This week hasn't been horrible

My last post was a little heavy.

Even though it is raining, I'm feeling OK. This despite the fact that babies and pregnancy haunt me at ever freakin' corner I turn. I'm sure my friend has had her baby on Monday and is healthy, but other than wanting to make sure she herself is OK, I just can't bear the thought of talking about the baby. On top of that, there is a facebook friend that I blocked his staus updates because I just couldn't take the incessant baby talk in his staus feeds, but today I noticed it is a picture of him kissing his newborn. I just can't take it. If I hear about another pregnancy, I will flip my lid. There is an impending delivery of a coworker within the next couple of weeks and that depresses me to no end. It is like everyone in the world is having pregancies that are just fine...and then there is me with my footprints, ashes and stretchmarks as the only proof I was pregnant. My due date is coming up fast: 7/8/09. I should be done with the nursery but instead it sits there, empty and depressed, the only proof it was going to be for a baby is the rocker in the corner and this bottle of diaper rash ointment I just can't bring myself to put away.

This morning I caught the end of this show on Investigation Discovery (my husbands laughs because I love this station). It was about this Amish shooting that occured a few years ago; I do remember it. But this time I am in a different place as I watch it. They say the gunman left a suicide note that referenced that he couldn't get over the death of his daughter (among other things). When they showed his daughter's headstone, it said "Born and Died" on the same date...and my first thought was "that poor man, I know how hard it is to lose your child like that". I never remembered that detail when the shooting occured years ago but it is the only detail I remembered this time...that and the Amish people attended his funeral.

When you lose a baby, and especially when it is a stillborn, life is so hard. A few weeks ago, I went over my friend's for the first time since I lost Luke. She has two girls, one 10 and one 3. Well, apparently there was no 'talk' about what happened to me...the last time they saw me, I was visibly pregnant. And her 3 yr old gets this look in her eye and says "You have a baby in your belly?" and pats my belly...and I say "No, no baby in my belly anymore". I don't know what to say more than that...is it really my place to explain how horrible and cruel life can really be? But, God, she WOULD NOT drop it. "You have a baby in your belly", "You have a baby in your belly?" and patting my stomach. And I have to take it, I have to stay strong. You say to yourself: "It is a child, they say anything, you can't hold it against them". And I agree. But my friend admitted she hadn't said anything to them about it. How about that, I say to you. So think about it, put yourself in my shoes and say you wouldn't be upset? Try to hold it together and see how easy it is...and then have to go out for the evening after that, and suck it up...and listen to her talk to you about her pregnant sister.

Going back in time

Can you believe that when we were in High School, you expected in your future that you'd be getting everything your parents had, or if that situation was bad, you would have a better situation than them. You knew you'd have the husband/wife, the dream house and then, kids. Kids seemed inevitable---you spent most of your teens avoiding getting yourself--or someone else--pregnant. Your whole life was spent getting as much as you could, but preventing a baby at all costs.

Fast forward past HS, college, dating, marriage and house (or some sort of place you live). Then you decide to have a child--whether by choice or purely by accident. This is where my blog picks up: 2008--kid time!

My husband is paranoid about this blog. He wants to use fake names--fine then. I will name him Johnny. I have an infatuation with the name Johnny that goes back several years.

Johnny and I had gone back and forth about kids. He actually wanted them way way before I even entertained the idea. My parents had kids when I was 12 and 14 respectively--I was an oopsie with a different father than my sisters. So, I had enough of kids with the incessant babysitting I did.

But a funny thing happens when you get older. You suddenly feel like a creepy old person going to the Museum of Science, or aquarium, and look on jealously as other parents tote their little ones around. You envision what you would say if that was your kid, and your child gazing at you through your eyes, or eyes that look like your husband's, in wonder as you explain the universe to them. Yes, I know, the reality is you are chasing the kid around while they drip drool and snot incessantly all over everything, and constantly wondering "What is that smell" as you sniff their bottom. But I can still dream, can't I? Oh, I mean the wonder thing, not the butt sniffing thing.

So in July of 2008, Johnny and I decided to toss the Pill out the window and let fate take control.

More to come...