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.

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.

Isolation

I was waiting for the day, anticipating it.
I knew it was coming, but the when escaped me. But when it did come, I wasn't nearly as prepared for it as I once thought I would be.
It was well meant, a comment from my mother. I know she only cares about me, that she hates to see this grief destroy me. She doesn't understand this grief. She's watched her child sick, clinging to life, this is true. I was a sick child, nearly dying many times. But she never watched her child die.
She asked me when I was planning on going back into the world.
I haven't been around people since her death. I've gone grocery shopping, watched children for friends so they could re-connect with their spouses, gone to family dinners and Thanksgiving celebrations. I've done all of this without her.
I haven't gone back to the place where all my friends meet on Friday evenings to talk and laugh. I haven't done that without her yet. I don't know if I can.
But my mother asks me when I will return. She plans my schedule. "You'll go the beginning of November," She declares.
I try to argue my way out of it.
"I have friends," I say, making reference to the other people who work at my job, referencing my parents and my siblings and my extended family and my husband and his extended family.
"I go out," I say, making reference to the groceries I get and the job I must go to and even that one time I went to my friend's baby shower.
"I'm not a hermit," I say, justifying watching television for hours as an activity.
"I went out today. I went shopping, with you. We went out for lunch and I bought a new sweater," I tell my mother.
"You need to get out and see your friends, people your own age. You need to accept that this is the way your life is going to be," She says gently.
And I know she's right. No amount of seclusion will bring back my daughter.
I have been avoiding them, these friends of mine, the people I used to get together and laugh with and talk with. I can't laugh anymore. I can't talk about simple little things anymore.
Ever since the death of my little girl, they haven't said a word to me. I know they know. I think they just expect me to be ok, to be over it. After all, she was sick, so sick.
They didn't know her like I did.
Maybe they just don't know what to say, I wonder. Maybe my grief is scary for them, and they don't know how to handle it. Maybe, I think, I haven't given them the chance.
I'm not the same woman I was before the most precious thing I was ever given left. I don't know how to accept that the one thing I wanted more then anything else is gone. I didn't know I wanted her so badly until she was gone. Now it's all I can think about.
I wonder how long it will be before I can go and be with my friends, go out on a Friday night, listen to people talk and laugh even if I am still unable to join in the talking and the laughing.

Isolation, I am in isolation. I don't like being in isolation, it's awful lonely here. I don't know how to do anything else, though. I don't know who to be. I need to get out, I know I do. I need to get out of my house, change out of the yoga pants I've been wearing for 3 days straight, shower, go see people. I have people counting on me, people who need me, I don't have the privelege of dying along side my little girl.
I know I need to get out, need to rejoin the world of the living. But I feel like I don't belong there anymore. I feel torn between 2 worlds. While part of me wants to get out and be around people another part of me just wants to lock myself away. I don't know how to live without her.
How long will I be stuck between 2 worlds? How long will it be before I can go out and listen to people talk and laugh and not burn with anger? How long will I be stuck in isolation? How long until I accept that this is my reality, that she's never coming back?
How long? How long? How long?