Tag Archives: recovery

The Sinkhole

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8

Tomorrow is going to be a bad day. I’m bracing for that. Tomorrow is the day we were supposed to induce and I was going to get to meet my sweet little Everlee for the first time. Tomorrow was supposed to be the best day of my life. Now I know it will just be another bad day.

But today, I feel like today could have good moments. It’s a small step. We started our morning with Miranda, our psychologist. We gave her the URL for this blog, so if you’re reading this, hi Miranda. This is me, in my most raw form. The me you don’t often get to see in our sessions. I hope you still think I’m strong after you read this. Our session today was helpful and for the first time I left feeling a little more hopeful than when I arrived. After such a bad day on Friday I was beginning to lose hope that I was going to get to try to have another baby as soon as I wanted. Miranda listened and understood my point of view on why I want to try again sooner than 6 months from mow. Not monumentally sooner, just sooner than 6 months. She said she’s willing to support us in going to our doctor with that. That is honestly the best thing i have heard from anyone since this whole nightmare began. That’s the first thing that anyone has said that has started to ease my mind and my pain. That someone is willing to help me become a mommy, for the second time, without questioning my mental state – or my weight for that matter. Today has had good moments. I’m going to build on that and try to get out and have lunch with a friend today. Baby steps. One foot in front of the other.

After this weekend, I needed this morning. I buried myself away from the world this weekend. I can’t make a habit of that. It’s not good for me. My mind plays awfully funny tricks on me when Im given too much time alone. It’s not good for who I am. I am far from antisocial. I thrive on people and energy from a room. Being alone, being hidden, like I did this weekend weakens my soul. But I was broken and my mind was haunted with horrible thoughts. I’ve started to wonder if my baby girl felt any pain, did I hurt her in any way. I also started questioning my friendships, would my friends who are all blissfully happy right now even want me around bringing them down at the happiest points in their lives? But I have amazing friends, and I know if it was anyone of them going through what I’m going through, and the roles were reversed I would do whatever it takes to try and make them feel whole again. And I know now my friends want no different from me. I’m going to try and stop distancing myself from them. My world is a shattered place to be right now, but I need to my friends to be there when I’m able to pull myself from the rubble.

Saturday morning I woke up around 5am and read on twitter abut a man who had been swallowed by a sinkhole in his own home, from his own bed, in Florida that night. Strange as this may seem, I don’t think I’ve felt more connected to anybody than I did to him in that moment. His whole world had literally fallen out from underneath him and swallowed him whole, and figuratively, so had mine. Tragically, he hadn’t been able to claw his way out and dig his way up and find his shattered life, but I can. I have that hope. And although my life will never been the same, and that gaping hole will always be there right in the middle of my life, I have the hope that I can continue on and find a way to live with it. Everlee is the best thing that has ever happened to me, and I can’t keep living like the only thing she ever did was die. Her death will always haunt me, but her life, and the life and love and hope that she brought to me and her daddy will always be her legacy.

Her death was a sudden sinkhole that swallowed me up, but it’s her memory and the light that was her life that will help me claw my way back to the surface.

The Ache.

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16

I spend a lot of time looking at the pictures I have of Everlee on my phone. I wish I could show them off to people, like any mother would. My baby is beautiful. Perfect lips, her daddy’s nose and big eyes like her mommy. It’s one of the few physical things I have of Everlee; her pictures. I have one of her laying in my arms for the first time. Just her. Sleeping peacefully. I want so badly to show them off. Or for someone to ask to see them. But that’s not something you offer, and it’s certainly not something that people ask to see. So, I just spend the mind numbing, dark silent hours of the night staring at her and imagining all of the things I wish I had gotten to share with her.

People don’t know how to talk to me right now. My psychologist pointed this out yesterday morning. I didn’t need her to tell me that though. I can see how uncomfortable people feel around me – terrified they might say the wrong things or searching for the perfect thing to say. I’ll let you in on a secret. There is nothing you can say or do at this point that’s going to make me feel any better. You can’t bring Everlee back any more than I can. As much as I wish I could, or you could. And that’s really the only thing that’s going to make me feel any better right now. But please don’t be afraid to talk about her. Use her name. I love to hear people speak her name. It might make me cry, but it breaks my heart more to think people wont speak her name.

People seem most content to share their stories of loss or grief with me, and although I know that losing a parent or grandparent is hard and heart wrenching, I honestly don’t think it can compare to losing my child – a parent losing any child. It’s hard to say that to someone who is trying their best to comfort me. Losing someone like that, like a parent of grandparent, is the natural order of things. Yes, often parents and grandparents, aunts and uncles are taken much much too soon. But nothing will ever compare to losing your own child.

Your children are supposed to bury you, that’s how the world works. I never imagined in my life I would have to watch that teeny tiny casket being laid into the ground by her daddy. The only thing, he pointed out, that he ever got to physically do for her was carry her to her grave (words that will haunt me until the day I die). I never thought I would bury my child.

What I need and what I want is people that aren’t afraid to be around me. I need to start taking small steps to get out more, to see and interact with people. The thought of it makes my chest tighten, and makes me labour every breath. I get a hot, tight burning at the back of my throat. But my biggest fear is feeling like a chore to others. Im not easy to be around right now, and I know this. And I know I make people feel guilty. Two of my Very best friends in the entire world have both given birth to beautiful healthy babies in the last two months. I feel awful talking to them because I feel like I’m taking some of their happiness from them. I don’t want to ruin this time for them. I love their children so much and I don’t want them to feel an ounce of guilt for being happy. I don’t want to bring anyone else down. And I know that no one else can really help bring me up.

I’m so far down I can barely tell which way is up.

My arms ache with emptiness.