Sometimes I hate everything about myself. This is one of those moments. I can't find a single redeeming quality...I'm torn between wanting to talk to someone to feel better and wanting to bury myself, hide away, for I can't be seen feeling so horribly, knowing that any comfort would be pity or lies. I don't know why anyone would want to be around me. I just feel ashamed about everything that I am. There's no event to cause it, just what I feel like might be a glimpse at my true self. I don't want to be around me. Why would anyone else?

Help

How long does the grieving process take? Lately I keep becoming overwhelmed by emotions and grief I didn't even realize were still there. I'm sure lately it's been worse since I should be holding him right now, but I would really like to go a day without suddenly feeling like all my air has been sucked out, leaving me shocked and devastated. I thought that would have stopped by now.
I'm thinking that maybe I should read C.S. Lewis' A Grief Observed. I've read it before, but that was simply because I wanted to read it. Maybe now I could get help from it?
I don't know... I almost feel ridiculous for the way I'm feeling, and at the same time I feel like I'm betraying myself and my child for even saying that. Every emotion imaginable is swirling through my body and mind like a hormonal hurricane and I hate it. I don't know what to feel.
I don't know what I SHOULD feel.
I need help and no matter how much I pray I don't feel like I'm getting it. I feel like God is ignoring me. Every time I pray, I end it begging for help. And I feel alone.

Suckfest.

So, I should be holding my baby now. Instead, my body decided to horrifically remind me of how childless I am, by my period being just late enough to give me hope, and then showing up with the worst cramps I have had in longer than I can remember. As a result, I've been extremely emotional and crabby this week.

YOLO

I hate it when people use the term YOLO (you only live once) as an excuse to be stupid and irresponsible. You only get one chance, one life, and I get the idea of wanting to live life to its fullest because of that. However, more so, I see it as a reason to be smart with what time you have. Have fun, spend time with the people you love, but don't damage the body you have in the process. My body is rapidly deteriorating even thought I haven't filled it with drugs and years of unsafe sex. I just drew the short straw genetically. Because of that, I see a need to take care of myself and be safe and healthy.

I had a conversation with my husband the other day that went like this:
"Geeze, if you're this bad off [health-wise] at 26, what are you going to be like at 50?"
"Dead."

I don't say that to be pessimistic, I just honestly believe I don't have a long life ahead of me. To me, it's just a fact, since I was a young teenager. My body is either going to completely fail or I will have some sort of weird accident...I'm not known for my grace.  And I'm ok with that. I know where I'm going when I die. Yes, I would like to live a long, happy life with my husband, to have children and watch them grow up. However, my chances of having children are extremely low, and each year that goes by without a living child, my chances decrease even more. I'm not ok with that. I always thought I was born to be a mother. Now I don't know. I do feel pretty confident that I am mid-life though. A lot of people my age are having the "quarter life crisis" trying to figure out what to do with our educations and trying to find a job, stuck in a weird place of not being a child anymore, but not feeling entirely like an adult either. Mentally, I still think of myself as being quite young. Physically though, I feel like I am in my sixties. Ryan has jokingly called me his "grandma wife." That strange contrast of being both young and old is confusing for my brain. I feel bad that Ryan got stuck with me. He should have somebody healthy and able-bodied.
I feel both guilty and horrified by my body. Which, I know it isn't my fault that I am this way. But it seems unfair. To both of us. Psalm 139:14 says that I was fearfully and wonderfully made. I don't feel entirely wonderfully made...sometimes I think God just ran out of glue when he was putting me together and settled for tape which is quickly losing its adhesive abilities. I know this is just Satan trying to pull me down, because I made a conscious choice to be joyful, and he is trying to prove that he's stronger than me. I may be weak, but God is strong. He is strong enough for me even when I am crumbling against my own weakness. I know that he chose to give me this body for a reason, I just don't know what it is. I'm trying to keep faith, believing that someday I will understand his purposes. In the meantime, I spend a lot of time feeling like I am beating on a very thick door, calling to Him, wondering if He is listening or can even hear me. He hears me. He is on the other side, he's just saying "Not now."

And to quote George RR Martin:
What is the one thing we say to Death?
Not today.


I've only got one life, but I still have more time. I intend to spend that time appropriately.
It's not time for me to go Home yet.

Choice

Lately I have been making the conscious decision to choose joy. In my prayers, I ask for change in myself rather than change happening around me. I pray for a change in my responses and in the type of person I am. I am choosing to forgive God for not allowing me to have my child, even though I am still incredibly hurt and confused. I am choosing to trust in Him, that He has a great plan for me.
Then Satan tries to discourage me. Tries to make me worry about everyone that I love. Tries to defeat me by reminding me of how my body is completely failing and can't seem to do anything the way it should. Tries to bring me down and make me doubt.
But I have a choice. I have free will. And I choose the words "In the name of Jesus Christ, any evil must flee- it is not welcome here." And in those words I have the power. Satan can't have me. Evil can't harm me. Despite all that is wrong in my life, and despite all my disappointments...
I. Choose. Joy.

OCD and Mother's Day

I am just going to spill my guts out here and admit things I haven't before because I need to be honest with myself.

I've been noticing ticks and compulsions that are becoming worse lately. I have to wash my hands twice now. I've been an obsessive hand washer for years, but it was an issue of frequency, not quantity. Now it is both. I wash my hands often and twice each time. And if I'm not paying close enough attention, I have to wash them again, just in case I only washed once. I prefer hot water even though cold feels better. I don't feel like my hands actually get clean in cold water. So I have actually burned my hands and they are almost always raw with cuts or sores from over washing/temperature. I will often notice a word or phrase repeating over and over in my head that I am only partially aware of. I am obsessed with symmetry, especially on myself. If  I get hit on one side, I need to feel the same pain on the other side, so I will hit myself to even it out, because most of the time, it freaks people out when I ask them to hit me so I can feel symmetrical. People think I am ridiculous because my house is rarely clean when I am so obsessed with cleanliness. A large part of that is when I can't get something exactly how I want it, I give up.
I saw a post the other day about postpartum depression, which I have heard of, but it also talked about postpartum OCD. People don't really discuss these things with regard to a miscarriage, which is strange to me. A woman who has lost her child has all the hormonal imbalance problems, but also the grief that comes with that loss. It seems like people don't really give credit to the horrific grief that comes with a miscarriage and it is often brushed aside like it's not that big of a deal. As though because my baby was young and small it was less significant to me. As a pregnant woman, you begin making plans for the future. Your thoughts revolve around your baby and the plans you have for that child. Your body starts to change and so do you. Then one day it is all ripped away. You have to cancel your plans. The life that was inside you is just gone. As time goes on you may think about the things that should have been happening, what your child would have been like if he was with you. How is that not a big deal? How could anyone think that your entire life wouldn't change going through this?

I will never have the excitement, joy or innocence that comes with pregnancy, since my first pregnancy did not result in having my baby. If/when I become pregnant again, I will not be able to just jump to excitement and planning. I will constantly be concerned about my child's well being until I can actually hold them in my arms. Lately I have been thinking a lot about something that happened a few years ago...I had a really horrible period that involved a lot of clots, which had never happened before and hasn't happened since. At the time, I feared a miscarriage, and now I feel quite certain that it was. I try not to think about it too much, since at the time I had no suspicions of pregnancy and thus no connection to that child. So why does it bother me now? Because if it's true, then my body has so far been unable to produce living children. And what if all my babies die?

The past week or so has been especially difficult for me. At first, I just felt extremely depressed; I couldn't focus, I didn't want to eat, I was overwhelmingly tired, nothing seemed to be good. I would randomly start crying, but I find it embarrassing for others to see me cry, so I held it in, which just made the feelings worse. I am somebody who, when needing to cry, just needs to let it out, and with the release of tears, I also feel the release of pain. But if I bottle it up, it's like trying to fit too many things in a suitcase. You can make it work...temporarily. Eventually though, the zipper is going to break and everything will fall out and it is a much bigger disaster than if you had just split things up appropriately the first time around. I couldn't place my finger on what was causing it until my mom asked me if it was about Mother's Day. I hadn't consciously made that connection until she suggested it, but I do believe that subconsciously I had realized it was coming up. I was supposed to be about two-thirds through a pregnancy right now. I was supposed to be able to celebrate Mother's Day as a mother. Instead of it being a joyous day, I came to the realization that I am a mother. To a dead child.

.

Maybe anyone reading this feels that I am being overly dramatic, but I don't care. I am not writing for other people, I am writing to get these words and feelings out of me and onto "paper." Once I hit that "publish" button, I am done with whatever is currently eating at me and I can go from there and stop focusing so severely on this. 


I am getting to the point where I think I can handle this. I go the majority of the day without thinking about it. And then a wave of horrible sadness washes over me, threatening to drag me out to sea where I will be eaten alive. I haven't been speaking to God either. That wasn't a conscious choice, just something that sort of happened, just like when a friend does something hurtful, you instinctively begin to avoid them. I didn't even realize that I'd been avoiding Him until very recently. And when I do talk to Him, it feels awkward. I feel like I don't know what to say. Deep down, I know I can still trust Him and that He is there waiting for me to come back, but right now, it just doesn't feel right. I feel like any prayer is going to feel forced and possibly disingenuous, like I'm just saying the words because that's what I am supposed to say, and is that really praying? Essentially the "nod and smile" version of prayer.
I know there was something wrong with my baby, but I still have moments of blaming myself. I had 3 ultrasounds and at each one they said the baby was six and a half weeks old by size, but over eleven weeks by dating. He wasn't growing. The doctor told me that there was a chromosomal problem and nothing I could have done would have changed that. And that once you see a heartbeat, there's only a five percent chance of miscarrying. Clearly something was wrong. But I don't think it is fair, and I become overwhelmingly sad when I think about the life that was growing inside me and that now I am just empty, void. I went into labor, which was absolutely horrific pain, and after being given anesthesia, my body delivered an unbelievably tiny, dead baby. I could have handled that pain knowing something joyful was on the other end, but knowing that what was causing it was so horrific, it just shattered my heart further.
I don't want to cry anymore, I just want to move on. I want my body to get back to normal, and I want to be able to comfortably talk to God again.

Will I praise You in this storm?

Since Wendesday, I have had Casting Crown's "Praise You in This Storm" stuck in my head. It has been playing over and over and I have been fighting it, because I don't feel like I can sing those words yet and mean them. The line that is killing me is "I will raise my hands and praise the God who gives and takes away." I will praise Him, but not for this, because I don't understand why He would give me the one thing I have always wanted just to take it back.

I love God, and I trust Him wholly, but I do not understand Him. I am upset with  Him. He gave me a miracle and then took it back and it isn't fair. I am feeling slightly numb right now, which is good, because it at least temporarily masks all the horrible things I am feeling. I am devastated, heartbroken, angry, confused. I was told I couldn't have babies without help and then to my delight I found out I was pregnant. From the beginning, there were complications, but I had faith that God would keep my baby healthy and growing. I told Him that I would go on bedrest even though it would make me insane if He would just let me keep my baby. For whatever reason, He decided that it wasn't going to be and He took my blessing back. And I can't help but be furious that there are people who never wanted babies that have them, teenage girls who have no right to have babies, people who do horrible things to their children. It doesn't make sense. I did things right, I was responsible and I waited for my husband and I don't get my baby. I am angry at everyone who has babies...which I know isn't fair to them, but all I have ever wanted is to be a mommy; I finally had that within my sight and that hope and joy is gone.  I know that God has His reasons, but that doesn't mean that I can be happy or even accept this yet.

I know this will be a long, difficult healing process, and because of the physical damage as well as emotional it is even more arduous because it makes it impossible to distract myself. The pain I have felt during this time has been at times more than I feel I can handle....physically and emotionally, I have never hurt so badly. And while I know the solution is, "turn it over to God", I have a hard time turning it over because I feel like He is the one who caused this pain, which to me is so needless and cruel. Logically I can recognize that there is a reason, and everyone keeps telling me that, but it doesn't make it hurt less. They say you can try again...I don't want to try again, I wanted this baby. The only thing I have found so far besides my family that gives me comfort is a bible verse. "He shall live forever and see no corruption or decay." My baby is with God, someday I will meet him and he will never have to have known the cruelty of the world, and he will not have had to deal with horrible physical pain which perhaps he would have, had he lived.

I have faith that someday I won't be so angry and that it won't always hurt so much. I am trying to believe that one day I will hold a baby of my own. I do worry though, what if He chooses not to let me have that? Would He be so cruel? I had come to accept that maybe I couldn't have children and had decided to adopt if that was the case...but now, having had that too slight, too brief taste of motherhood, I don't think I could be ok to not have it. I am trying so hard to trust God and know that He means well and has plans for me that I can't even imagine yet, but in this darkness I struggle to see a dawn, even a very distant one.