Story

I submitted my story and my photo to two different web pages (I think they are sister sites) dedicated to women who have lost babies. The two pages are Faces of Loss and Faces of Loss, Faces of Hope. I was moved to do this by a local girl that I met that also lost a baby. She friended me on Facebook after a mutual friend told her about me. On her facebook page there is a link to her Faces of Loss, Faces of Hope story. I just reread it today and cried over her loss. Click HERE for her story.

I'm still sad today. I'm sad about Bear, I'm sad I'm not pregnant again, I'm sad it's almost been 12 weeks and life goes on.

I guess I figured out how to add links on here. I tried before and couldn't quite get it. This time I was successful! So if my photo and story are published on those sites I'll share those links here too!

I was talking in my last post about how I go to that Baby Center page and kind of obsess about getting pregnant again. I think it might be healthy for me to avoid that page for a while. I think maybe I'll just wait until I'm actually pregnant to get on there. It's a nice supportive group, but it's also kind of depressing. I'm going to think about it a bit more before making a final decision I guess.

Sad

I'm so incredibly sad. I really try not to be, but sometimes I can't help it. I don't know why today is hard for me other than I suspect my period is coming. Which makes me even sadder. Last month around this time I was also incredibly depressed. I suspect its wacky hormones.

I asked J tonight if he felt like I needed to go on antidepressents (after he saw me sob uncontrollably for an hour). He said no.  He gently reminded me that its okay to grieve and that it hasn't been that long. He even shared with me that he had been thinking of Bear a lot today too. He took me out for a quick walk with the dog and a Frosty to try to cheer me up. It was very sweet.

I am sort of obsessed with the idea of getting pregnant again. I'm on these Baby Center bulletin boards for people trying to get pregnant. Well in the last two days there have been tons of reports of positive pregnancy tests. Probably not the healthiest place for me to ne spending so much time. Also I've been charting my cycle and now I obsess over every little thing and check my chart 10 times a day even though nothing changes on it. I need to back up a bit and learn how to just be and let this go. I just don't know how though.

I'm so appreciative that J allows me my grief and reminds me its okay.

Thirty

I had a really bad day yesterday. I barely got out of bed. I knew that today marked 30 weeks that I "should" have been pregnant. I guess I kind of allowed myself to really mourn on Sunday rather than drag it into my week and have to deal with it. It kind of worked too. I'm glad.

Basically I just stayed in bed about 90% of the day. I read and slept and just avoided real life. It worked I guess, because today I'm feeling okay and I'm actually going to teach my first Zumba class since finding out the bad news about Bear. So it's been 3 months since I've taught anything. I've not really exercised either so I hope that I can make it through. I just finished up my playlist and hope I can practice two of the new songs I added before class.

I'm still hopeful that this month could be the month for baby #2. I'm sure it's not likely, but there's no sense being a pessimist right? At least I can be optimisticly hopeful and deal with it when it doesn't happen. I will probably take a test on Wed. of this week. My period would be due on Friday. Although I am doing the whole charting temping thing and it seems to think that I ovulated later than I would have normally. So maybe my period would start later. I think it might be because I was so stressed about that IUD thing with the doctor's office. That makes a lot of sense to me!

Well....I'm off to teach some Zumba. I am sad that I'm not 30 weeks pregnant with Bear, but I think I'm coping okay today at least.

Waiting

Originally when I started this blog it was almost like I had to get the thoughts out and write them down. It was kind of an obsessive thing. I would get something stuck in my mind and I wouldn't be able to calm down about it until I wrote it down.

Now, on the otherhand, it seems a little different. I keep thinking I want to write what's going on, but then I just don't. I think it sort of ties into my last post about motivation. I am all out of it. Just totally lethargic and unmotivated. Not good.

So I'm in my 2WW (two week wait)for the TTC (trying to conceive). It would be super awesome and lucky if I got pregnant this month, but highly unlikely. I'm going to take a test mid to late next week to see. The waiting seems like it lasts forever. I can't imagine having to deal with this every month for the next couple of months.

I can't believe I'm even TTC again. It seems so soon after Bear. Neither J nor I are healed from losing Bear yet. We just don't want to waste time.

Motivation

I seem to be coming out of my depression a bit. I'm not as down and apathetic as I had been. I do still seem to be lacking motivation though. My house isn't as clean as I would like, my work isn't getting done as well as I would like and I haven't even bothered to try to lose weight like I had planned.

I thought the warmer weather and sun would help me get motivated and exercise, but honestly it's still rainy and chilly here. It's just miserable. I think there were a few good days, but on average it's still crappy outside. I'm not sure what the motivation thing is. I hope it comes back. I really need my motivation back LOL.

I did agree to teach a Zumba class for my local Curves next week. Maybe that will help. I taught at the Curves a few months ago and I had so much fun with them. I was pregnant with Bear at the time and they sent me flowers when I lost him. The owner is a really sweet lady and has been checking in on me every couple of weeks. She's been asking me to come back for weeks too! I think I'm finally ready. I have to go back to it at some point. I hope starting that class will give me some of my motivation back!

I do have motivation for the TTC thing though. I'm taking my temp, doing a chart and taking OPK test things. I'm sure I'm trying to control something that can't be controlled. It's hard for me to just admit it will either happen or it won't. And then once it happens we will either have a healthy baby or we won't. There is absolutely nothing I can do to change the outcome. I'm a control freak so that's really hard for me!

Sigh

Ahhh...crisis averted. I can breathe a sigh of relief now. I talked to the doctor directly. She called me 3 times. She called twice on my cell and left 2 messages. I'm currently having a charger issue so my phone was almost dead and I had it on silent so I didn't get those calls and it went to voicemail. I did listen to the messages though. Both messages were very reassuring and said she hoped we could connect at some point today. She did ask for an alternate number. So I called her office and left a message with my work phone number. She called me back within about 1/2 hour. She reassured me that she was 100% positive there was no IUD inserted and that it was a billing error. She asked how I was doing and really listened to my answer. I asked her a question about Bear too. I wanted to know if the T21 was full or a translocation since I hadn't really asked much about it when I originally found out. Turns out it was a full T21 and if it had been a translocation she assured me they would have had J and I in for testing.

So I'm feeling much better about all of that. So....time to make babies LOL. I'm definitely going the anal retentive route this time with the baby making. The whole charting, temping nonsense. I really feel like I want to be fully prepared for anything. Sure it might happen on month 1. Highly unlikely, but it could happen. But if it doesn't happen quickly I want all the data I can get to take to a doctor. I'm ready for a healthy full term baby. I know it is in my grasp. It doesn't take away from Bear at all. I loved him with all my heart and will always love him. I deserve to have a healthy happy baby just as much as anyone else. I've really been struggling with this. I torture myself with all the reasons that the universe might not be giving me a baby when Octomom gets like 100 of them. But I know it's just purely random. No sense or reason or whatever. I just don't believe that. I was a random victim of chance and hopefully this time I'll be a random victim for good. Come on baby dust :)!

Oh...if you are into the TTC thing you can stalk my chart here:

My Ovulation Chart


**(this might be a little TMI for those of you who read this who actually know me LOL...but us crazy TTC people share this info freely in the hopes of sharing knowledge and advice):

Pissed

Okay I still have no answer about the IUD thing. I'm starting to get PISSED. This is ridiculous. I've had the bill since Friday, I've called the doctor's office twice a day since Monday and they still can't answer my question. What the heck am I supposed to do now?

I called the billing department today since the doctor's office doesn't open until 8:30. The lady that took my call was very nice, but still couldn't answer my questions. She agreed that she would be pissed too if it was her and that she would be calling constantly too. She gave me her direct line to the billing department so I could just deal with her. That was nice, but doesn't get me an answer. I'm really starting to get upset by this. Especially after I feel like they treated me so well at first and during all of our care when we lost Bear, but now it's a big PITA!!!!

On a better note, I seem to be perking up a bit in terms of mood. I actually put make up on today. That doesn't sound like a big deal, but it is LOL. For the first month after Bear I was a mess, then I had a week or two where I kind of got myself together and wore makeup and tried to eat well and then I had a really really bad week last week and kind of went backwards with my recovery. I knew I was slowly starting to feel a bit better this week and finally today I was motivated enough to put a tiny bit of make up on. Woohoo for recovery from grief.

WTH

Ahh...I've had a couple of days lately that would have challenged the most stable person. Mother's Day, an issue with billing from the hospital and some issues at work. But, I'm surviving and doing okay.

First, Mother's Day. It's definitely not a great day when you were expecting to be really large and pregnant and excited on Mother's Day and you aren't. It sucked. But honestly, I just kind of ignored it. My husband didn't really do much for me, he had good intentions, but didn't really follow through. He did take me to Dunkin Donuts for breakfast which was nice. That's pretty much the only acknowledgement I got from him anyway. I did get a few texts/calls/comments from people who knew I might be upset on that day, but most people just kind of ignored that I might be feeling anything. My mom didn't even say anything. I wished her a Happy Mother's Day and quickly got off the phone when I realized she wasn't going to acknowledge my pain. My husband's mom also didn't really acknowledge. We ended up running into them in a Lowe's and I said Happy Mother's Day to you and she started to say "you too" but cut herself off. That hurt my feelings a bit. Oh well. What are you going to do? Just move on and deal.

Next up, issue with my hospital bill. This issue is so unbelievable. I received my bill and read over it. There were three sections for the three different visits. It said I owed $220.00. I tried to figure out why. Well on the last line of the bill it says "Insert Intrauterine Device". I read that and then sat down and tried to figure it out. Now I know that an Intrauterine Device is an IUD right? I wondered if it also might be some medical term for something they did during my D & E. So it was Friday afternoon that we received the bill and we couldn't really do much about it. I called the billing department first thing Monday morning and asked them what that meant. The person said "well I think it means insert an IUD" I said "well that's gonna be a big problem for everyone if an IUD was inserted". So he says I need to call the doctor directly. When I call them the receptionist was also quite useless. She said the same thing, that it meant they inserted an IUD. She said "sometimes when they do terminations they insert an IUD." I about flipped out on her. Termination? Grrr....I realize they do terminations there of unwanted pregnancies, but my situation was in no way a termination. It was a removal of my much wanted dead baby from my uterus.

Okay, anyway, she said she would have the nurse review my file to see if an IUD was inserted and that I should call the billing department. Ummm...duh...I already called the billing department and they said to call the doctor's office. So yeah, that's what I've been dealing with. I'm trying to get pregnant and have no idea if I might have an IUD inserted. I have no idea if you would know or not if you had one. I did read that they have some strings that hang down that would be noticeable during ummm...yeah you know. So far we haven't noticed anything like that. Also I did have a 2 week follow up after my D & E with my regular OB/GYN and it seems like he would have mentioned something about an IUD if he had noticed I had one. Right?

So there are several issues here. Did they insert an IUD during my D & E? If so I'm suing. Seriously. They are going down. Yeah. I'm not a big fan of the American litigious society, but this is unacceptable. I seriously will sue them. So maybe they didn't insert an IUD. That's great. BUT, they obviously messed up my billing and are now messing with my head LOL. And it's now Tuesday morning and I still haven't heard back from them. I'm tempted to make an appointment with my regular physician for a quick look to see if they can tell if I have an IUD in or not. But I think I'll just wait. At this point what difference does it make? This week would be my O week for TTC and if I have one in I'm screwed for this month and if I don't we are covering our bases for it. So whatever. I am angry and I am upset, but there isn't much I can do about it.

Well, I guess I'll update when I get more news about it.

Oh and how about this?

http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2011/05/alicia-silverstone-welcomes-baby-bear-blu-jarecki/

I received the news yesterday that Alicia Silverstone named her baby Bear. Can you believe it? Seriously...so weird. I decided that of all the people that might name their baby Bear, she is the one I can handle. So it's a good thing right? She's a cool, hip, vegetarian with baby named Bear. Hmmm...similarities? I think so :-)!

*I can't figure out how to get a link to post as a link...I tried using the little link button on the blogger, but it didn't work. Hmm....work in progress I guess.

OMG

I almost flipped out on someone yesterday. I didn't. Thank goodness. I can still control myself.

So anyway, I wrote something on my Facebook about how life has been crappy and I'm choosing to focus on the things I'm thankful for and I wrote how I was thankful for the sweet robin's nest outside my front door. Well a bunch of people commented on my status and some seemed positive about the idea and some told me to take a deep breath and my very favorite said this:

"things will look up for ya soon i'm sure......everything happens for a reason sometimes its hard to understand and sometimes you don't know the reason for years but one day it just hits you why something happened or what it taught you......keep pushin through and stay positive...."

Umm....I seriously wanted to punch her in the face. Now first of all, I do understand that she isn't ill intentioned. For me intentions are huge. If you don't mean to hurt someones feeling's, but you do, it does make a difference if you intended to or not. Make sense? So I don't want to lash out at her. I know she meant well. That still doesn't change the fact that it bothered me.

But I just HATE those "everything happens for a reason" people. Seriously? I'm almost 9 weeks out from losing my baby. I still don't think there is a valid reason that this happened. I believe life is random. It's a random series of coincidences and choices that we make. This wasn't some predeterimed decision....this wasn't "God", it just happened. Shit happens.

Let's say she's right and it happened for a reason. What possible reason is there for taking a baby from a mom? What possible reason is there for making a baby that isn't going to live? What reason is there for giving children Down Syndrome? Moving on from me, what possible reason is there for there to be abuse in the world? For mom's to kill their own children? For drunk drivers to kill people that are loved? There are no reasons. It's just shit that happens. Ugh.

Okay. Whew...I got that out. Now I'm less likely to go ballistic on Facebook. Hah.

Moving on. I wish I could shake this depression. It's kind of getting worse and not better. I chalked it up to menstraul hormones for a few days, but now that it's over I can't do that. I feel like my head is enclosed in a fog. I can't break out of the fog. Yesterday was gorgeous and I sat outside for a while and did some yard work. The whole time I wasn't really engaged in it. I just moved through the motions. Even now sitting here, I have to work really hard to find the motivation to write this. How do I clear the fog? Time? Medication? I'm not sure. It seems like plenty of time has passed. Oh well. I'll just keep trucking along and see what happens. I did make a commitment to seek medical help if this last two more months. So at the 4 month mark from when I lost Bear, if I'm not mostly feeling better I'll go see someone.

Dreams

I was working hard in my office about an hour ago and recalled that I had a dream last night. I remember right after I lost Bear I wanted to dream about him so badly. I read posts from other women who dreamed of their lost children, but I didn't. I've been having sort of violent disturbing dreams lately, but none about my baby Bear. I always have kind of violent dreams, and it was worse during pregnancy. If you are into Yoga and Ayurveda, it's a pretty common trait for Pitta's to have fiery violent dreams.

So anyway, I dreamt about Bear last night. It was a bit creepy in retrospect, but also comforting. I had a dream that I was actually having a miscarriage. I was actually losing my baby at home. This isn't how my loss actually happened. So anyway in my dream, I was running up the stairs yelling to J and could tell I was getting ready to deliver my baby. I ended up feeling it drop into my pants (weird I know). I ran into the bathroom and pulled down my pants and saw lots of blood, but also a little tiny baby. Oddly enough in my dream the baby was alive. He was super tiny and almost like a doll, but he was awake, smiling and looking at me. Now one of the other disturbing parts was that he only had one arm. I'm going to chalk that up to my mind's way of dealing with the fact that Bear was special maybe. So the little baby I pulled up was clean and smiling and tiny and had very alert eyes that were looking at me. I yelled at J to come and see, but for some reason in my dream he didn't or wouldn't..I'm not really sure. That's pretty much it. In my dream I knew I only had a few minutes/hours with this precious baby and just stared and marvelled. I did keep yelling to J, but I seriously can't remember or didn't dream about why he wasn't there.

I'm not sure how to feel about this. Was it a message that it's okay to move on? Was it a message that I'm going to have another loss? I'm just not sure. I'm thinking it's maybe that I'm actually starting to deal with this and internalize it. Dreams are so weird. Maybe I need a Freudian analyst to help me with this LOL. When I woke up I was determined to remember and even thought about writing it down so I could remember in the morning. When I finally woke up for good I did not remember the dream. It was only later while I was cleaning in my office that I remembered. So I decided to post again today and try to figure out this weird nonsense.

My sweet baby Bear is gone. Forever. He remains only in my heart and the heart of those that love me and were going to love him. I might be ready to get a frame and display his tiny footprints. I want him to be a part of my life forever. I want any potential babies I have to know that they had a special older brother that never made it to this Earth.

I so hope that children are in my future. I want to nurture a baby so badly. I've been a special aunt to many kids over the years (including actual nieces and nephews and special cousins and just the children of close friends) and am ready to be a great mom to my own children. I'm ready to nurture my own patience, imagination and compassion as I care for my child. I'm ready to make my life about something other than myself. I have so much to give at this point in my life. I'm ready to give it. For today at least, I'm going to hold out hope that a baby is in my immediate future. That I will be a mother to a child of my own. That I can and will get pregnant and have a healthy chromosomally normal baby.

Gratitude

Day 3 of my cycle. Day 1 I thought it was going to go slow. Now that it's day 3, I think it's going quickly. I think it's because I'm not really ready and I'm scared. I haven't told J yet that I'm not ready. I don't know what I'll do ultimately. I guess time will tell. He's so excited and it such a good mood about it that I'm not sure I can handle telling him I'm not really ready. I don't want to make him sad again when he seems to be perking up. Ugh life is hard.

Not to mention the weather here in north central Pennsylvania is not the best. It's been so dreary and overcast forever. It just never stops. It's May 4th and I'm really craving the sun. A really warm sunny day where I can sit home on my deck and read. Even if it was a work day, now that it's summer I could take a day off to do it. Please sun. Come out and play. The weather forecast still isn't looking all that great. Partly sunny and 57 tomorrow, rainy and 67 Friday and Sunny and 66 on Saturday and then back to cloudy and 69 on Sunday. So one sunny day in that forecast. ONE. At least it's on Saturday I guess.

I was reminded yesterday by one of my biggest support people throughout all of this (who happens to also be the only person I gave the link to this blog too personally) that sometimes it's good to find the positives in life even when things are so gloomy. Yesterday she reminded me that I have a great job and I can be flexible with my time. That's really a good thing when you are going through something like this. If I feel bad, I go home. If I'm having a great day sometimes I stay longer. Yesterday I went home early. My plan was to go to bed, but instead I went and bought a steam cleaner for carpets and steam cleaned one of my carpets. LOL. Not sure what happened there. haha. I planned for a nap and cleaned instead? So not like me. So anyway...back to what I was saying. Sometimes it's good to find the positives in life when life is looking shitty. So that's my goal. I'm thinking of starting a gratitude journal for 30 days. I might do it both here and on my Facebook page.

What am I grateful for today? Unfortunately today is a day I'm going to have to think hard to find some gratitude. Some days I'm grateful for a thousand things. Today I feel fat, ugly, hate the weather, and want to go back to bed. Haha. I'm so grateful huh? Okay hold on. Let me think. Maybe this is an odd one. But I'm grateful for my Droid Incredible. Sounds odd huh? I can read books on in, listen to books on it, call people I like and get online. It's such a handy little thing. I would totally fall apart if I lost it. So yeah. Today I'm grateful for my awesome technology. It's also a really good phone. I've had it for almost a year and I've had no problems with it. My last phone was a Blackberry Curve and I hated that thing. It started falling apart right after I got it. I had several replacement phones. I know it's not a very touchy feely thing to be happy about, but I'm thankful for it and I think it counts.

Perhaps if I start to focus on some positive things I'll be able to handle the crappy things a little better. Maybe. Can't hurt to try, right?

Ready?

I'm not ready to start trying again. I am still not over Bear. I mean I get that I'll never be over it completely and that it will be with me forever. But I do think there is a period of serious grief and then just the lifelong live with it grief. I'm definitely not over my serious grief. This week has been a really hard week. I can't stop thinking about everything I've lost. Not only did I lose Bear, but I lost hope, I lost some of my naivety, I may well have lost a friend over this, I lost my innocent belief that I would have a healthy happy baby, I lost a lot. I think I might be handling the loss of Bear okay at this point, it's just the other things that have started to be harder. It does take a certain amount of innocence to happily get through a pregnancy. Now I'll be a mess the whole time (if I get a whole time). That's so not fair to me or my future little one. I had a friend that wasn't nearly as supportive as I would have imagined. She admitted it to me yesterday. What kind of friend does that? I'm sorry but I'm not sure I can get over it. I go through the hardest thing in my life ever and you treat it like it's no big deal. I need some time to heal from that for sure if I ever am able to get over it. We'll see I guess.

8 weeks. I should be better by now right? Not getting worse? Time is flying by. I honestly can't believe 8 weeks has gone by. It feels like yesterday, it feels like forever......I don't know how to explain it.

Life just isn't fair. I hate that I feel like I'm back to square one. Perhaps it's only my menstrual hormones that are doing this to me. Even if that's the only reason I've been so down, it still isn't good. I've decided if I'm still feeling like this after 2 more months I'm going to go seek help from a professional. Perhaps medicate until I can regulate a bit. I can't handle feeling like this much longer. I'm sitting at my office desk crying and writing this. I just want to feel halfway back to normal.

Clockwork

Yep, that's right, my period is like clockwork. I was hopeful that my cycle was back on track, but in my heart of hearts I secretly knew it would be all messed up and not come when I expected. But here it is. Yet again on track. Just like last month after the D & E. I think it was a 25 day cycle this time. Usually I'm between 25 and 26 days so it was right on track. Temping and charting begins tomorrow! OPK's in like 5 to 8 days I think. I'm pretty sure I read I was supposed to start testing at cycle day 8 with a 25 day cycle. So here we go. Cycle One of TTC for baby number 2. Please send me good thoughts, love and prayers if you are so inclined to do so.

8

It's been 8 weeks since I found out Bear was gone. I'm crying at work right now. Things have been so mixed up lately. Friday night I drank a little too much and became extremely depressed. Not a good mixture huh? Alcohol and depression? I didn't really do it on purpose, just had one too many glasses. It was a dark and scary place to be. I vow to not drink that much again. It just wasn't healthy and the dark thoughts were not good.

Then I had pretty good days on Saturday and Sunday. I hung out with family and drank some more, but this time it was responsible drinking. Nothing scary!

Now today, I'm back on the depressed path. 8 weeks. How did 8 weeks go by? Are we seriously talking about trying again? Can I really deal with that yet? I don't really feel ready, but I'm so scared to wait. If this chromosome issue was age related how do I wait one second longer than I have to? We conceived Bear on our first month of trying. What if the next baby takes months? I feel like I don't have a choice. But ultimately I'm also worried about timing. What if I try this month and this egg has a chromosome issue, but next month's wouldn't. There is no way to know. It's like playing Russian roulette with my child's life. I have no clue what to do. I'm scared to try again and end up in this same place. I've said it before and I'll say it again, I'm not sure I would survive that. Book me a bed in a mental facility if I lose another baby because I'll need it.

Will I resent this baby if we get pregnant and all goes well? Why would that be fair that Bear didn't get to live but this baby does?

J still feels it too. He doesn't really talk about it anymore, but I know he is still sad. He's been moody and cranky. That's his way of dealing. I feel so bad for him because men are expected to handle it differently. We say things to each other that hurt each other's feelings. We fight. It sucks. I want to stop with that part of this. I can't imagine a better person to have been through all of this with. I know we will get over it, but the time it's taking is really not helping.

Anyway....I'm sad. I miss Bear. I miss my pregnant tummy. I miss thinking about baby stuff.