incest

to elaborate on the "washing of hands" of everything reproductive, i had a job interview today.

being at home with three three (and a half)-year-olds is doing nothing positive for my sanity level. unfortunately, the whole deadbaby thing came around the same time they were to begin transition into the TRUE terrible phase of childhood....THREE.

NOT good for a deadbaby mama.

last week, the camel's back broke; i realized they needed something i couldn't be: a preschool teacher. and that's ok (right? RIGHT?!?). i've always been against sending them to school before kindergarten but i have to admit that it's my own ego standing between them and what they need.

and i can't lie to you. I NEED IT TOO.

as it stands, i will be working only to pay their tuition. and that's A-OK with me.

so.........the incest part.

i will be working in a women's health group practice (read: OB).

i will be working for the same doc that delivered p@ige.

i don't know what that's going to be like. but i do know that, in terms of my future nursing plans, it's right where i need to be.

happy birthday, to one that lived

me.

for the past week or so, i've been so melancholy. i've never really cared much about my birthday, but this year it's bringing me back around to p@ige. i haven't realized why until now, when i checked bloglines and there are just SO. MANY. DEADBABY. BIRTHDAYS.

last september, when i first had the need to google "stillbirth blog", i remember noticing how many women became deadbaby moms on or right exactly around my birthday. i remember thinking about how sad i would be for us on the day i was born alive. and it happened, and i didn't even know why.

i've been surprised, actually, because i've been at a pretty good place. i've been reading OB nurse blogs; i've been trying to re-direct my focus to the future i can actually control (you know, as opposed to fucking infertility, that mother-fuck). i am now leaning way more towards iud and a symbolic wash of the hands of this reproductive black hole. which is good. really good.

until my next episode of baby desperation...but i suspect that those episodes will continue forever, since, of course, you know, i am still pregnant with a ghost.

for now, happy/sad birthday to me. and to tash, and ashleigh, and janis...because for me? i was born the day she died.

what a miracle

if i can't get pregnant again, that means p@ige was special. it means she was some kind of freak happening; we were really lucky to have that happen.

i don't want her to be special. maybe i just want to get pregnant again so she won't be special anymore. i think i want to get pregnant again so i won't feel like i killed my miracle baby; so i didn't squander my only opportunity.

i got pregnant by accident, by surprise, and acted like a fucking brat the whole time. i feel like the only opportunity to fill some of that goddamned hole of regret is to get pregnant again and have a do-over. i KNOW it's not a do-over. i read read reeeeeeead about the pregnancies and babies after deadbabies and know it's not a do over.

but right now, it kinda is. i can't help but feel like it still is a little do-over even after you get another pregnancy and baby, but no one wants to admit it. am i wrong???

ghost baby

i'm not sure what i want to say about living with my ghost baby, but i feel like this picture, with it's hidden, secret baby, says alot of it. can you see it? i wonder if i'm just angry that everyone can't see my ghost baby either.

for the gipper

i really do feel like i need to win one. after everything- the infertility, the multiple birth, the baby death- i want to just win this last time and be done with it all. but i think the whole thing is just a fantasy. the carrot. the plaster.

all your comments are so, so right. and the farther i get from achieving a pregnancy, the harder it is to want it. the less desperate it is.

on the other hand, it's probably when i feel the least like another baby would be a good idea, that it would happen. because FUCK ME, you know?

i just want to feel like i've already won, which i kinda do. i want to feel like i'm winning every moment. sometimes i do. other times...are just other times.

sometimes i just feel like i want another chance. but another chance for what, exactly? what chances am i giving up every moment i waste thinking about getting pregnant again? because i don't know if it will happen; no matter what i do, i can't know. i just have to win every moment anyway.

i am finding out that i have a hard time with feelings. my DOING keeps me from my BEING. my "knowing" keeps me from the knowledge that i can not know.

for now, i just don't want to miss the moments with the people i'm already a mother to; i don't want to lose those moments to fantasy. i've already won.

yet, here i am.

stark raving white

i've been staring at one line since yesterday, and my eyes hurt. my eyes are seeing lines where there are obviously none...obviously, at least, for anyone else but me. the area below the test lines are blindingly white, yet still i stare and hallucinate.

i am stuck. i am stuck in indecisiveness, which can work with infertility. i guess when i think hard enough about getting pregnant or not i can be happy with either, but jesus christ above, the frustration of negative test after negative test is maddening...

which begs the question, am i again caught up in the success of the two pink lines, or do i really, really, REALLY want another screaming, crazy-making child?

the process of infertility is feeling a bit safe these days too, ironically. i know how to do it. even the craziness feels warm and familiar. i wonder how long and how far i will try.

really, though, i am not as pathetic as all that sounds, thank god. i am actually feeling pretty good. i am learning to be mindful and appreciate every moment, and trying to compartmentalize the infertility. i am a mom, after all.

no matter what happens, i am already a mom.

my mother's day gift

my dead daughter gave me my father back.

in the months since i realized my mother has narc1ss1st1c pers0nal1ty d1s0rder, we've learned that she's lied about incest, tried to convince all of us that we were molested a la munchhausen by proxy, and last but not least told my entire father's family that if they didn't cut off my father after the divorce, they could not continue relationships with us (the kids).

i saw my father this past monday, after about 10 years (if not more). he's scared shitless of my mother. he is so different than she is...he's exactly like us- my sisters and i. it makes me so sad that we've missed so many years; it makes me so sad that we've been mentally and emotionally abused by my mother all this time and had not even known it.

i'm sad that i would have let my father go to his grave without having a relationship with him without the shit goggles my mother put on all of us...and i'm REALLY sad that i got my dad back because my baby is dead. because, really, that's what happened. that's how this all went down.

how do i reconcile it all? happy, sad. my baby has given me so much, yet there's nothing i can do for her. except realize that i am her. she is me. and i'm gonna take these gifts, goddamn it.