Just thoughts

I don't even know where to start with this post. I feel like I need to write it down because I have this neatly placed bandage over a wound I will always carry. Unintentionally a member of my family ripped the bandage off and I felt the searing pain that will happen from time to time throughout my life. She wrote her beliefs about abortion in a public forum which is her right to do. It caught me off guard it was in a place I didn't expect to find it and it was illuded that anyone to make such a decision is the destroyer of peace. Not only did I love my child and watch my belly expand I also named her and had hopes and dreams for her. I was only physically her mother for around 20 weeks but in those 20 weeks I was a mother to a very real person. And I had to make a very, very difficult decision. The fact is I made a rather selfish decision I made a decision that I knew in the end would allow me to heal. I made a decision to protect myself. My baby was going to die. I watched her slowed labored movements on the monitor in the ER. Her fate was quite clear even to my untrained eye. I was at risk. These were the facts plain and simple. I knew that quite simply delivering her in a cold sterile ER and seeing her sweet face only to have her taken from me was more than I could possibly bear. I knew it would destroy me. I knew that sitting around and waiting for my body to suffocate her was not fair. Not fair to me and I believe not fair to her. So I played god. I made the decision to abort her. It is a decision I have to live with forever. I was not awarded a lot of time to make the decision and I was scared. So very scared. On top of being scared for myself I was scared for my family and especially my daughter. The loss of a birthmother and an adoptive mother I thought was more than she could possibly deal with. Sometimes things are not black or white but the murkiest shades of gray. I do not think my decision makes me a terrible monster. I don't think I am the destroyer of peace. You may think that in my shoes you would have made a different decision but unless you've walked in my shoes quite frankly you have no idea. I would not wish anyone to walk that path. I believe that only one in the end should pass judgement.

Delusion

I've been having the delusion that I might try pregnancy again. It has been a thought caught in the breeze. It makes me smile once in a while to think of a could be. Part of my delusion comes from reading a womans blog. She also has a daughter born in Guatemala and she got pregnant started bleeding at the same point and now has the most beautiful baby girl. Her family is like looking at what my family could have been and it has peaked this renewed interest in walking a path I said I never would. So I came here and I read Luci's story (have you noticed her name has changed as I write this blog it's as if she is changing with me). I am so happy I wrote it down so happy she is here in cyberspace to remind me that no its not a path I will walk. I need to look at Lily my beautiful happy princess and remember that truly although I'd like her to have a sibling she is really all I need to make one complete family. We are the happiest unit of three on earth. People grow up to be happy individuals without siblings. Truth of the matter is I'm not even close to my siblings. So today I will let the whisperings in my head stay just that and be happy.

Thankful

It's thanksgiving so I can not help but think of my angel baby. I just want to say that there is not a day goes by that there isn't a reminder of her presence. I feel her in a warm breeze, I see her in a breath of cool air, she is here as the wind rustles the leaves, and the waves crash upon the beach. There is not a sadness or a longing anymore just a peace to know I was given a perfect angel. I will love my Luci until the end of my day. My last breath may whisper her name as I go to meet her embrace!

Forget-me-not

"An angel in the book of life wrote down my baby's birth.
Then whispered as she closed the book "too beautiful for the earth."
~author unknown
"The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen, nor touched, but are felt in the heart." Helen Keller
The one who put gentle footprints on our hearts leaves a story worth telling.
"What we have once enjoyed and deeply loved we can never lose, for all that we love deeply becomes a part of us." Helen Keller

Now I lay you down to sleep,
I pray the lord your soul to keep;
Within his arms he'll hold you tight,
My Heavenly Angel, My guiding light."

One year ago today Luciana was lost. To see her story my story go here

Sunshine and teeter totters

I haven't been here in a very long time. I am feeling the spring lift my spirits and my soul. I am healing. I am back to where I was before. I can see hang out and talk to pregnant people. Gasp dare I say I could even go to a baby shower. Don't hold ones breath but I may be able to attend one of those parties. I don't feel angry and desperate and hateful because I can not produce a biological child. I feel happiness and peace with my family. It is so good to be back. With each month of this year since June it marks something. A what if or a this is what was. Her due date was the hardest and I find myself clawing my way back to myself. Not the same me that was before Luciana but a me I am able to stand once again. I dare say a me that I like. At first I wondered what it all might mean. I was desperate to find meaning behind my sensless loss. I think now I don't need to find meaning behind the creulness that is just life sometimes. I am a stronger woman because of each of my losses. I am a even stronger woman because of Lucy.

So if it is all roses why am I here and not on my rosy blog. There is this new sort of birth control thing in which makes it so a woman who is done with her family can no longer become pregnant. A magic procedure where you don't skip a beat. I think that is perhaps what brings me here. Peter would like me to get said procedure done. He only has my absolute best interest in mind. He is the one who had to drag me back to life. He is the one who had to hold me until I thought my tears might just cause a lift on our constant Ca drought. My complete and utter devastation left him feeling as if perhaps there was something in this world my personal handyman could not fix. He is right to want me to put a stop to the occassional scare that we just might have to walk that path again. But alas I can not do this for him. There is something about the finality to all that that makes my fragile sense of healing perhaps teeter. As silly as it is I need my uterus functioning properly in order to be okay. It is not lost on me that my uterus obviously does not funtion as it should. But what if's plague me. What if I win the lotto and could spend endless money on invitro. What if someone finds a magic cure for miscarriage. You get the idea I could go on. Right after my loss I was all for never ever stepping foot in a OB office to check for a heartbeat. Good lord get that wand away from my privates or forever hold your peace. But my doctor talked me out of it. She told me I might feel just this way. I am very happy I chose to listen. I still do not plan to get pregnant again but I need a uterus and two fallopian tubes to make me look through those rose colored glasses.

New Years eve

Yesterday Peter and I were putting the christmas ornaments away. This christmas I felt full and as if I gave my daughter a lovely christmas filled with traditions and wonder and a few gifts. It really was not about gifts though it was about family. Just as it should be. As we were cleaning up Peter got a phone call. It is New Years Eve so I heard him ask what they were doing and then the question oh is she on antibiotics (in reference to why she couldn't partake in a beverage.) I knew it meant our friends had wonderful news. I heard Josh say Krista's pregnant clear as day through the reciever. I felt happy for her but upon such news I also felt the crushing darkness that is the hole in my heart. I didn't let him know I heard and it took him a full half hour to tell me the news. I know it is terribly hard for my family. I know telling me of others joy is hard for them. Sometimes I take the news well and sometimes it makes me withdraw into my cocoon once again. Peter said he wondered if I'll ever be able to be happy when I hear others good news. He doesn't get it and thats okay I can be simultaneously happy for Krista she will be a wonderful mother and sad for the emptiness that is left from the baby that wasn't. I tried to explain it to him but I could feel the rush of emotion so I withdrew it is new years eve afterall not a time for the venom to rear its ugly head. I dont really have words to explain the dichotemy anyways. I know that no matter how much time passes Lucy will still not be here and so my hole will be there. That hole is okay it is a badge of honor. The hole is all I get to keep of her. It may mean I won't attend Krista's baby shower it may mean my family will not ever truly understand but it is my piece of my daughter that I am keeping all my own.

Thankful

I have been muling this thanksgiving post in my head for several weeks months. I am not really sure. This day of thanks has been hanging over me. This was my due date. It is like a dark cloud looming overhead. I know it's there sometimes I want to choke the words out scream them. It was supposed to all be different I am supposed to be the stuffed turkey this year. Truth be told I don't want to spend my day thinking and clinging to this. Lucy was lost a while ago and I have come to accept this fact. I have come to accept my place as a mother to an only child. The best gift a mother could have the only gift that is really needed. But even still this day feels like it needs to be commemorated somehow but how I do not know. I feel like I should be doing something to honor my angel baby on the day that she should be fighting to enter this world but I do not know how one is supposed to honor or commemorate someone that wasn't. Peter Lily and I are going to spend a quiet day just the three of us. And maybe that is enough. Maybe it is enough that I give thanks today for the family I do have and not cling to the one that could have been.
This year has been one of the most difficult years of my life. When I think of all I do have it makes my difficulties seem so minor and pale in comparison to the things that are happening to people all around the world. So as I speak to my hardships know that I know they could be much worse. This year I lost two things very dear to me. The first was my status as a homeowner. The stability of owning ones home is something maybe you don't think about until you have lost it. I am not blaming or asking for sympathy I am not asking for a government bailout or a handout. I made financial mistakes that cost me dearly. So you pick up and move on. I have learned a valuable lesson the very hard way. The loss of Lucianna is something that I had no control over. Losing my home I can prevent in the future if I am ever to become the lucky owner of a home again. But the other loss there will be no cure for in the future. No amount of smarts could have prevented it. This brings both comfort and sadness. Comfort in knowing that I was not the direct cause and sadness in knowing it is the end of my battle with infertility.
So I will be happy to see this year come to a close. I will be happy to end the doom and gloom of 2008. I will be happy to shed my 33 year and grow a year older. So even though I am complaining and venting in my thanksgiving post I know what I do have and that is why this thanksgiving is particularly special. I am even more thankful for the roof over my head. I am even more thankful for the husband who loves me. The child I have the priveledge of raising. I am thankful for my infertility without it there would be no Lily under my roof. I am thankful for the food on my table, the ability to help provide for my family. A year of hardship brings lessons I am thankful for these lessons. I am thankful to know I am strong. I am thankful to know I have someone to catch me in moments of weakness. I am thankful for my job and the sweet class I have this year. So even with sadness and tragic loss I am a happy woman. I am thankful for my happiness. There is much to be thankful for in this world. It is what keeps me centered keeps me moving forward keeps me from slipping into the depression that could have been. I am thankful for knowing that whatever life throws my way there will always be things to be thankful for. I am thankful for that knowledge.

So Happy Thanksgiving to all my friends and family. This is the year I got to discover what being thankful is really all about. Thank you Lucy for making your mommy strong and thankful. I will be looking up at the stars tonight I know you will be winking down at me. I will certainly be winking up at you.