mindless news: Okay, so I think I know what may be going on with my cycle.
I think I am ovulating (and 2 OPKs confirmed this--not as "+" as I was expecting)
So whoever said in my comment section that it could be a "strong ovulation" , you may be correct.
Still waiting for temp spike and ovulating on CD 20 would ring true to my on-the-longer-side cycles around 33-35 (at least before kids and before BC)

If you haven't figured it out by now, I am an obsessive person. I guess until we get a BFP, I'm going to be obsessed.

If I could just knock a couple of "normal" cycles out of the way, I'd be more comfortable.

Trying not to obsess...

Crampiness....check
Slight low backache....check
Bitchiness yesterday....check
Tiredness today....check
Spotting light brown or pink....check (doesn't quite look like AF yet)
Tender breasts....check


CD 19
according to FF 8 DPO
1st official MTTC
and 3rd CPP

I understand how all of you now call it the dreaded tww
(see I am learning the lingo)

Maybe I should take up knitting

Here we go again...

Cycle 3 oh how I hate thee.
I had some expectations that at least you would be somewhat normal.
My temps seem to be a little more regular......other than the negative OPKs, I still thought you could redeem yourself.
Until today...CD 18 and it looks like AF is rolling in her pimp mobile, making threats at me.
Blah.
And....another one bites the dust.

If any of you with more experience looking at these things, want to help me interpret what is going on, I'd really appreciate it. My chart is here

edited to add: oh, and it was five months ago today we said hello and then goodbye. I guess "Aloha" would seem more appropriate in that respect.

Stranger?

I don't look at pictures of her all the time, but when I do get the urge to, it is always a little strange for me.
When I look at the pictures, I feel as if I am looking at a stranger...a stranger who has died.
In my memories she is different...even her face is a little different. I try and figure out if her face was photographed the way it was due to fluid after death or something. Mostly, it is the nose I wonder about.
I don't know how to resolve these two images. One concrete and one abstract.
Maybe they don't have to be resolved at all but somehow, my brain wants to resolve the images.
And because I don't, the other side of my brain likes to tell me that somehow I'm not living in reality

Abandoned House

The silence in the night
Undenyingly loud and heard
We were once in the crowd
Now stand in the corner
Once as we were

We are standing on the curb
Waiting for the taxi that won't come
The skies wash the street dirt away
And us without the umbrella
Once as we were

To grasp a ghost, but only a dream
Like running over fire in the snow
We are moving, but time stands still
Never attaining our goal
Once as we were

Cotton candy clouds
Far away and lovely
Drifting down the river in a boat made of a tire
Here we would like to linger
Once as we were

The door on the old house is broken
The old trustworthy lock has been picked
We fumble through the blackness inside
Trying to find the switch
Once as we are

Hello darkness our queer friend
You wrap us in your shawl
One would think we'd feel the warmth
Yet feel no warmth at all
Once as we are

"It doesn't matter which way you go", said the Chesire Cat.

The most important thing in my life right now are the people I love and that love me. I wish I could wrap my arms around them and we could live in our own little harmonious world, tucked away from all the dangers and disappointment we call life.
I guess I have some perspective now.
Thoughts I used to have, have been replaced with other, more wiser thoughts. Feelings I used to have, have mostly been dampened, much the way a dampener dampens a drum. Beliefs I used to have, are weak at best, and are no longer black and white, but gray and blurry. The way I thought I universe operated was in fact, proven incorrect. So down the rabbit hole I went, as if a new world was opened up, and yet, I cannot make sense of it all.
I do feel like I am in wonderland, where things don't act or do what I keep expecting them to.

I pity those who have never been through the looking glass or fell through the rabbit hole....

That is, I pity you when I am not busy envying you.

Wishing...

I wish I could laugh at you, but really, all I want to do is scream, "Are you that arrogant? That sure that you will take home a baby 8 months from now that you just announce you are 6 weeks pregnant to the world?!?!? Even after what happened to me? And how miscarriages in the first 12 weeks are so common? But really, let me know in a few months because your naive arrogance is really pissing me off!"
Oh how my face hurts like it's been slapped hard.

Babies on the brain.

Do you ever just space out while driving, thinking about your lost baby(ies)? or is that just me?
The recurrent thing that I seem to think about is being pregnant. I think because while I was driving while pregnant it was my alone time with her. I could always feel her kick to the music when I was in the car.

In other news, two more babies are due to be born this week. One is supposed to be induced sometime today. As much as I think about things going wrong, I know that they will all come home with a healthy baby.

Babies don't just die, right?!

Cycle 3 is off and running...please just let me have a normal cycle