This is not where I belong

This song has really hit home since losing Avery.  The first time I heard it since she left us, I was on my way to visit the cemetery for the first time by myself.  It came on the radio and I just listened and cried.  This world truly isn't where I belong and I realize that now more than ever.

Dreams

She’s fallen asleep in her car seat, hand pressed against her cheek-her favorite sleeping position.  I don’t want to wake her but I can’t get enough of her.  So I slowly take her out of her car seat and snuggle her in the crook of my arm.  She starts to coo, I say her name softly, “Avery, Avery.”  She slowly opens her eyes, still slightly crossed as she tries to focus, and looks deep into my eyes.

I melt.  I am so in love.  I kiss her sweet, chubby cheeks.  Then, I hear the gas and feel the diaper start to fill.  It keeps going and we have a blow-out.  I call for my husband to get the changing table ready.  I laugh as I bring her to her room to get changed grabbing a new diaper and a new onesie.  What a mess, but still we are so in love.

I bring her into her room; yell at my husband to close the dog out of the room.  We undress her and I notice her umbilical cord has fallen off while she was gone.  I smile at her beautiful pink smooth stomach.  We laugh about how much it intimidated it us when it was still there and are thankful she is past that stage.  I grab a diaper out of her monkey diaper holder, pampers, with little bears on the front.  And then it happens…I wake up.

Anxiety

I went back to work August 13^th, the day after we marked her 2^nd month in Heaven.  I had been out on leave since June 4^th just 2 days before she was born.  It’s now going on the end of the 3^rd week since I’ve gone back and I still haven’t made it through a full week without calling in “sad.” 

Some days, I think I am doing well.  Yesterday, I was in the office a full day.  I dealt with the normal employee issues that come along with being an HR Manager.  It was overwhelming at times and I wanted to give up but I pushed through.  I got home from work and we ran errands.  It was one of the more productive days I have had in the past 3 months.  But it all hit me last night as I was trying to go to bed.

I spent most of the day not allowing the grief to overtake me but I cannot fight it all day.  Last night was hard; I missed her-missed everything about her, I felt empty and the house was too quiet without my baby cooing beside me and waking me up to feed.  I felt like I hadn’t spent the day yesterday remembering her on her 12 week birthday, remembering her the way I should have.  I felt like I neglected her.  I felt it all last night; depression, anger, guilt, hurt, etc.  It was a rough night, I couldn’t sleep and when I dreamt dreams of babies and children, dreams where I long for her but she isn’t in these dreams. 

Numb

It’s amazing to me the range of emotions I go through within a day or how one day I can be a hot mess of emotions, unable to get out of the house and the next, I am actually able to find something that makes me smile.  However, some days, I feel nothing and I don’t want to do anything. That’s how I feel today, numb.  The dictionary defines numb as incapable of action or of feeling emotion.  And that describes my feelings, or lack thereof, exactly.  I really don’t feel anything; I am not sad or upset (which is amazing since it’s a Tuesday, see this post), I am not happy or excited about anything; I am just numb. 

I hate feeling this way-feeling nothing at all.  I think about her just as much as I do when I am crying in bed all day or able to actually function like a human but on my numb days, no emotions take me over when my thoughts go to her.  How I feel today is a far cry from how I felt last week, this weekend or even last night.  It’s amazing to me how quickly feelings can change.  Just last night I cried myself to sleep.  Yet this morning, I feel nothing.

Reality and Faith

I like to be able to solve problems.  It’s something I do on a daily basis at work.  I always have an open ear to my friends and try to lend helpful advice.  You lose your job-it’s ok; you’ll find a better one.  Relationship troubles-they will pass.  Family drama-give it some time and then talk about it.  But this problem I cannot solve, I can’t fix. 

Avery is gone and she isn’t coming back.  Nobody can fix it, nothing I do or anyone else does will ever bring her back.  The finality of it all really hits me hard.  There’s normally a light at the end of the tunnel, some solution to offer, words to help comfort, but nothing, I mean NOTHING is going to make this all go away (well at least nothing in this world).

The fact that my daughter, who I planned, carried, gave birth to, brought home and mothered for 6 days is no longer here absolutely kills me.  Yet, this is my reality; I have to live with reality this for the rest of my life.  There is no solution, this problem isn’t temporary, and it won’t resolve itself.  The finality of it all is almost impossible for me to wrap my mind around.

Fear of the Unknown

Most days I try not to focus on why my daughter is not here with us, why she left us so early.  She was healthy for 9 months of pregnancy and released from the hospital after the normal 2 day stay.  6 days after birth she was gone.  No obvious warnings, nothing or was there?

Did I miss a fever?  She never felt too warm, too cold.  She never got sweaty or seemed cold.

Was her slight bit of fussiness that night a warning sign?  I had trouble burping her during a big feeding that night so I wrote it off as gas.  She seemed to feel better once she burped a few times and went to the bathroom. 

Did she sleep too much?   I thought I was lucky that she slept well and was told by Dr. Google and my parent friends that babies like to sleep.  It wasn’t like she slept 24/7.  She was up at least every 4 hours to feed and would get active when we changed her.

Was she having problems feeding?  I wrote off occasional latching issues as us getting adjusted to breastfeeding.  I also consulted the lactation consultant, Dr. Google, the What to Expect 1^st year book and other moms who told me that if she fed every few hours and had at least 6-8 diaper changes a day, she was doing fine and she was, I kept record of every feeding-the length, the start time, which breast, etc., and record of how many diapers I changed and whether they were just wet or dirty too.  Once she was latched, she was good to go.

My mind likes to play tricks on me and tell me I missed something.  My mind likes to place the blame on me.  Obviously a healthy baby just doesn’t stop breathing for no reason.  I had to have missed something, my mind tells me over and over until I am full of guilt and anxiety.  This paralyzes me; I sob uncontrollably, my chest tightens, my breaths become short and I am at a point of no return.  I let it overpower me until I am physically and mentally exhausted and slowly I just become numb.

Distractions

As I sit here attempting to “work from home,” I laugh to myself at what so many people said when I decided to attempt to start back to work after losing Avery.  Over and over, since our loss, people have said, “well that will be a good distraction” or that will help you get back to feeling “normal.”  Whether it was because I was going back to work, we were going out of town for the weekend or I was just doing something to get out of the house, this was the general reply. 

While I don’t take offense to these statements, I really don’t think these well-meaning people really get it, and how can they unless they have been in my shoes (which is something I wouldn’t wish upon my worst enemy).  Yes, I understand that at some point we will be expected to go back into the world and having a routine will probably help us with our grieving but going back into the real world will never make this all go away.  Getting back to “normal” as many people say is never going to happen and there is nothing in this world big enough to distract me from the loss of my daughter. 

In the past 2 ½ months I have come to loathe the words, “distraction” and “normal.”

Trying to Refocus

Today she turns 11 weeks old not in my arms but in Heaven. I know I really need to stop counting the days/weeks but I can’t seem to stop.  I know it’s not healthy to focus on this everyday but it’s how my brain works. 

What makes it really bad is that I don’t just count the number of weeks/days since she was born or since she went to Heaven but every day I spend a great deal of time remembering what we were doing on this same day X number of weeks ago.

When your daughter’s birth and passing happens within a week, it makes it very easy to remember exactly what happened on each day.  Our days with her in a brief nutshell:

·        Wednesday:  She was born - BEST DAY EVER!

·        Thursday:  She spent most of the day/night with us in our room at the hospital, my mom made it into town and more family got to meet her.

·        Friday:  We were released from the hospital and spent our first night as a family at home.

·        Saturday:  “Lazy Saturday” as my husband referred to it, was a perfect day of us getting to know our girl, enjoying our 5 year wedding anniversary and Avery meeting more family. (But this was also the day we held her memorial service, so that is always in the back of my mind).

·        Sunday:  I was able to spend hours with her alone while my husband went to the grocery store, etc.  This was one of my favorite days.

·        Monday:  My husband decided to stay home from work one last day for extra family day; this was also our last night with her.

·        Tuesday:  The worse day of our lives, the day my world stopped, the day she went to Heaven.

Every day, I relive what we were doing on this day so many weeks ago.  Some days I find comfort in the happy memories, others, it puts me into a downward spiral realizing yet again that those memories are all we have left.  This week, I tend to be more focused on the sad rather than the happy. 

10 weeks...

Back when I was pregnant with Avery, 10 weeks felt like an eternity; a quarter of my pregnancy gone but many more weeks to follow.  I have always been inpatient.  When I want something, I want it now.  I don’t want to wait.  40 weeks of pregnancy is a long time for someone inpatient, especially when you find out your pregnant at 5 weeks.

During my pregnancy, I was soooo inpatient, wanting so badly for June to arrive so that I could spend the rest of my life with my little girl, with our new family.  I was excited for the changes in my life.  I was excited for her.  I had so many plans, dreams, and hopes for her, for our family.  Now what?!?!  This was not what I planned!  I should be parenting an 11 week old, dreading the end of my maternity leave, sleep deprived but so incredibly happy to have my beautiful baby girl.

I am 10 weeks post loss and in some ways it does feel like an eternity but most days; I feel like it was just yesterday.  I feel like I am in just as dark a place as I was Tuesday, June 12^th when my world came crashing down.

10 weeks without her and I am….