Rage

It's Christmas - the first Christmas without our baby. I have been crying every day for a week. It's almost too much to bear.

We attended the SHARE Christmas Memorial last Thursday at our hospital. We attended to honor our daughter, thank the womderful nurses who tended us during the worst days of our life, and show support other bereaved parents, some newly bereaved, others going on 12 years. It was an emotional event, so much so that DH left after the first musical number, not to be seen until the end of the event. Both of us have been in the pit ever since.

Grief is hard. There are rare days where I can manage my life without tears - those are the good days. My grief is never off my mind, but I do find days where I can manage without crying. I feel numb and sad, but generally there are few if any tears on 'good' days. Then there are days where I cry a little bit, but am still able to function and go about work, laundry, cooking, etc. My sad, functional days. There are lots of variations on this theme, each progressively worse until I reach rage. Today was one of those days.

I went to 10am Mass, hoping to gain some peace and to praise the Lord on His birthday. Instead, I felt tormented by babies and toddlers all around. I left early and went to visit my daughter's grave, and began to cry before my car even reached the cemetary. As I reached her grave, I sobbed apologies to my baby - sorry that it was Christmas and that we weren't able to be together. Sorry that we are missing out on our lives together. Sorry that her mother is a sniveling, sobbing wreck who comes to cry at her daughter's grave. It's not the way I want my daughter to see me. I want so badly for her to be joyful in Heaven, to be at peace with the Lord. And here I am, telling her how much I wish I were dead so I could be with her. I feel like a terrible parent and I ask that she not worry about her dad and I. I ask her to forgive me for sobbing to her.

On the way home I became angry, enraged. We go to church to praise God and are to be thankful for the good things in life. For life itself. What am I to be thankful for? If God is all-powerful and can claim responsibility for all of the good things we have, why can't I hold Him responsible for all of the misery as well? He is responsible. He took my daughter away. He could have saved her, but He didn't. Why? To teach me some cosmic lesson? To make me fear Him even more??? Is He happy that I fear Him more than I love Him? Life is full of suffering. Anytime we let in love, we let in suffering. This is life - and welcome to it. Wow - what a fucking good time.

I am enraged today. I have been crying for almost 7 months now - I am tired of holding the anger in. Tired of trying to be a better person - of going to Mass every Sunday hoping that this will be the week that I feel some peace and comfort.
I'm tired of missing my baby and wish I could just lay down on her grave and die. This is no life to be thankful for.

I'm not okay.

"How are you?"

My heart is broken and forever aches.

I wake up every day and remember that my baby died and I'll never hold her in my arms.

This life is no longer interesting, fun or enjoyable.

Sometimes it all I can do to breathe.

I look forward to nightfall every day so I can escape my reality for a while.

I'm wrapping Christmas presents for other people's children, not my own.

For Christmas and I bought my baby a grave blanket.

I want to die.

I'm not okay.

Back to Square One

Yesterday I saw a new Psychiatrist. The last one kind of pissed me off so I found a new one. After discussing my loss and describing my grief and resulting mood swings, he asked me a question that I still can't get out of my mind. He asked "What was your family life like as a child?" I asked "With respect to...specifically?" (I had no idea what this had to do with grief over the loss of my daughter.) He replied "Having a family, getting married. Was it ever discussed at home? Did your parents expect you to have a family?" I replied "Not really. It wasn't expected and it wasn't really discussed. I thought I didn't want children until about 5 years ago when I was 35." "Do you have a lot of guilt about that?" I replied "yes." He said "How much of that is driving this need to have a child?" WTF? Here's how I heard it: "Why did you wait so long to have your first child? What the fuck is wrong with you???"

Do I have a lot of guilt about waiting to have children until I was ready? I didn't get married until I was 36! At 37 we began trying to conceive and 18 months of infetility treatments later, I conceived. 9 months later, I lost my daughter just 12 days before her due date.

YES I FEEL GUILTY. I feel like shit. I've wasted my fertile years and worry that I'll never have a live child of my own. I always thought there would be time. I thought once we stopped using contraception, we'd get pregnant. I was stupid and naive. Yes, I feel guilty. Thanks for bringing that up for me to obsess over, again. I am 40 and still trying to conceive using my own, old eggs. I am desperate to have a live child. Desperate to have my daughter back, alive. Desperate to turn back the clock and make things right. I can't sleep at night worrying about the future.

I can't get those questions out of my head. He validated my fears and worries, my regrets. He gave them clout and made them significant again for me. It's back to square one for me.

Aching, Missing, Sad

When will I feel like living again? Will this empty, aching sadness ever leave me? At times I feel like my chest will explode with the heartache and emptiness of losing my daughter. I have no will to live and wish I could just disappear.

When Kara died, something inside me shattered into a million pieces. Some pieces are lost forever. I will never be the person I once was, I am forever changed. I look in the mirror and don't recognize the tired, sad face looking back at me.

How do people live through this? I'll never understand how one gets through the grief associated with the loss of a child. I am lost and bereft, miserable in my existence. I have failed as a human being, as a mother. My child died before I could give birth to her - how can I live with that? My arms are empty and my heart aches with the loss of my baby. I wish I could just disappear and be done with this life.