I wish I'd held her

I remember her
Her little body looked like it was made of glass. I was afraid to touch her. They urged me to go, to pick her up, to rock her body and hold it close to mine, but I shook my head.
I didn't want to touch her
Her tiny hands were balled up into fists, her face pale.
She was tiny. God, was she tiny. And lifeless and harmless and helpless.
I wish I'd touched her
I wish, when I'd had the chance, I'd kissed her head. I wish I'd touched her fists.
I wish I hadn't been afraid. Everyone else in the room held her, touched her, cried over her, but I didn't.
Tomorrow I'm getting my memorial tattoo, a permanent reminder of my girl. Also of the person I've become since she died.
I watched a video today about stillbirth and cried.
I wish I'd held her.

For baby Emily (And her mama)

My friend lost her baby this morning. Her husband emailed me this morning. If anyone should deserve to be rewarded with a happy newborn, its this girl. I'm still not convinced she's not superwoman.
She named the baby after me.
Sweet baby Emily, I want you to know you are loved. So so loved. Your tiny life mattered. Your days were predetermined and your life fits into His great plan.

What's new

I haven't slept in days.
I went to bed early last night only to play Angry Birds on my phone and toss and turn until well after midnight.
The insomnia is new.
Unfortunately the hole in my chest is not new. The feeling like I am breaking apart, that's not new.
Seeing her in the faces of everyone I meet, that's new.
Staring at walls for hours on end and walking into rooms and forgetting what I came there for, that's new.
Wearing the same shirt for days on end, that's not new.
The pile of unwashed dishes in my sink is new, and the laundry that I haven't done in days.
What's not new is the way my heart stops... and then starts again every time I think of her. It's just for a moment, not very noticeable to anyone but me, and only when I'm paying attention.
The self destruction is new. Or just back now after an absence.
Feeling like I don't want to breathe, that I don't want this to be my life, that's not new.

Saying goodbye

Today was hard...
Sometimes these days come out of nowhere and they hit you over the head, unexpected like. It's easy to forget what these days feel like.
Its not like I'm hysterical or that I find it impossible to get out of bed today, I just feel heavy. It's hard to explain.
This morning I went to the bus station and said goodbye to some good friends of mine who are leaving on a trip. A trip Cam and Amelia and I were supposed to be on. But Cam is dead and Amelia is dead and I'm not going. and that sucks.
With everything in me I want to go but with everything in me I want to go under normal circumstances. I want to go with Cam and with my baby girl.
So as I said goodbye to my friends today, I stood there with tears streaming down my cheeks, not at all anticipating how hard this was going to be. Standing there with my backpack, that should have been me. I should have had Mia on my hip, her favorite blanket and pacifier in my backpack. I should be wondering about whether or not she'll sleep through most of the long bus ride. Instead I don't get to worry about any of those things and to me, today, that seems unspeakably cruel.
***
I'm leaving in a week, for a vacation to the ocean. I thought I knew where I wanted to scatter Mia's ashes but lately the idea of taking them with me and scattering them in the ocean sounds more and more like what I want to do. I'm not sure if I'll do it yet. I'm not even sure if I'll pack the little jar containing her ashes in my suitcase, squished between my sundress and my bathing suit. But I'm open to the possibility. The idea of letting go doesn't sound as unbearable as it did in those early days, 10 months ago.
***
Sometimes I wonder what I'm doing. I tend to get that feeling when I write here, which is why I was avoiding it for quite some time. I thought I was ready today but as I stare at this page and everything I've written I wonder if I am. Reading it all, it makes me feel so incomplete. lacking. like a liar because I write all these extravagant things and I write thoughtfully and in the end its simple.
I'm just a girl who lost her baby.

Right Where I'm at 2013 - 9 months 3 weeks and 3 days

I know this is a bit late. I know other baby loss mama's and daddy's are done this post and maybe no one even cares what I have to say anymore.
After all, it is early July and the sun is shining and melting away the remains of winter on my heart. It is a season for beaches and eating raspberries from the pail and bare feet.
And yet, when I left this blog for a time, back when I was only beginning to see signs of spring in my heart, I was asked by a dear friend of mine to return every once in a while.
So I'm making good on my promise and returning (Though no promises on how long I'll stay, Jen!)
***
It's July and even though it's sunny and flowers are popping up out of the garden in my backyard, today is not sunny. Today it is raining and windy and I spent the day in bed with a good book; a book about loss, love and two woman. One is a mother who lost her son, the other a woman whose husband left her. I can relate to both of these women. I am both of these women. My daughter is dead and my lover is gone and I am the shadows of these women.
When I started this post, preparing to title it, I wrote down 8 months. It took me a minute before I realize it's been nine months, will be ten in six days. Has it really been that long without her? How have I gotten from there (a grieving, sobbing, hysterical woman who wouldn't get up off the bedroom floor) to here (a somewhat less hysterical but still grieving woman who wanders through life but still periodically returns to the bedroom floor). I don't understand how its been this long. It feels like just yesterday and also like forever ago and I know this is cliché to say. Its supposed to feel like this, I think, its time. And yet I am still stuck in a state of disbelief.
***
I haven't scattered her ashes yet, in case you're wondering. I thought about it. I know where I want them to be. I feel more ready than I did a few months ago, when I first considered the idea. I have everything all planned out, which feels vaguely morbid. And yet something doesn't feel quite right and so her ashes continue to sit on my shelf in a little jar tied with a pretty pink ribbon.
***
I talked to her last night. In my busy life its so easy to push past it, to nod to her presence as I run past her memory, doing what needs to be done. Its easy to say, "Good girl. Good Mia. Good staying still and being quiet while Mommy gets her work done." But in the last few days the missing her has become something fierce and so I will sit and acknowledge her. So I was talking to her last night and I was asking her things like why she is here and who she was and why me.
I don't think I have all the answers yet. She doesn't seem to want to answer me and I can picture her in my head, a spicy little girl, giving me the silent treatment. But I believe she came to me for a reason: to teach me about love, and to help me find my voice, and also to help me learn to live again. Maybe its just me but I think my dead daughter saved my life.
***
It will be 10 months soon. 10! double digits! I am approaching it carefully, like I imagined I would approach her tenth birthday, with a great deal of nostalgia and wistful longing. And while I am excited for 10 months, then 11, for the first year to finally be over, I am content to sit in this single digit stage for just a little while longer.
I love you, my sweet.
***
And that's where I am today. I'm doing ok. I'm speaking my truth, even when its hard, something my daughter taught me, and her father. I'm telling her story and his story and my story, and how they all intersected, and talking about life and love and connection to groups of people. I haven't gone far yet, but I hope to. Some days, after sharing her story, I am so exhausted. I run a warm bath and step into it and think about everything. I don't feel worthy of love, of her story, of his story, of my story. And even if I say it a million times it won't bring back my loves. Their legacy isn't in my story, but in me. I am the monument of their lives. And so I will live and love and speak for them. They are woven into the fabric of my being and I have to trust that.
There's dinner to be made tonight and laundry to be done and a house to be cleaned for my brother's birthday tomorrow. But I think I'll sit here for just a moment longer and read about a mother who lost her son and a woman who lost her lover, and find myself woven into the pattern of them.
We are all connected.

My Girl

I was watching My Girl in the hospital.
I was a strange mix between being tired and being emotional.
They'd just given me the medicine to start my contractions (so I could give birth to my dead daughter) and I was convinced it wasn't going to work (In that moment, as in most of my pregnancy after I found out Mia was sick and would die, I just wanted it to be over with.)
"You need to give me more," I cried to the nurse, unsure of why I was crying. I was wrapped up in some of those blankets from the warmers. I had an IV in my left arm, medicine that was supposed to help me give birth to my dead daughter flowing into me.
"You're fine," The nurse assured me, "Just try to relax, darling. Labor will start before you know it."
But I wasn't convinced. I was hysterical. More, I needed more.
I just wanted her out, just wanted this nightmare to be over. I was terrified of the idea that the medicine meant to induce labor wouldn't work.
I kept trying to get up out of bed and go somewhere (I'm not really sure where). I kept asking for more medicine, kept hysterically sobbing and telling the nurse it wasn't going to work.
In the end, I did end up needing more medicine.
In the end, I got an epidural. I pushed and screamed and cried, the warm blanket that was quickly losing its heat wrapped under me, stuck to my back with sweat.
And there she was, so tiny, so fragile, so perfect.
This wasn't what I wanted. I didn't want a dead baby. In that moment I would have done anything to put her back inside me, where she belonged, where she was safe and alive.
All the while the closing song from My Girl played from the TV screen in the corner of the hospital room. I don't even know how it was still on, but it was.

My Girl, My Girl, My Girl.

Hatred and Loneliness

Someone I know is having a baby. I woke up one morning, checked social media, and saw status updates from my friends about someone having died, a little one having passed on. Immediately my breath got stuck in my throat. Had something happened to my friend's baby?
It turns out there was another little boy in our community who drown.
I hate that I live in a world where babies die.
***
I came home from work today, exhausted. I barely made it into the house before I was hit with a wave of nausea. I stumbled to the couch and lay there, sipping on water and chewing crackers until the urge to vomit passed. But as I was lying there, I thought about how much it felt like the morning sickness I'd had with Mia. All of a sudden I was bawling on the couch, gagging over a bucket, screaming for my little girl. Because this moment, being so sick I could barely move, it reminded me of her.
I hate that the one thing that reminds me of her is sickness.
***
I got an email today from an old friend of mine. I haven't seen him since pre pregnancy, pre Mia, pre becoming a dead baby mama. So he sent me this nice, chatty email apologising for the lack of communication, asking how I was and how my Easter was.
What do I say to him?
Do I tell him about Mia? If I did, would that make me seem like I wanted pity? How would my friend respond to hearing about my dead baby? When he asked how I was, did he really want to know how I was or did he just want a glossed over, 'fine' answer?
Do I not mention Mia? Would not mentioning her feel like lying betrayal? I could just say I'm fine, but that, of course, would be a lie, but how do you tell someone you doesn't even know you were pregnant, and had a stillbirth, that life sucks so much some days I can't even get out of bed without sounding like a suicidal nut case?
I hate that I have to think about these things now.
***
I'm numbing the pain with too much to drink, not enough to eat and countless hours spent in front of the TV watching TV shows on DVD. It's not a permanent fix, I know that, but I don't know what else to do right now. Feeling hurts too much...

On Monday, I had a rather upsetting conversation with my friend. She basically told me that losing Mia was preventable (It wasn't, the doctors have assured me, there was nothing Cam nor I did that caused her medical conditions and, ultimately, her death, though that doesn't stop the guilt from washing over me) and she told me if I wanted to have any chance at a future and becoming a powerful, strong, inspiring woman I needed to get over my daughter's death.
What the hell?!?!
I wish I would have been witty that day, coming back with a sharp, sarcastic remark.
Instead I went home, locked myself in my room and cried. I got snot all over my pillow and my eyes were red and puffy and my hair was messy from raking my hands through it as I screamed and I looked more like a zombie and less like an actual human.
I hate that I have to deal with people like this, and especially hearing this stuff come from people I thought supported me and were there for me.
I hate that everything I feel hurts and I just want to run away from my life
I hate that this is my life

If you wanna leave a comment in response to my baby loss angst and venting, tell me what you would do in regards to my friend who sent me the email. Tell me the ways you numb yourself (or if you do...), tell me what you would have said to this 'friend' of mine who said those rude things about my daughters death (in case I decide to send her a strongly worded email). Tell me about you, and how you've been doing. What makes you miss your babies? What makes you burn up with anger and hatred?
Or just talk to me... cause I've been feeling a little lonely now that I'm here all by myself.

It should have been different...

I've written here before (I think) about how a friend of mine has a baby girl who was born only a few days before I lost Mia.
I am in love with my friend's daughter. While every milestone baby S reaches is a reminder of the milestones Mia will never reach, it also feels like an honor to get to watch baby S grow up and have that physical reminder.
So, last night, I offered to watch baby S so her mama and daddy could go out.
Our evening was full of fun, including a poopy diaper (Which went everywhere, including all up her back and on her feet and on me) and a leaking bottle (Spilling milk all down her and all over me)
At bed time, I took baby S into a dark room, and held her to my chest as we walked back and forth across the floor.
I let myself imagine, for a minute, that I wasn't holding baby S, but Mia.
I imagined that I wasn't waiting for her parents to come home, but for Cam to come home from a night out.
I closed my eyes and breathed in the baby scent and imagined Mia was here.
I absolutely love my friend's daughter. I am the best non-official auntie ever. And I've promised to go with her mom to take her for her first pedicure and I want to be the one who teaches her how to drive in an empty grocery store parking lot and maybe take her to get her ears pierced or her first tattoo.
Because we should have been doing that together, little S and her mama and Mia and me.
And instead of hiding under my covers because I don't get to do those things with my daughter, I want to do those things, to honor my daughter.
It just hurts so much sometimes because she should have been here.
Things should have been different
But they're not
and it sucks

7 Months

I imagine she would look like me, with blonde curls and wide eyes full of curiosity.
She would have my tender heart and her daddy's tough spirit. She would be reckless and dangerous, just like her father, which would give her mother a heart attack.
She would have the best giggle, and her smile would light up a room.
She would be a daddy's girl, with a soft spot for her mama.
She would be stubborn and opinionated but with a charm that got her out of any trouble, just like her daddy had.
She would be able to melt my heart.
She would be my world.
Cam would walk with her when she cried, colicky during the night, letting me sleep between feedings. His eyes would be bloodshot when I found him in the morning, but she would be sleeping on his chest, and he would have a smile on his face.
We would live in a little trailer, barely scraping by, but living off of love.
I can't imagine my life being more complete than it would be if I was with them.


But here's the thing, I'm not with them. For 7 long months I haven't been waking up for midnight feedings or holding our girl or watching her grow up in front of my eyes and seeing she has a great dislike for green beans but loves mixed berries. My acts of parenting have been reduced to these: sobbing into my pillow in the wee hours of the morning, her ashes sitting on my bookshelf. I held her once (for a few minutes) and I dressed her (In an outfit that was much too big for her tiny body, as we never expected her to be born so small) and we burned her (ashes to ashes, dust to dust) and I cried (all I know of her is grief)
And here's the crazy thing, I wouldn't take any of it back. I wouldn't trade any of the tears or the pain because those few moments I got with her (that didn't seem long enough), they were magical.
It's 7 months out and this time around I felt like my body remembered before my mind did. Usually it's the other way around. Usually this date is marked on my calendar, the only day unscheduled, and when the day comes I sit for it, upright, tall, perfect posture, taking a warrior position as if I can fight against the emotional pain that comes along with this day.
I grew tired and cried when I was in the shower or in bed or watching TV or just sitting on the couch. I felt like I was walking around with the flu, though I'm not sick.
And then today came...
My first anniversary alone...
I don't know how this is supposed to work... I'm sitting here, chewing on my lip, trying to decide what to do (I've been terribly indecisive as well, standing in front of the open fridge for nearly half an hour before deciding I want take out), wondering how I am supposed to deal with this day.
I'm not there to hold my girl or kiss her face or watch her grow up.
He's not here to share it with me, to hold me while I cry, to remember her too
So I do the only thing I know how to do
I let the tears fall (Grief is all I have left of them) and I pull her ashes out from behind the stack of books I'd purposefully set there so I didn't have to look at them every day and remember what I lost, and I turn on some music and order that takeout and turn off the phone
And then I fall onto my bed and have a good cry

I miss you, sweet Mia girl. I love you. Happy 7 month birthday

Thoughts on Missing my Mia

I miss my baby.
I want to write about something else, something important, something about my life, maybe, or my other relationships, a poem or a song... something!
But all I can think about is her, missing her.

I was reading a book yesterday and one of the lines hit me. It said, "I lost something I never knew I needed." In the book, she was talking about her mother who died when she was a baby.
But I lost something I never knew I needed, too
I never knew how much I would miss Mia
I never knew how much I would miss having faith in my body (Now I can only stare at this lump of flesh with a look of pure betrayal.)
I never knew how much I would miss that blind hope, that innocence, that naive nature that comes from living in a world where babies don't die.
I lost something I never knew I needed. I never knew I needed her. But now that she's gone my heart is empty.
***
Yesterday I got to be alone. Cam (Mia's daddy) went out and left me in the house alone to do whatever I wanted.
My first reaction was, "Oh my goodness, what the heck am I going to do? I'm on my own. I can do anything I want. There's nothing that I have to do. Don't leave me!"
Early yesterday morning a friend of ours came by the house. He was collecting bottles for a road trip he and some other friends were planning for this summer. It was a road trip Cam and I were supposed to go on, our baby between us in the back seat. After I lost Mia I didn't even want to think about going anywhere, especially not a trip I had planned to go on with my baby. So this friend came by, and I am so thankful Cam was still home. I hid in our room. I know, it wasn't the mature, adult thing to do but I did it anyway. Cam talked to him, handed him our bottles and sent him on his way.
I don't feel like I wish I was still going. I can't imagine going, actually. It just makes me wish Mia was still alive, that I was able to do those things, that I felt like I could get up and go on a roadtrip.
Cam left and I had the house to myself. Despite my panic attack earlier, the silence wasn't as bad as I had expected.
I had a nap (Glorious!) and did some laundry, and I dug into a new book (the one I mentioned above) and I missed Mia.
***
I tell myself I'm going to be fine. Some moments I even believe it. There had to have been a reason Mia left us so soon, and while I don't understand why I have to believe there's a reason. I throw myself into growing and patching up the broken places and I tell my story - Mia's story - and people tell me things about how strong I am and how I survived the unthinkable and all this beautiful stuff and I think maybe - just maybe - something good can come from this tragedy and I can use my story to inspire others, to do something good, to make Mia's life (and death) matter.
Other days I'm a ball on the floor. My heart aches with the longing for my baby. I wail and groan and flail around. I scream at anyone who will listen how this isn't fair.
Because it's not fair.
Because Mia should be here with me.
Because this shouldn't have happened to someone like me.
I miss her today. I missed her when all my friends were talking about their roadtrip. I missed her when a girl I know announced she was pregnant, and bleeding. She was going in for more tests to try and figure out why she was bleeding, and if she was losing the baby. And while I feel for her, and I don't want her to go through this I got mad. I wrung my hands and tried to count to 10. A part of me feels like I want to be the only one with a dead baby. No, you can't have a dead baby, it's mine! And I know that's selfish, and mean, and hateful, but as I sat there with all my grief and heard friends say they will be thinking about and praying for this friend and her baby I wanted to scream, "What about my baby?!?" I missed her when I was going through the motions of normalcy, and in that moment when someone mentioned something and I got a little spooked and made a mad dash for the restroom, tripping over my heels.
I missed her today. I missed her everytime I took a breath, and when I held my friend's daughter who would have been the same age as Mia.
I missed her.
I miss you Mia.
***
How are you? And what are your thoughts on missing? Does it get any easier?

Release

It's been a while since I last posted.
I've been running from baby loss blogs, running from the voice in my head that says, "No, no, no, no, no, don't torture yourself!" that comes up whenever I read these blogs.
I've been running from the feeling that says I have to remember every single painful detail, and also running from the feeling that says I must forget every single detail.
There are moments though, sometimes for a second per day, sometimes longer, and these moments are peaceful. I can sit with the memory of what happened and not obsess over not taking enough pictures of Mia, or comparing my loss to that of other baby loss mama's or thinking I am absolutely insane. There are these moments that are so peaceful and all of a sudden all these other things don't matter and I can just sit with the memory of my baby.
***
I'm a week past 5 months and I am in awe that I made it this far. On the 5 month anniversary of losing Mia, I sobbed like I haven't before. I was sitting in church and I was thinking I was going to be fine. There was only one little part left, I hadn't cried yet, I would be good. And then... last section... I lost it. I was sobbing, inconsolable, a distraught mess just shaking as people around me stood to go through the final part of the service. And in my head there was this voice saying, "Em, you are being pathetic, wipe your tears away, stand up and freaking sing!" But lately, there's this gentler, motherly voice inside of me that whispers, "No. No, you can cry, even if you don't understand why. It's ok to cry." And this past Sunday/Monday, I was laying in bed at almost midnight and I couldn't stop the tears from coming. I shook and sobbed and i was a red eyed, snot filled nose, blubbering mess. And there was that voice again, "It's ok to cry."
It's not so much that I miss her, that there's this unfillable constant ache like there was in the first few months. Now it's more that I have to live my life without, that my life changed in a way that was so different then what I thought it would be. I thought I would be happy, relieved, ecstatic that all my hard work had paid off into this living manifestation of hope. I didn't think I would watch a dead baby be delivered. I didn't think that my whole identity was wrapped up in being a mother and after her death I had to figure out not only how to deal with this life changing situation but also trying to figure out who the heck I am now. I don't know who to be if I let go of the pain that is associated with all I know of motherhood.
***
I saw a medicine woman last week. It was a final leap of faith, a final desperate attempt. She told me this: "You've lived through something most people couldn't live through and you survived." I didn't understand that, mostly because i was just doing what needed to be done, and curling up and dying wasn't an option. But she told me a lot of people would have just given up, and I survived. I survived, I didn't curl up and die. And it's time to figure out how to truely live.
***
I haven't been in blog land for a while. I hope to visit here more often. As I'm sitting here this morning, still in my pajamas with a cup of tea, I'm finding this release has been good for me. Just saying her name and this recognition, it is therapuetic for me. It is that moment of peace, that moment where it's ok to be nothing more then just her mother.

Love you...Mean It

I haven't written here for a while. I have a feeling most of the posts I write here will begin like this. Because I'm not one who blogs regularly or often and so when I drop in it will be to say hello, to raise my candle in the air and whisper the words I repeat every day in my head, "I miss you, baby."
It's been 4 months. On the 10th it was 4 months.
I started working out to lose the weight i gained during pregnancy and i started eating right again and i'm doing all these things and i feel good and sometimes i'm so worried about fixing dinner and getting work done that i forget. sometimes it's a full day before I even nod a hello to this baby of mine.
but tonight is sad and i'm missing her. and i don't know what to say because i'm glad i'm not drowning in sorrow every day anymore but moving on and not consciously thinking of her every moment of every day feels like a betrayal.

4 months. is that all? has it only been that long? has it really been that long?

Sweet baby girl, I miss you. I love you. As I write those words and listen to them roll off my tongue as i speak them aloud i want to keep saying them, over and over. I love you, i love you, i love you. I mean it, so much. I hope you know that... i hope you knew how much i loved you.

2013

I made it through that first year without her.
Part of me wanted to cling to 2012, to stop the calender from changing. 2012 was all I had of her.
But I can't stop time, as much as I may want to, and it's 2013 now.
2013, a time, I hope, to get back up on my feet.
2013, I hope, will be the year I learn how to live again.
2013, I hope, will be the year i change out of these grief clothes and pick myself up off the floor.
2013, I hope, will be the year I make myself into a person worth loving, a person worth being.

I'm sitting here in yoga pants and a tee shirt that is much too big on me. There's a drink on the corner of my desk, because I need one.
I haven't slept in weeks, and on the 30th of December I was filled with such grief and longing for my baby girl I cried out, saying I just want to die.
I don't know how to live in a world where my daughter doesn't.
And so I keep running, running over all these pieces of glass that symbolize my past and they cut into my feet and make them bleed but if I stop running I'll have to face everything I'm so skillfully avoiding and I'll have to come face to face with my grief and turn it over in my hands and examine it and maybe even invite it in for some tea and let it stay a while so I can get to know it a little better. Maybe grief will even spend the night so I can examine it in it's sleep, if grief ever sleeps.
For that reason alone - because facing my demons scares me almost as much as delivering a dead baby did - I will keep running.
I'll sit here and take another sip of my drink and wrap my sweater around me a little tighter to ward off the chill. I'll turn on loud music so I can no longer hear death knocking at my door. And in avoiding I will be running.
I hope in 2013 I can learn to stop running.

A 'Missing Mia' day

There are days I think I am doing better.
I am not crying through every conversation and this hole in my chest hurts a little bit less and I think that, yes, I am going to make it through this.
And then there are nights like tonight. I am thankful nights like this are few and far between, but when the waves of sadness and sorrow come they nearly take my breath away.
I miss her tonight. I miss her a lot.
It didn't start out as overwhelming sadness. I was just sad. I stayed at home and watched crime shows on TV and I made Mac and Cheese for lunch and even managed to eat half a bowl and I tweezed my eyebrows (Probably not the best idea for today!) 
It started out as just being sad. I don't go back to work until the New Year and while I'm grateful for time off (God knows I needed it) the silence around my house is so freaking loud. I sit there and there's nothing to distract me, nothing to stop me from missing her.
I sent a text to a friend this afternoon, telling her I was having a hard 'missing Mia' day. She never replied.
I had to have this conversation I didn't want to have about what I'm going to do with my life and the only answer I can come up with is I have no idea. I thought I knew, once. Before grief and my dead daughter, I knew what I wanted to do. I was taking classes and working towards it and I was going to have this dream job. And while I can still do this job and I am still taking classes, I don't know if I want to. I don't know what I want to do.

I just miss her tonight. I feel so lost, and alone, and angry. I feel like I've written a million words tonight trying to calm myself down and I threw things at the wall and pulled my hair until strands of it came out when I pulled my hands away.
I don't know what I'm supposed to do. I feel like I should know. This is my life, I'm supposed to know. But I feel so lost, and I don't know.
I just don't know anymore.

28 weeks

I failed her, you know.
That's what my mind keeps saying, whispering over and over as I lay here in the dark, alone.
I failed her.
I failed to keep her inside of me, safe and alive.
Instead she was born at 28 weeks, so tiny, so small.
I failed to give her the things she needed to survive, so that when she was born they could take her into surgery and fix her.
Instead she was born with a broken heart, dead.
This is where I fail. This is where I am not enough.

She was tiny, so tiny. She was 28 weeks, but she was perfect. She was perfect, aside from the fact her heart was broken and she was dead.

I failed her. I feel like I failed her. I feel like this is where i wasn't enough. I was sick, I wanted the pregnancy to be over.

I thought she would get better. I thought she would be born alive, that the doctors would fix her, that we would get our miracle.

She was born at 28 weeks, so tiny. Her heart was broken.
It was because of me she died. She is dead because of my body. It is because of me she got sick, because of me she died.

I can't stop thinking about that tonight. it feels like it's on repeat in my brain, like a broken record. I've tried writing this post over and over again, and every time I write it it doesn't come out like i want it to. It's not poetic, maybe not even coherent.
What about grief is poetic?

I feel like it's my fault, even though so many people have told me it isn't. I don't know if I fully believe them. It is because of me she died.
Ah, but it is also because of me she lived, lived for those 28 magical weeks.


I'm not sure what I wanted to get out of writing this post. I don't want to be told this isn't my fault, that i did everything I could. maybe I want companionship? someone to come along side me and say that, as a mother, it is the worst feeling to feel like you failed your child.

I feel like I failed her.
But in the dark, if I listen hard enough, I can hear her whisper, "But mama, I'm ok."