Where I've been, and then some...

It's been so long since I've posted, I don't even know where to begin.  So, here's the past couple of months in brief.  All of these items are worthy of posts of their own, and will be eventually revisited, I just don't have the energy right now.  It's been a long few months.

~Matt graduated!  YAY!

~Matt had a job interview last week that went extremely well!  YAY!!! (PLEASE pray that God's will be done in regards to his employment...it's been a long time that I've been the only income and we could really use a break!)

~My Godmother was diagnosed with Stage 1 breast cancer.  She had a lumpectomy and radiation and has been declared "cancer-free".  YAY YAY YAY!!!

~Mid-late September was another unfulfilled due date of one of our babies we lost.  To say it's been hard is an understatement, especially with events like this occurring. (This is a post in and of itself, sitting in my drafts folder because I'm still processing and dealing with it).  I miss my babies so damn much.

~I've been planning to get a tattoo to honor my lost babies, but I haven't been able to afford it.  I have the perfect design picked out, just waiting now to be able to swing the extra funds.  One of the first things I thought of when I learned of my lost babies was getting a tattoo.  To me, it's a tangible reminder of what I never thought would happen.  We were pregnant.  Then we weren't.  I have nothing from my babies, no tests or ultrasound pics.  Nothing.  Just the knowledge that they were briefly a part of me.  Now, almost a year later, I still have yet to get it done.  It's irritating that everything hinges on money, especially knowing that it's something as frivolous as a tattoo...but this tattoo is incredibly important to me.  I don't expect people to understand.

~A friend from work (my supervisor, actually) is in a medically induced coma fighting for her life after a series of strokes and seizures.  I don't have more details, I just know I'm scared to death that we are going to lose her.  She is a wonderful woman, and a great friend.  She has been a huge support to me through many trials and I can't imagine work (or life in general) without her in it.  Please pray for her and her family.

~My 20 year high school reunion was this year.  I wasn't able to go due to working, but from the Facebook pictures and posts, it was a great time!

~My best friend is pregnant again after a miscarriage last December.  She is due on Christmas Day!  YAY!!!  Her pregnancy has stirred up a lot of mixed emotions for me, especially recently with the passing of one of our due dates, but I truly am thrilled for her.  How can I not be, she's carrying my Godchild!

~Shortly after the reunion, I found out one of my high school friends whom I've recently gotten back in touch with was diagnosed with Stage 1 breast cancer as well.  Knowing the outcome of my Godmother's cancer, I was optimistic that hers would be similar.  It hasn't.  During her lumpectomy on Friday the surgeons discovered that the cancer has spread to the lymph nodes and probably to the bloodstream.  They are now planning aggressive chemo and radiation.  To say we are all gutted is an understatement.  She is one of the sweetest people you'd ever dream of meeting, and to imagine the horror she is going through right now just blows my mind.  Please also pray for her and her family.

~It's FALL!!!  HUGE YAY!!!

~My baby cousin (ok, he's almost 30 and towers over me...but he's like my baby brother!) is getting married this Friday, to an adorable and delightfully sweet woman.  I am so excited for them!  Their wedding is going to be at a winery and I'm looking forward to gettin' some wine on and celebrating the nuptials!

~I'm sure I've forgotten a lot, but I'm nursing a migraine right now so this will have to do.  Just wanted to let everyone know I'm still here, still kicking up trouble.  I'll be back soon for some more respectable and proper posts...when I find the energy!

What might have been...

I never knew what it was like to wake up and remember 'this is the day that my child would have been born'.

I never knew what it was like to try to explain to people who have never experienced this particular grief just how profound this pain...this emptiness...this carved out hole in your heart really is.  Just how incredibly heavy the emptiness can be.

I never knew what it felt like to mark an unfulfilled due date.

Until now.

March 30 started out as a normal day...until IT started creeping up on me.  The feeling that something just wasn't right.  A feeling that something was very wrong.  And then the emotions started flying.  Up, down, every which way from sideways.  I was bawling one minute and incredibly angry the next.  I prayed.  I tried to calm myself down.  And then I realized...

This was the approximate date that I would have been due with the second baby we lost.  (The first one would have been due around mid-September).  The baby that resulted from the last "real" cycle we were TTC.  The baby that I lost without even really knowing I was pregnant.  The baby that sometime around March 30, 2012 would have been four years old.

In an alternate universe I'm planning and hosting a 4th birthday party for my child.  I'm baking a cake, lovingly decorating it, putting the final touches on the homemade "Happy Birthday" banner.

In an alternate universe, I'm singing "Happy Birthday" to my child.  I'm holding her in my lap before she blows out her candles, as she squinches her eyes shut and wishes with all her might for that new dolly that unbeknownst to her is on the table next to her, hidden beneath tissue paper in a bright pink gift bag.

In an alternate universe, I'm smoothing the hair back from her sleep heavy eyes, lying next to her telling her the story again of how very much she was wanted and loved from the minute she was conceived and how very happy we are to be her parents.

In an alternate universe, I'm holding my baby in my arms.

In this one...she's only in my heart.

Acceptance

It amazes me sometimes, how the human heart can grow to accept and embrace our life experiences, and how these experiences...or maybe the acceptance itself...can have such a profound power to change us.

I've only consciously known about my babies, their fleeting existence, and their silent passage from my life for a little over two months.

After having this time to process it all, I can honestly say I am at peace with what has happened. I don't know exactly when this peace came over me. I do know that it took a lot of prayer, tears, and long nights of God working His healing miracles within my heart to get here.

That does not mean I'm not sad. That doesn't mean I don't miss them. I am not by any means happy that I've lost my children. That's just absurd. I am happy...no, not happy. Glad? Maybe relieved is the word...to know that I actually was able to conceive. Apparently more than once. All this time, seven years, I believed that I had never conceived. That I truly was infertile. That we truly were incapable of creating a child. That we were destined to never become parents.

What is still hard for me to reconcile in my mind is that I will never know when they were conceived, what their due dates were, or when I lost them. I don't have those "anniversaries", no matter how morbid or sad some may think they are, to remember. To time-stamp. To mark down in my history. To say definitively "this is when I lost my first baby" or "today was my second baby's due date". I have approximate time frames in my mind when I believe these events occurred, but nothing concrete. I have nothing tangible from my pregnancies, from my lost babies. No positive pee-sticks, no ultrasound pictures, no cute little onesies or baby blankets, nothing. My children were here and gone before even I knew they existed; perfect tiny souls that slipped through me on their path to Heaven.

This not knowing, I've noticed, makes it hard for other people to fully accept my losses as valid or significant. There have been a few (albeit very few) people that have been wonderful in helping me to process all of this. Others, like they've done with the rest of my infertility, would like to gloss over it. Sweep it under the rug. Pretend it never happened. What they don't realize it that while my miscarriages might not have been recent, my grief still very much is. That I may still be hurting. That I may still cry when thinking or talking about my babies. That I need to talk about my babies. Even though my losses occurred what I believe was between four to six years ago, I JUST learned about them. I need and deserve acknowledgement and validation of my feelings just as much as someone who lost their baby six months, six weeks, or six days ago.

I have been changed by the knowledge of my pregnancies and the loss of my children. Not just emotionally, but fundamentally changed. I have been given a gift. That gift is the knowledge that I am a mother. I can hold on to that knowledge for the rest of my life and know that I was able to do something that I had believed for seven years I was incapable of doing. The sad realization of all of this, of course, is that I will have to wait until I get to Heaven to see and hold my babies. Oh how I await that day...

"Sweet babies,

I never truly knew I was carrying you until you were long gone.
I never knew I lost you until now.
I never knew I could miss someone I never knew, that I never felt, that I never held.
But I do, my sweet babies. I do. So much.
I know one of you would have been about five, almost six, years old. The other about three, maybe four.
I think one of you is my precious little girl, and the other, my sweet baby boy.
You are my sweet shooting stars. You were here and gone before we ever knew, yet you have left your mark upon our lives. The path you traced through your fleeting journey from my body to heaven will forever be emblazoned on my heart and soul.
There are so many things I've missed. Holding you. Rocking you to sleep. Nursing you. Sleepless nights, dirty diapers, colic, first fevers and first smiles. First steps. First words. First birthdays and first days of school. Teaching you about the world and discovering the world anew through your eyes.  Watching you both grow from babies to toddlers to childhood. Watching your sweet personalities develop. Are you laid back like your daddy, or more anxious like me? Whose eyes do you have? What color is your hair? What would it feel like to hold your chubby little hands as you toddled up the aisle at church?
My sweet babies, my beautiful shooting stars, I will love you forever and miss you always.
Until we are reunited through God's everlasting grace, I will always be...

Your loving Mommy"

Wandering through the mists...

I feel like that's what I've been doing the past week or so. Since I found out my bloodwork results and had the D&C, I feel like I've been standing behind a curtain of mist watching these events. I'm sure it's my head attempting to protect my heart; funny how the mind works sometimes.

(FYI the D&C went fine, I'll post more on that later).

I've talked at length with my Mom and husband about the "probable miscarriage" issue. We all agree it explains a lot in retrospect. I had several episodes of severe pain and bleeding after failed cycles. These were the times I truly believed I was pregnant. I had a very very faint BFP on one cycle...but it couldn't be confirmed because I started my period (or so I thought) before I could get a beta drawn. I always thought that it was a false positive because I tested again the next day and it was negative. I must have caught it at the tail end of dropping. I had called my doctor during these episodes, but they told me not to be concerned about it, that if I was testing negative and bleeding it was probably "just a heavy period". I could kick myself for not listening to my gut more.

I don't know 100% for sure that I did miscarry. I don't know 100% sure that I didn't. Truly, as my mom and husband both said, only God knows the truth at this point.

I was afraid to tell my husband about the probability of these miscarriages because he always said that he didn't want to try anymore if we got pregnant and lost it. He didn't want us going through that. We talked about the blood clotting issues and MTHFR, and he even said that the episodes make a lot more sense given this new information. I didn't know how he would react, but he surprised me. He took it extremely well. He was sad, and he said he wishes that it wouldn't have happened, but that he's glad we found out several years after the fact instead of when it was happening. I don't know if I agree with that or not. It makes sense in a way, because being removed from it by several years, it doesn't have the strong emotional trauma of knowing while it's occurring. However...it also makes it harder in a way. It's almost like trying to get someone to believe in a repressed memory that only I can remember. Although, in all honesty, I don't care if anyone other than my inner circle of family and friends believes it. I wish in a way I had known at the time. I wish I had the opportunity to know I was pregnant. I wish I would have been allowed to mourn them. I wish others could have shared in my grief. I wish there was a way I could acknowledge and honor them without feeling like a fraud. I feel like since I was never "confirmed" to be pregnant, I'm not "allowed" to claim losses. I have to be honest, knowing it's possible that I've miscarried brings a sense of closure to the intense questioning and grief and sense of emptiness I've felt for seven years. Almost as if I've received validation through a simple quick blood test. The reason I've felt so broken, so lost, the reason I've felt such a huge hole in my heart is because I have lost my children. I've always said I miss my children, but that they just hadn't been conceived yet.

I know now that they were. They existed.

I miss my babies. I will always miss my babies.

However, I know that God is watching over them for me until I can meet them in Heaven.