This helps

I've been looking for some public way of bringing our loss out of the shadows. I keep trying to think up catchy bumper sticker phrases to say that my son died, and I'm fucking sad. I found this on sadkitty's blog (Thank you for the link!) and it's perfect. I'm going to make it into a sticker for my car, big enough to be easily seen.

Apologies - I promise I care

I have been trying for 3 weeks now to comment on blogs. I have been reading and trying to respond but every time I try to submit a comment it just blanks out the comment form and does nothing else. It seems to only be an issue with blogger. I've tried 3 different browsers but not a different computer. Has anyone else had this issue? It is really pissing me off that I can't comment. To me that is the whole purpose of blogging.

I will keep trying to find a way to fix this. In the meantime I can try email, it just takes longer if I don't already have your email. As always, feel free to email me.

And that reminds me - I've gotten this question a couple of times now.

If you (god forbid) have a friend that receives a poor prenatal diagnosis and needs an ear, I ABSOLUTELY want you to give them my blog and email address. The main reason I talk so openly about the heart breaking decision we made is that I found zero support for what we were going through. I only found the two support sites (only 2!) and various blogs after the fact. I hoped to prevent that for at least one person out there if I possibly could.

I just wanted to say I'm still around and I still care, I'm keeping up as much as I can and hopefully will be able to comment again soon.

The land of the free and the home of the destitute

I fucking hate this country, and this state especially.

I'm so fucking angry that I had to go back to work 11 days after giving birth to a dead baby.

I'm so angry I had to hide what I was doing from even the hospital so that my baby was spared pain.

I'm so angry that I had to file bankruptcy because of the month of pay I did miss.

I'm so angry that because I filed bankruptcy I can't rent a larger house, which means I can't adopt more than one female child - of which there aren't any, by the way.

I'm so angry that I can't pursue fertility treatment because my insurance won't cover it.

I'm so angry that I can't afford couples counseling and my medical expenses AND the things that we need to be able to adopt.

I don't know where to go from here.

I'm so lost, unhappy, and overwhelmed.

I just want another child. Is that so much to ask?

I'm trying so hard to have patience and faith that things will get better. I have never believed that what will be, will be. I have always fought so hard for what I wanted and right now it is grinding me into dust.

I need a partner and my husband is not being one. I don't know what to do because when we try to talk, we just yell. Couples counseling is so expensive and my last therapist went loony toons (seriously - I'm not talking about a mental breakdown, she is just nuts), so now I have to find another one.

It feels like I am trapped in quicksand. The more I struggle to make things better, the harder it pulls me in and the faster it suffocates me.

I knew this meltdown was coming. I tried to set aside a day for me to decompress and life again intervened. My husband has no idea (and yes, I have told him - repeatedly) how much I need this. He is hurt that I need to be away from him. How do I deal with that? Do I be a selfish bitch and take the time anyway? Do I beg? Do I ignore the impending explosion and hope it won't cause too much damage? There just doesn't seem to be any good answers.

I'm all ears if anyone has advice. How does a lifelong people-pleaser get through to a somewhat selfish and very insecure spouse that she just needs time to herself?

writer's block

I keep thinking of things I want to talk about but it never gets any farther than two or three sentences. Also, by the time I get home and get everyone fed and my daughter in bed, I just don't have the energy to delve into my psyche.

A mini update is manageable, so I'll fill everyone who's still around in on what's been going on lately.

We have 3 MAPP classes left but the one scheduled this following Monday was cancelled so it is actually 4 weeks. I'm getting nervous and anxious. My horrible self esteem is rearing its ugly head. I keep thinking that they will not want me. When I was filling out the paperwork I got really worried. I ended up marking nearly all of the negative boxes under the "what kind of childhood you had" section. I went from thinking that they would be impressed that I made it through all that to thinking that no one would want someone so damaged taking their kids.

Sigh.

I guess I do have something to talk about. I think I will come back to it though. I want to go watch an old movie with my friend and relax. I was going to make her watch Steel Magnolias but I don't think I can handle that one tonight. Ditto with Beaches. I think I will go with the psycho thriller I told her about, Malice. My friend is much younger and hasn't seen any of the movies I spent my teens and twenties watching so I have to catch her up.

How is everyone? Anyone else really struggling with self doubt?

Forced rest and a confession

I wanted to thank everyone who offered sympathy for my feelings of being overwhelmed. I wanted everyone to know I'm not a masochist. Of course I would take a sick day for mental health, if I could.

But I won't get paid. Our state has a type of employment that was supposed to be for temporary work. They abuse it horribly. It was intended to allow departments to employ people on temporary, grant funded projects, without the expense of paying benefits. Unfortunately, they now use it for EVERY grant funded position, no matter how long the grant is for (the one I'm working under is from a federal source and has no expiration). So they get away with employing people for years, at full time, with NO benefits. No sick leave, no vacation, no way to get health insurance, no retirement. If you are not at work, you do not get paid. We can't even accept donated sick leave from someone else. And not only do I not get paid for state holidays, I am expressly not allowed to work on one. It is monstrously unfair. It is why I went back to work 11 days after giving birth to a dead infant. It would have been sooner if I could have stood up. So cue today, when I am forced to stay home because my period was so bad this month that I couldn't function without a pretty high dose of narcotics. I haven't slept more than a couple of fitful hours since Saturday night so I had to stay home today. I'm not sure I could have driven to work safely, and I couldn't stand up straight this morning in any case. So now I am being forced to rest, which I am really angry about because I have now lost the time I saved up for the stupid holiday next week. I am so joining the union and filing a lawsuit for this. It is not right to treat state CAREER employees like irresponsible part time teenagers. I'm fucking sick of it.

I have tried to find another job, there just isn't anything open right now. That's the case pretty much everywhere.

Anyway - enough of that. Here is the real reason I wanted to post today. I've been thinking about this for a couple of weeks now. As noted here, the later part of this cycle has mirrored the dates of the cycle when I got pregnant with Aiden. This has caused a lot of anxiety and bad memories to circulate in my head lately. The main one I keep thinking of is that I don't miss my son.

A fellow blogger said recently that had the hospital given her another live baby she would have been content. As terrible as some people may think that sounds, I agreed. What I can't forget or overlook is that the baby I actually had would not have lived. In some ways that makes him not really real to me. Of course I loved him, still love him, but it is an abstract kind of love. I think of my Aiden as a fragment of a soul that was trapped in a broken body and released to go back out into the world when we let him go. I never would have gotten to meet that soul. Had his body survived to breathe on its own, he still would have been trapped. Unable to connect, not really here. Sometimes I think that is a horrible way to think of a very disabled child, but it is what I believe. I don't think it is a kindness to keep life for the sake of just breathing. There should be something there; some spark, some connection. Anything less is just torment for everyone involved. This leaves me with the thought that I don't miss my son. How can I miss something I never held, would never have been able to hold? How can I miss something so nebulous as a tiny little fragment of a soul that never developed? I think I just miss the possibilities, the might have beens. But it is such a circular thought. I miss what my son might have been had he not been so deformed. But he was always so deformed, he started out that way as a small bundle of cells. So how can I miss what was never really there? But if he was never here, why am I so sad? Why can't I forgive my body for making something so broken? These are questions I just can't answer, and they lead to another confession: I am beginning to hate his name.

Every time I type his name, my computer underlines it in red. For some reason the accepted spelling in the metal minds of computers should be Aidan. But that was not the spelling I chose and changing it seems so wrong somehow. Like his name is interchangeable, so he was too. Any old baby will do. I haven't gotten to the part of my/his/our story where we chose a name. Very briefly - we didn't put much thought into it like we did with our daughter. This was only because we had a very short time to make decisions and we didn't want the baby to die without a name. If we were going to force him to leave us, we wanted to say goodbye with something other than Hey You. It felt so disrespectful somehow to not have a name. After a few days of searching online when we could, my husband asked if there was a name I liked. I had liked Aiden from my teenage years and I liked the meaning (flame or fire). We never would have chosen it for a living child as it is FAR too popular. We like somewhat unique names. But in the limited time we had to choose, it was acceptable to us. I'm not sure I really regret that, I think I may have felt worse if he did die without a name. However, because of the way we chose his name I have always felt guilty about using it. Now I am actually starting to dislike it. It is not the name I would have chosen. It doesn't fit in my head and it's edges seem to scratch more every day. Instead I think I will start using his middle name, which we did give a lot of thought, and he didn't receive until he had been gone for weeks. My little Wren. I think I am happier with that, and the damn computer likes it too.

I'm sorry I couldn't hold you Wren, I wish I cold have known you.

No time

I have no time for me. No time to write, no time to read the beautiful words of all the wonderful people I've met here. No time to remember that one year ago today I had just started my new job and was still unaware that I was pregnant. No time to be so frustrated that I've been bleeding since one day after I ovulated. No time to be aggravated at myself for being frustrated; after all, there was a damn reason I had to resort to clomid. It's not going to fix itself, even if I secretly hope it will. I'm sad, and exhausted, and so antsy. I so badly need a break and I just don't see a way to get one. I find myself hoping I'll get fired so I can get unemployment and food stamps. I could spend a few weeks at home, pretending to look for work (like my husband tends to do when he is out of work). That tells me how desperate I'm getting. I love my job - it's the best one I've ever had.

Something has to give.

On a more positive note, I saw something really cool while out sampling the other day. Don't look if you are tenderhearted and like frogs.

Dear body, I HATE YOU

I loath you. You suck. You really suck. If I could get to my ovaries they would be smashed up bloody grapes on the pavement. Maybe my uterus would be useful as crab bait.

This is just so fucking unfair.

I gave up; I wanted no more to do with this horrible waiting, and trying, and hoping, and not getting what I so desperately wanted. I FUCKING GAVE UP!!! Two rounds of clomid and a pathetic response. Over 40 ovulation tests in 3 months because you can't ever do something the same way twice (Oh - except today). Twenty some-odd negative pregnancy tests. Three years of trying for another baby. One dead fetus. Dozens of bloody days of excruciating pain. For nothing. For a tiny wooden urn filled with ashes.

And now, when I'm trying to move on, what do you do? On the one year anniversary of the conception of your most spectacular failure, after 48 days of really confusing signals - you give me the most positive OPK test EVER.

Some of you may be confused as to why I'm so angry. After all, a glaringly positive OPK to an infertile is pretty good, right? But, I planned from the very beginning of this mess to make sure a subsequent pregnancy didn't follow the same dates as Aiden. I realize it's superstitious and crazy, but I can't bring myself to get past the irrational fear. I don't want to relive every milestone and every date from my pregnancy with Aiden. I KNOW I would be a basket case. I also don't want a "do over" pregnancy, as if Aiden never existed and the last year didn't happen. I was freaked out on Friday because I thought I ovulated then, which wasn't the same date but really close. We had sex Thursday night and I told him that was it, I wasn't risking getting pregnant this cycle. That's with the laughable assumption that it would be that easy.

I'm angry because in the 7 years I've been using OPK's, I've never had a test where the line was darker. It has always been the same as the control. This test, on the one year anniversary of Aiden's conception, is REALLY positive. If it were any other month, I would jump at the chance to get pregnant. What if this never happens again? Why the hell is my body doing this? How is it possible for someone with such incredibly erratic periods, with an interrupted pregnancy, to ovulate on the same fucking day two years in a row? When I had a period in the middle of July I was crushed, but at the same time relieved that I wouldn't be dealing with mirror cycles. Now this. I'm too upset to even think about trying to conceive. Just the thought of it causes my heart to seize up in mindless terror.

And I gave up already!!

I absolutely cannot do anything to try to get pregnant right now. I am emotionally incapable. But I hate myself a little for not trying. And I hate my body even more for making this something I even have to think about.