10 weeks....

Today marks 10 weeks since Kara died. Since then, there have been 3 babies born to our family. My husband's ex-wife was induced just days after Kara died ~ they have a healthy baby boy. His cousin had her 4th baby just weeks later. My sister-in-law just had her baby girl last Sunday. It seems everyone in my neighborhood is a new mom or is 9 months pregant. I am surrounded by newborns and pregnant bellies everywhere I go.

Not one of them knows our horror. They all know that we lost our baby at 37.5 weeks. They all know that we are unable to be around pregnant women and new babies. But they can't know the reality of our daily lives. They can't know unless they've lost a baby.

My days all begin with a panic attack usually in the pre-dawn hours of 4 or 5am. Once awake, I try to calm my pounding heart, and fend off the memories of her death. Flashbacks of 'I'm sorry Babette, there is no heartbeat' and of laying in that hospital bed waiting for her birth. Images of her being placed in my arms, and my feelings of helplessness and loss, comingle with memories of how in awe I was of her beauty. These memories swirl around in my head until I resign myself to face the day.

The rest of my day passes like every other day since Kara died. Emotions ebb and flow like waves. One moment I feel 'normal', the next I am sobbing as if my heart was being ripped from my chest. Sometimes I get that moment where I can 'accept' her death, and my this new, awful life. Seconds later, I am overwhelmed by my loss yet again, and cannot fathom another 40+ years without her. I have no reason to be on this earth now. This life holds nothing for me anymore. My baby is gone. My heart and my will to live, went with her.

I am a 'new' person, as a result of Kara's death. Things that once meant a great deal to me, are trivial now. Worries that seemed larger than life, seem ridiculous now. I can't watch the news, or crime TV, without crying. I feel an utter loss of faith in the human race. We are a cruel race, taking life for granted and causing pain and despair in others. We treat each other without love and respect, and are full of hatred and lack compassion in our everyday lives. My view of the world, like my own life, has changed forever.

I will never be the same again. The 'old' me is gone forever, replaced by this jaded person who I don't recognize. I look in the mirror and see tired, puffy eyes, and a body overweight and saggy from pregnancy. I no longer care so much about the things I used to love - working out & staying fit, shopping, work, friends, family. Nothing means anything anymore. I muddle through my days doing the barest of necessities, waiting until the time I can take my sleeping pill and disappear for while. Only to wake again before dawn, remembering the horror that is now my life.

I long for the day when God calls me home, to be with Him and my daughter Kara once again.