Mother's Day

Today is a tough one, I won't lie. There's just so much to be sad about today: missing Matt's mom who's no longer with us, missing our babies who never got to be with us, and that heartbreaking longing that I battle every day seems to be cutting just a bit deeper.

We're trying to stay distracted and keep our minds occupied with less upsetting things, treating this like just another day. Matt's reading, and I've caught up on my shows for the week, and I have writing and housekeeping to keep me busy for the rest of the day. And yet I still have to call my mom and wish her a happy day and thank her for being awesome.

I received a really touching text message from my Big Sis, saying that she thinks it's appropriate to tell me Happy Mother's Day, that I am and will be a great mom. It made me cry--just typing that is making me tear up all over again--but in the good way. Well, in a mixed-feeling kind of way, really, but mostly good. It definitely feels good to have someone acknowledge my children. I might not have given birth to them or had the opportunity to see or touch them, but that makes them no less real to me. It always helps when other people acknowledge them as real, too.

So here's to the moms out there today, but here's also to the forgotten, those who have lost their moms, and who've lost their children, who are still fighting their own personal hell in the battle to become mothers, and those who have retreated from the battlefield to nurse their wounds and find a way to carry on in the face of shattered dreams. You are not forgotten, and you are not alone.

Good Grief

I'm skipping my great-nephew's 1st birthday party today. I feel bad about it, but not as bad as I know I'd feel if I went. There is no doubt in my mind that if I went I'd end up spending most of the party locked in the bathroom, sobbing my guts out. Because I just cannot deal with babies right now. Not even family babies who I love.

I'm still mystified by how hard and heavy this MC grief has settled back on me. Yes, the anniversary of #2 is coming up, but I got through the anniversary of #1 with only a vague feeling of sadness and wistfulness. Otherwise, I was fine. I have to wonder if this anniversary would be affecting me so deeply if I wasn't so freshly primed for grief by recent events.

Or maybe it's because the second loss hurt so much more than the first one. Don't get me wrong--my first MC was devastating. But I was able to accept it more easily, as if it was simply a due I had to pay before going on to have a family. And I thought that was exactly what I was doing when I got pregnant with #2. When I lost that one too, it felt personal, like a slap in the face, adding insult to injury. I had anger with the second one that I didn't feel with the first. Or maybe it's just that the second pregnancy and MC happened before I got to finish dealing with #1. Who knows?

All I know for certain is that everything feels fresh again, for some reason, like this loss just happened. My eyes constantly burn and my chest constantly aches from all the crying I keep doing. I'm really tired of it, all this grief and sadness and crying. I'm tired of being the girl who brings all the sad stuff to the table. But I'm not allowing myself to stifle it, or ignore it, because that just isn't healthy. I'm allowing myself to feel what I feel, and I'm trying to work through it constructively instead of letting it take over.

Part of that involves reading blogs from the Adoption, Loss & Infertility community (ALI for short). This is helping  a lot (except for when one of said bloggers suddenly gets pregnant and then I can't deal with all of the conflictedness of wanting to be happy for them but being envious and sad for me instead, and all of the fun, fun guilt that that entails; seriously, I had to weed through this list to find blogs by women who weren't currently pregnant or had just had babies, and just in the week since I found the blogs I really like by women in more or less the same boat as me, TWO of them have discovered that they're pregnant. I mean, damn!) and helping me feel less alone and like the universe is picking on me.

It also involves listening to emo music and sad songs to help me connect with the pain and cry it all out. This list from Invisible Mother has some especially sob-inducing songs, particularly the ones by Kellie Cofffey and Avril Lavigne, of all people (since I'm not really a fan of either country music or of Avril). And blogging here, of course. And praying on a deep, intimate level, pouring out my heart to God in total surrender and giving all of my tears and sorrow over to Him.

And I've been thinking about writing a song. I've never written a song before, and I haven't written any poetry in years, and my instrument is a backup instrument that's not really suitable for melodizing, and I sing about as well as the people on American Idol auditions who make you cringe with embarrassment and pity. But in spite of all of this I'm feeling a powerful urge to write a song for my babies. It doesn't have to be good, and I don't have to show it to anybody. But I think I have to do it, and I think I'll get some healing from the process.

Happy Birthday, Aedan. I'm sorry Aunt Jeanie's dealing with all of this on your special day.