Try, Try Again

When you return to life after loss, things are just so very different.  You can't approach your old life the same way.  Because it's not your old life.  It's a brand new one - and you are a brand new you.

Mike and I have been trying to get pregnant again since July.  So far, we have had  no luck.   I feel like my life is broken into two week increments: the two weeks after ovulation, where I live in hope and anticipation, and the two weeks after my period, where I live in disappointment and frustration.  A constant upswing and downswing.   I am trying to be hopeful and to not stress.  

That's what everyone says to a woman trying to have a baby.  "Don't Stress.  Just let it happen."   "It will happen when you least expect it."  Holy, crap, shut up!   Telling me not to stress is like throwing me into the deep end of a swimming pool and telling me not to get wet.  I'm already here.  I'm already soaked to the bone, treading water like mad, and you're standing on the bricks in an evening gown, sipping a glass of chardonnay.   Someone saying those things clearly has no idea what it's like to be in this situation, and I know people are just trying to help, but stop.    Just let me stress.  Let me talk about my frustrations and my fears.  Don't tell me "It will happen when it's the right time."  It was the right time in June 2012.  It was the right time all the way up to February 25, 2013, when it was no longer the right time...and it was just too late.   And please, under any circumstances, don't tell me "Three months isn't that long."  Three months is an eternity when you are trying after loss.  For three months, I have been trying to do something I shouldn't have to even be doing at all.   I should be watching my six month old bounce around on the floor, not trying to have another baby.  Each attempt and each failure is yet one more reminder of what I've lost - and what I still don't have.  I shouldn't be here.

But I am.  I am because I owe it to my daughter to carry on with the life I want and the life I deserve.  More than anything in the world, I want to be the mother of Kenley's little brother or sister.  I want to have a live, healthy baby in my arms whom I can love here on Earth.   A baby I can watch grow.  A baby who will have all the firsts their big sister never would.   A baby who would learn all about the life that came before them.   Kenley made me a mother - and she is also making me into the mother I will be for her siblings.  As much as it pains me to admit it, I will be a better mother because of her. 

A month ago, I stopped the blog because I felt I was caught in a spiral of grief - and I was.  I needed to take time away from repeatedly breaking and re-enter my life as best as I could.   School started, and I got back on that horse as best as I could.  This entry is not necessarily a restart of the blog because I can't guarantee I will continue with the regularity I once did.  But, I need to sort some things out, and that's why this blog exists.  This is a part of my journey.   Grief does not end, but it does change.   It shifts and molds itself into your life, and you carry it with you.   

One of my friends told me this saying in Italian, "Vivere Nella Speranza", which translates to "Live in Hope."   This is what I try to do each and every day.  Hope that life will turn around.   Hope that my broken heart will continue to heal.  Hope that I will get through the day without crying in front of too many people.  Hope that my finances will improve, and that my days may begin to get a little easier.  Hope that my body will remember how to carry a child.  Hope that the universe will see fit to deliver her soundly.  Hope.   And, as I shift my focus from full time grief to hope in trying again, not one second goes by where I do not think of my little girl.  Not one moment passes where I function without her influence.  She will always have her tiny, chubby fingers wrapped around my heart, and she will always steer me through this fragmented life.  

That's all for now, friends.   See you around, until then...

Only for Now

I'm taking a break. Yesterday's post pretty much explained it all. I'll be back. But, for now, I need to focus my efforts on other things. Thank you for always supporting me. See you soon.

 

 

Posted with Blogsy

Enough Now

This post has been a long time coming, but I haven't really realized it until now.  My days have been really tough for me lately, and I have been trying to figure out why.  Some people would tell me it's because school is starting up and that is making me nervous.   Others would say it's the additional stress of Mike trying to find a job, or of wanting to get pregnant again.  I wanted to push it on the Royal Baby or North West.  I wanted to say it was because reality makes grief so heavy.  I wanted to say so many things.  And while all of these things surely haven't helped, it is not the real reason life has been so hard.  

It's because I have been clinging so tightly to something that doesn't belong to me.  I have been running around trying to hold on to a memory - hoping that by clutching it so close to my chest, I might be able to find the joy every other mother has.   But, I'm not every other mother.   I am the mother of a daughter who is dead.   I will never be like every other mother.   I will always be different.  My relationship with my daughter will always be momentary.

I have been shoving her in people's faces.  Every conversation is about her. Almost every facebook post.  Clearly, every blog post.  I am offended when people don't bring her up in conversation.  I have put her at the absolute center of my life and I have been spinning around her like a tornado. Maybe that's what mothers are supposed to do - put their child first - but, again, I am not a run of the mill mother.  I am a mother of loss.  You can't put death on a pedestal.   You can't redirect your life so it revolves around a ghost.  That's why everything is so heavy.   Why I feel like I am being crushed beneath a hundred elephants sitting on a wall of bricks.   It's because I am trying to hold onto something that doesn't belong on this earth.   I need to let her go. 

I need it to be okay to have an afternoon with friends where I don't talk about her.  I need it to be okay to go a few days without writing - without pulling her back to me again and again and again.   I'm not talking about forgetting about her.  I'm not talking about moving on or "getting over it".   I've already made peace with the fact that I will always miss her, always love her with more heart than I have.   What I am saying is that it is no longer healthy for me to continually and consciously focus on her death.  At the beginning, it was necessary in order for me to process what had happened and to learn to deal with my emotions.   Now, it has just become a morbid dance, where I am simply twirling madly in an empty ballroom.  I am like Miss Havisham in Great Expectations who can't take off her wedding dress.   

To illustrate my point, I found a clip from the movie Love, Actually.  Before Keira Knightly swashbuckled with Johnny Depp and Andrew Lincoln became a zombie killer, they played lovers never meant to be in this adorable independent film.  Andrew's character has loved Keira for a long time, but she has just married his best friend.   Watch the clip all the way to the end and then come back.

"Enough, now.  Enough."  he says as he walks away.  He's said what he needs to say.  He has spent enough of his time wishing and hoping for something he can't have - and now it is time for him to focus his efforts elsewhere.  He won't stop loving her, but he will stop pining for her.  He will stop clutching at a dream that isn't his.

Kenley is dead.  I love her with all of my heart.  I will love her until the day I die.  That will never change.   What will change - what has to change - is how I go about loving her.  I can't keep holding her memory so tightly to me.  I can't keep swirling every thought I have around her name.   It's killing me. I can still honor her.  I will honor her by living my life with vigor.  I will honor her by making decisions for my future and not because of my past. 

Long story short, the blog is not going to be my focus.  Not anymore.   I can't do it.  I can't keep dwelling on death.   I love Kenley too much to turn her into a martyr.  She's not a cause.  She's not a blog.  She's not a facebook post.   She is my daughter.    

I have said what I needed to say.  I have written thousands of bloody words with my broken heart and I have come to the end of the page - at least in this book.   As time goes on, as life goes on, there may be more I need to say.  I'll still post if I feel a major change in myself I need to document.  When I get pregnant again, I am sure I'll need to revisit my old stomping grounds to keep myself sane.  I'll probably update every now and then when I finish a fun project or work on a charity event.  The blog will continue, just not in the same manner is has been.  I will no longer center my life around these words, around my grief, and around her death.

I have to open up my palm and let that pink balloon float away into the bright and beautiful sky.  Fly High, Little Ninja.  Fly High.