It's okay.

So I've spent the better part of the last few days reading the blogs of two amazing women, Patrice and Lindsay. I don't know either one of them personally, but I was given the links to their blogs by my high school friend Lindsey and I began to read. They both lost babies far too early (as if there is ever a time that's good to lose a child...) and blogged their way through it. Reading their journeys is helping me to walk through my own. One thing I've certainly learned from them (and thanked them for) is not only posting during the times they felt good and positive. I think it was so important for me to read that it was okay to feel sad and angry and to not get over this quickly. Like them, I find that writing things down helps me to deal with them. So I'll give you fair warning that I don't think all of my posts in the next few days/weeks/months will be as positive as I might like. But if their honesty helped me, its possible that my honesty just might help someone else.

This week I am struggling with the fact that I would have been half way through my pregnancy. I should have stopped counting up this week and began to count down the days and weeks until I would have been able to meet our little boy. I wouldn't yet have known that it was a little boy growing in me, and everyone still would have been guessing and taking bets.

I miss everything about being pregnant and expecting a child. And for those of you who knew how nauseous I had been during my pregnancy, you know that's saying something. I think a lot of women who lose a child look back and think, "I wish I'd been more appreciative of all of those moments when my child was there." They worry that they took for granted all of those moments. I can safely say that I don't have that regret or worry. Don't get me wrong, I would complain about being nauseous or sleeping all the time or forgetting how to turn on the oven (yes, I really did that, don't judge.) but I almost immediately followed a complaint with how thankful I was to be having those problems. I think that because it took us so long to get pregnant, I was better able to appreciate being pregnant, even if it was the cause of me being sick or exhausted.

I haven't been able to decide to take down the crib and the changing table yet. When I'm having a positive-thinking moment, it feels hopeful to have it there. When I'm feeling really sad and down, it helps me to grieve the loss of our child. So for now I'll leave it all there. I'll stare at the room when I need/want to, and ignore the room entirely when it needs to be ignored.

I have to say that the one thing that is really helpful to me in this whole process is how clear it was from the ultrasound pictures that this child was not meant to live on this Earth. I am thankful that we didn't feel the need to make a choice. I think it would have been much more difficult if, like Lindsay, my child had been born healthy and one day passed away without warning. We were sure that there was no choice to be made. It had been made for us. There was no need to carry our child to term. It doesn't make it better, but it is comforting in a way.

Now then. I must also share a Chestnut story to combat the sadness you may feel after reading what I said above.

Chestnut was begging like crazy this morning. First for attention, then for his breakfast, then for a treat to follow his breakfast. (I couldn't blame him, I love dessert too.) I finally gave him a bone that I knew he would deem a very special treat. The problem is that apparently the bone caused a LOT of anxiety in my poor dog. He went from begging to completely neurotic. He walked in circles around the kitchen and living room, he asked to go outside and then stood and looked around, confused as to what to do next. Then he came back inside and began to look at me and whimper (still holding the bone in his mouth). I attempted to get him to "hide" the bone on the couch and no such luck. The poor thing. I didn't mean to give him a nervous breakdown. I really thought I was giving him a treat!