What I am really.

I love you all for saying how strong I am. I really do. But guess what? I am not strong. I am nothing amazing or extraordinary. I think sometimes people say I'm strong so they don't feel bad when they think about me. "Oh she's been through a lot, but she's strong." No, I'm not. I'm just a mom who lost her baby.

Many times I wish I was dead, in heaven with him. I would never hurt myself. I don't think suicide is an answer to all this, but I do wish at times that I was with him. And his sibling. I do not know what would have happened, had they both lived. But I think about them both every day. And wish I could turn back time. No matter what I did, nothing made a difference in the outcome. I never delivered a healthy baby. And now I have to live with the past, something that I think of every day when I wake up and every day when I go to sleep.

The first two weeks after his death I existed with the help of valium. Now I have xanax during really rough days. Some days, not very often but some, I indulge in alcohol. It seems the best way to get by is by being numb. The number the better. Oh, what a shitty mother I am! What a horrible wife, a terrible person! And why? Because I admit what I am? Admit my weaknesses, my faults? To do something awful in order to get by? So be it. I care not what others think anymore. I just need to get by for now until all that is raw and painful is dull. To be able to continue to fake it until I can make it. To pretend what has happened is not on the edge of every waking moment of every day. Because right now, he is there, in my thoughts, my dreams, my tears, my anger, my frustrations. And trying to be a wife and mother have been the most difficult things I've ever undertaken before. Trying to be something for everyone when I feel less than whole. And to try not resenting those demands.

So here it is, raw and in your face. This is what a family looks like a few hours after giving birth to a still born. The result of learning of the death, going through labor and then the aftermath. This is what loss looks like, what marital strife is, what the ultimate worst nightmare is for parents to experience. I am not strong. I am merely working to continue to exist right now.

Even in my sleep

As I've mentioned numerous times, I take sleep aids at night and have been for many years. Chronic insomnia is nothing to sneeze at. Some nights I fall asleep immediately and some nights it takes me an hour or more to finally wander my way into la-la land. Usually it depends on how empty my stomach is, which is a great incentive to not eat heavy suppers or have snacks late in the evening.

This morning while dropping off my daughter at daycare, I tried to recall what I had done before falling asleep last night. I remember our new "baby", the pit bull puppy, cuddling up to me on the bed. She often has her muzzle resting on my hip or leg during the night and I wondered if this was just a Zelda thing or a pit bull thing. So I Googled something to the effect of "are pit bulls always cuddly" on the Ipad. That's the last thing I remember until my daughter woke up crying, again, and crawled into bed with me.

I found time to take a nice soak in the bath today and decided to read a book on my Kindle app on the Ipad. After entering my PIN, Safari pops up and I see this:

Talk about a slap to the face. No wonder I woke up feeling sad. I guess I was looking for any source of comfort online because the pain is still there. It's still raw and heart-wrenching. I know I've been feeling empty again lately, like my arms are always searching for my baby to hold. I think "he would be X many weeks today if he was alive." He'd be sitting in that double stroller with his sister while we walk the dogs. He'd be cooing and smiling around now.

But he's not here. He's a faint memory to most people now. I don't know if there will ever be any more children. And if there are, will I heal just a little? Or will this pain and sadness still be this intense? Here's to hoping tonight is filled with dreams inspired by the Outlander books or about our upcoming trip to New Orleans. And now I have to cut off this post because a pit bull just crawled on my lap and typing is annoyingly difficult. Until my fingers meet keys again...tschus.