Every year, 26,000 babies are stillborn in America. In 2003, one of them was my son.

Monday, January 28, 2008

A Tiny Part of Me

Yep, I'm still here. I haven't known what to say this month; I've been tired, cranky, sick of the very cold semi-Midwestern weather. And oh, the snow. I'm really not a cold-weather person. January is just not my month, for a number of reasons, the most obvious being Ben. The weather does, however, mirror a lot of what I felt (and feel) about that loss. I remember in the months after he died, when spring began to push its way through the snow and cold, and I wanted so desperately to stay in January because that bleakness, the gray skies, the cold - the deadness, really - were what I felt inside. So in some ways January suits me, gives me a chance to mope and mourn. A tiny part of me is forever stuck in January; I envision a little corner of my heart figuratively chipped off and left behind in that January, or perhaps left in the hospital and taken off to be cremated with Ben.

I find myself walking around, telling myself, "We're going to have a baby." (I have never told anyone that, not even my husband.) I told myself that through all of my pregnancies, I suppose to try to make myself believe it, and I can't seem to stop saying it. I am most definitely NOT pregnant; though it could certainly happen unexpectedly, it isn't anything we're planning. We're done. But I'm having a really hard time coming to terms (no pun intended) with that. My dreams for a family with three children came true, but not in the way I planned. And I am rapidly approaching the age where the statistics get really bad for safe and healthy pregnancies. In short, I'm getting old, and no more babies means I really have to face that. Perhaps that sounds shallow, I don't know. I can't believe it's over for me; I can't believe those babymaking years went so fast; I can't believe one of my children died.

Maybe I would be more comfortable with the end of my babymaking years if Ben had lived and we'd gone on to have child number three. I'm incomplete this way. Subconsciously, still being able to have babies ties me to Ben; the passage of time for me takes me further away from the time I had with him, and reminds me that I get the time he did not have. But I can't keep myself in those moments I had with him (and believe me, I've tried to not move on). I guess I'm still working on acceptance, of a lot of different things.

*Thanks, Monica, for checking in.*

2 comments:

Monica H said...

You're welcome. I just wanted to make sure you were OK. I know sometimes it's hard to be more than that.

If you want warm weather, that feels like spring in the winter, summer in the spring and hell in the summer then come to Texas! We just skip fall all together here :)

I also feel like a part of me died my with sons- sad really.

And BTW, you're never too old to have children...remember that.

Debbie said...

Sometimes I'll read a blog, and I don't know what to say. I want to respond and say something meaningful, but I'm just not that person who is great with words.
So, instead of trying to say something meaningful, instead, I'll just say I'm here, and reading, and sending you a virtual hug during these long, wintry January days. :)