Taking the Next Steps

Wow, it's been way too long since I last blogged.  I've had several things I'd wanted to write about, but never got around to it.  But today since we have positive news on our journey, I wanted to be sure to write about it.  Things are coming right along on our foster/adopt process.  We've finished our classes except for one we have to make up in a couple of weeks.  We've turned in almost all of our paperwork, including getting our CPR & first aid completed.  The state decided yesterday we don't have to have a fire inspection anymore, so check that off the list.  Shannon and I will both go get our fingerprinting/FBI background checks done tomorrow.  But the best news of all is that we have finally gotten far enough in the process to have been assigned to a case manager and she actually called us today!!  This is the person who will be responsible for our homestudy, which is really our last big hurdle logistically to getting licensed.  She is also the person who will advocate for us and help match us with the right kids for us.  It's all very exciting and so what I needed right now when things are so frustrating and unsure at work right now.  Both Shannon and I may be having major career transitions again in the very near future.  Very exciting, but very scary at the same time.  Just like the prospect of us having kids actually here in our house in the near future.  Looking back, I never would have imagined I'd be here, but am so thankful I've been led down this road!

Remembering

Today should have been the due date for pregnancy #3.  This was the blighted ovum, the only one of the babies I never got to see at all, the only one we never saw a heartbeat or anything.  It's definitely on my mind, but I don't feel so overwhelmingly sad as I have for other due dates in the past.  I feel like I've finally come to a sense of peace about these losses, like they were all part of our journey to get us to "our kids", whether our kids end up being foster or adopted or even biological one day.  Each pregnancy was special in its own way, but losing each one was a step on our path to where we're meant to be, to the children we were meant to have in our home all along.  It feels so good to write these words and to really mean it.  After so long and so much pain, it's so good to be feelin' good again.

Humor

In our foster-adopt class last night, we discussed dealing with children who have been sexually abused.  One part of it was us having to split up with men on one side of the room and women on the other.  We had to get together in our gender groups and come up with as many words for the genitalia of the opposite sex as we could list in five minutes.  It was supposed to get us used to hearing those kinds of words because our foster kids could very well come in using words like these.  Then she made someone from each group read the lists out loud to the class.  Shannon had volunteered to be the reader before he knew what the task was going to be.  It was so adorable to see him squirm up there.  That was so not like him.  He is usually so comfortable and confident in every situation, but someone about saying those kinds of words in front of a group of relative strangers really got to him.  It was nice to find a bit of humor in what can be such a serious class...

Exposed

I went to get a bikini wax today.  I was lying there half naked with my legs spread out, thinking how I could never do that job.  It's so intimate and takes such a certain person to put someone at ease in such a vulnerable position, even if you've never met before.  Then I started thinking about how that is so similar to my job as a counselor.  I figuratively ask people to sit there "naked" and open themselves up in such a vulnerable way.  I invite them to share their most intimate details of themselves with me from almost the beginning of our therapeutic relationship.  I strive to put them at ease even in their most exposed and helpless times.  I bet that esthetician thought to herself, man, I could never be a counselor...

Glow

I had an interesting encounter this afternoon.  I was just leaving work and a co-worker stopped to ask me if I am pregnant.  She said the past few times she's seen me, I've just seemed like I'm "glowing", so she had to ask.  I told her no, but we are planning on adopting and just started our foster-adopt training classes this week.  Her response:  "Well, that must be it.  You are pregnant then!"  We talked briefly about being "expecting in adoption" and how I'd read about that in an adoption book this week.  It was such a pleasant conversation and just one more reminder of how much better I'm feeling these days.  A couple of months ago, a comment like that would have completely destroyed me.  I would have cried all night over that one.  But instead now, it was such a positive thing and so encouraging to know that others can even see a positive change in me.

Deep, Dark Fears and Secrets

I was just sitting outside, enjoying a nice sunny day in my backyard reading a book.  Before I came back in, I took some time to stop by each of my babies' plants to talk with them.  It was peaceful and pleasant.  I spoke to them by name and cleaned the dead leaves and cobwebs off them, like a good little mother.  And I felt good doing it.  I actually didn't feel sad, not a tear in sight.  And that, my friends, is an amazingly good feeling.

Then I got to thinking back, in contrast, to a very different night about a month or so ago.  Shannon and I had a fight.  Over what, it doesn't really matter.  What matters is that I was still in the midst of my grief, was still so wrapped up in being so sad and lost that I couldn't see past it.  What matters is that I ended up completely breaking down, sobbing uncontrollably in a fetal position on the bed.  He came to me and asked what was wrong.  And he meant, really, what was wrong, what was truly going on in my head.  So, finally I broke down and shared with him all my deepest, darkest fears and secrets that I hadn't shared with anyone through all of this.  I know he hates to see me cry and doesn't like to see me weak and suffering, so I usually hide this front him and hold it all inside.  But that night, I finally opened up and let him in.

I told him how I'm so afraid it's my fault that we lost all the babies.  That I did something, either physically or cosmically, to lose them.  That it scares me to death to imagine that each of them was perfectly healthy, but it was my body that failed each and every time and they could not live because of me.

I told him I'm so afraid that even after all this trying and fighting to have a baby, once we do have children, it won't be enough for me.  That I'll be a failure.  That I'll still have this empty hole inside of me.

I told him I still think about the babies each and every day.  That the necklace I wear every day makes me think of them because when my mom gave it to me for Christmas, we had only lost three so far and the necklace has three butterflies on it.  How I kiss it (now four times) every so often during the day and tell them I love them and miss them.

I told him how I go talk to the babies at their special plants in the backyard sometimes.  How I call them by name.  How I've secretly named each one of them and never ever said their names out loud to another living soul.

I told him how I don't like myself lately.  That I'm not sure where to turn.  I'm not sure where to focus my energy.  Nothing I do feels good enough anymore.  I've let everyone I care about in my life down.  I'm a failure in every sense of the word.

And through it all, he was there for me.  He held me and comforted me and didn't freak out when I told him all these deep, dark fears and secrets.

Then he left the room to let me splash water on my face and collect myself, but then surprised me by coming right back and asking me to tell him to names of the babies.  It felt so strange to say their names out loud.  He had me say them over again several times and to explain why I'd chosen each name for that particular baby.  And he began to cry too.  Sweet, loving tears.  And hugged me close and truly was with me in the moment of our unique shared losses.  I felt heard and validated and understood and that means more to me than I could ever express.

Ever since then, I've felt better.  Lighter.  More hopeful.  Like I've turned a corner and can finally start to more forward.

Recently Shannon and I were sitting on the couch together, watching TV and I told him "I'm so happy being married to you lately."  He asked why and I didn't have a good response.  He said "I think it's because you're finally happy with yourself again."  And wouldn't you know it, he's right.

Baby Shower

I went to that baby shower this afternoon.  Through most of it I felt fine.  I forced myself not to think about my losses and to focus on the joy of the occasion.  And it was joyous.  But then while she was opening her gifts, it got harder.  Seeing all those adorable little things-- the tiny diapers, the sweet little onesies-- started to break my heart a little bit again.  I felt tears spring to my eyes and my heart start to race.  I just had to push all that aside for the time being.  But I finally let myself cry once I got to the car.  And then I just broke down.  Bawling.  I got home and laid down in the room that we'd always planned would be a baby's room and just cried and cried.  I gave myself permission to just let go and cry, to feel the feelings instead of pushing them away like I do so often.  I let myself feel sorry for myself.  I cried for what I've lost.  I cried for my babies.  I'm so very sad they could not live, that my body could not hold on to them.

I'm glad I'm not feeling this way on a daily basis anymore.  I'm glad I've been feeling good enough that I could even go to this shower.  I had been asking Shannon if he knew if someone was going to throw a shower for her and he said I should if I was so worried about.  No way.  I knew I was feeling okay enough to go to a shower, but not at all ready to throw one.  And that's sad too.  Sad that I even have to think about these things.

I remember when Shannon told me that these friends had found out they were pregnant.  It was just a few days after loss #3 and I was sitting on the couch.  I had just said I was feeling okay when he tells me about their brand-new pregnancy.  I completely lost it, broke down crying for the longest time.  I know he thought it would be happy news to share, but I could not even begin to see past my own grief yet.  Then a couple of weeks later, a post on Facebook from these friends with an ultrasound picture of their little one and a due date.  Ten days after I would have been due.  Ten days!  That date is quickly approaching.  Seeing how pregnant she was today definitely made me sad that I'm missing out on that experience.

I think this is the first baby shower I've been to since our I started having pregnancy losses.  I did go to one right before I got pregnant with #1, but haven't been able to since then.  I got an invitation to one as we were going to the hospital for my surgery to remove the ectopic.  For some reason, I went to check the mail before we left and opened it in the car, as we were backing out of the driveway to have our first precious baby taken away.  Needless to say, I did not go to this shower.  Could not even bring myself to call to say I couldn't go.  Never apologized to that friend for missing it.  I remember the first time I saw that baby, I had to stand on the opposite side of the room and try not to look at it.  It was such a painful reminder of what I have just lost.

I take it back.  I did go to my stepsister's baby shower last year.  That baby was born just a couple of weeks before #2 would have been due.  That shower was difficult.  I had to stand in the kitchen much of the time, avoiding the celebration.  There were tons of babies all over the shower and right before she opened presents so many of her pregnant or new mom friends got up and gave speeches about how amazing motherhood was going to be for my stepsister.  Looking back now, I'm not really sure how I made it through that one...

With each of my losses, there's been a friend or relative's baby that was born around the time mine should have been.  And now when I see those babies, it's definitely bittersweet.  I remember getting this announcement with sweet pictures of my stepsister's baby and just bawling my eyes out at the kitchen table.  I thought Shannon was still sleeping and didn't want to cry in front of him, but then he appeared behind me and was so sweet about it all.  And this new baby will be the same.  Hopefully I'll be able to celebrate in their joy too when he arrives, but it will still be a reminder of what we've lost.  They'll go home from the hospital with their precious bundle of joy and all I've ever left with is emptiness.