She's stronger than I am

Stolen, without permission, from my wife's blog... she'll probably fuss at me. :)


Where the hell do I go to from here?

That's the new question I have to answer for myself. Of course, I much rather answer that or try to instead of hearing "so how are you...physically I mean?"

Seriously, that's a dumb question. It's someones way of trying to make the question they tried to ask, which is "how are you?", less stupid because they realize they are talking to the dead baby mom & it's stupid to ask her how she's doing. So then they move onto the "physically" thing because it dawns on them that they may be able to get away with asking that. Personally, I liked the people who asked, "how are you?" more than those who added the "physically" part on there. I rather tell people "I feel like shit, thanks for asking!" instead of trying to have some odd convo about how I've recovered so well from childbirth when I have no baby. People really don't think that out though. Of course my aunt was really confused as to why I didn't have any incisions, so I finally introduced her to my midwife & told her to ask any questions about childbirth to Angy, as she's much better suited to explain things. Plus, I didn't want to talk about the graphic details of childbirth in front of my dad since my aunt kept trying to drag him into that convo as well. My dad doesn't want to think about how I got pregnant & anything that went along with it, nor do I want my dad to think about it. It's a father/daughter thing I guess.

So...where the hell do I go from here?

The answer is that I have no fucking clue.

I've basically come to the conclusion that now I have a new way I'll go through life. We went out last weekend to dinner (read: drinking) & a movie. First movie we'd been to in a very long time. I had a good time. But I'm very aware that I didn't have a good time. Don't get me wrong, I really did, but there is just a different scale of happiness now. Something is always going to be wrong & missing & while I'm sure I'll have happiness & I'll make it through all of this, I'm sure I'll never be as carefree & happy as I've been in the past. I'm hoping with time that will change, but I don't think it will. There will always be something there...or not there I guess I should say.

You walk around through life knowing that bad things can happen to you, but you never really think it will. Now I'm on the flip side of that. I know what can happen & I've had it happen. So everything is different & I look at the things that I thought as just "really unlikely" as pretty damn possible. I guess that's called paranoia, but whatever. I'll be paranoid the rest of my life & feel totally fine about it because the baby everyone assured me was fine & healthy...well, turns out I had to go to a funeral home and pick out an urn for him. I felt paranoid off & on my entire pregnancy & everyone told me I was fine & in turn I told myself I was fine. And for the rest of my life I have to wonder if I should have pushed my paranoias further. So from now on, I won't be convinced things are fine easily as I once was.

So Joel is gone. Some people care. Some people may not. Some people might, but have a shitty way of showing it. People took family pictures at my sons funeral. I've not seen them, but I'm guessing you can see the small bronze cube that holds my son in the background. People brought Jules the Christmas gifts they were too cheap to mail to us following the service. So Jules got gifts after his brothers funeral. Nice. And me? I'm reminded of the Christmas gifts my other son will never get and cried all the way home about it. You know, things that just add to my overall bitterness with my husbands family. Nothing new there though I guess. But I'll be honest & say my stomach now actually turns when I think about getting together with these people. And all that rings through my head is what started the whole drama anyway...the fact that I was pregnant with Joel & they weren't happy & didn't seem to care because they didn't consider him or us family. As if that isn't bad enough, just for them to think they should & can jump back into our lives because our son died while they still never had to say sorry for even not being a part of the pregnancy makes me sick on whole other levels. The more I think about it, the more I think I would just be a huge bitch around any of them, because I really don't care to put myself out there at all. Even the zoloft I'm now taking can make that any better. But who knows what'll go on with that, but I'm sure it'll be great & fun. That was sarcasm, btw.

I have no idea what happened to Joel. The autopsy was inconclusive because, according to the doctor, "the remains" were too decomposed to find anything like infections or something along those lines. My test have all come back fine so yay, I didn't kill my baby. That's the only good news with that I guess. There is no reason to believe I couldn't go on to have another totally healthy pregnancy & baby.

Well, you know, other than that little problem of my husband getting a vasectomy back in April. In fact, he had it done the day before we found out about the possible kidney issue. Everyone was just so certian everything would be fine that everyone said we should go ahead & get that out of the way before the new baby was born. The doctor who did it actually got him in over his spring break so he wouldn't have to miss work. It all seemed fine with everyone. I, of course, was paranoid, but put it out of my head. Silly me.

Of course that doesn't stop me, friends. I've never wanted a household full of kids, kids kinda freak me out even though I have them. I would agree that I have plenty of kids now, not to mention cats. But now it's not so simple & not about numbers. It's about the fact that I cannot leave this as the last baby expierence I have. I'm selfish & maybe I'm putting too much weight on how another baby would "fix" things, but I cannot go the rest of my life knowing the last newborn I was handed was "stillborn." I cannot have the last memory of me leaving the OB department of the hospital as us going out the back with just a blanket & a plastic bowl of hospital baby items like a name card & a tape measure. I know it won't fix anything or change anything, but it's something I need to have the chance to do over again, to expierence again.

So now, not even 3 months after the surgery, we're contacting people to have my poor husband subjected to some other surgery expierence so we can be breeders again in the future. Of course, that isn't something you can just get done everywhere, which I didn't know until now, so on top of actually getting it done (not to mention paying out of pocket) we get to go on a road trip. I tell Adam all the time he never takes me anywhere, so I guess we'll be taking care of that later this year. Not too far though, the top options are North Carolina or a few hours into Ohio. Part of me is pulling for Ohio so I can go to the zoo...figured one of us should try to have fun on the trip, right?

Trust me, I know I'll be alright. I know we all will. But I don't like the fact that I have to be alright. I, of course, wish things could just be easy & could have worked out like we planned. But, as usual, nothing I plan works out very well. Even for me though this is a whole new low of things sucking. I guess that's another good thing, I think I've hit rock bottom of things that could suck. At least I hope I have.

And for now I'm going to continue to keep myself busy. I've suddenly found a desire to organize & decorate my house so it doesn't just look like a toddler & no one else lives here. That, of course, means we've put things together & I've done some odd things (glass door knob wall hangings, anyone?) so I'll be sharing that work & progess soon enough I supppose. We're even going to be ripping up carpet. Expect pictures & hopefully some entertainment for the blog, that alone is a big reason I even attempt these things, for the humor that could ensue so I can share it & make witty, smartass comments.

My marriage may not survive home improvments. Lets hope though, because I really like that guy I tricked into marrying me. He lifts heavy things, peals oranges because I find it physically impossible, lets me buy $80 baskets for our living room, & doesn't mind having his genitals operated on not only once, but TWICE. Oh, & he does the cat litter for EIGHT FUCKING CATS. Of course it'd be nice if he'd pick up his dirty laundry, but oh well...

So I guess to answer to my question about where the hell I go to from here is pretty simple...

I go forward. I go on & I do what I can until we go through this again...well, not THIS, but you know what I mean. Then we go from there. Just new chapters in the book of life, I suppose.

It's either that or I jump off a bridge, but I hate heights so that's not a good option unless I find a really low bridge, which kinda defeats the purpose of jumping off a bridge in the first place.

I'm sure some people will think if we have another baby that we're trying to "replace" Joel or something stupid along those lines. When I posted pictures of me being a tree & things a couple weeks ago I thought to myself "are people going to think I don't care because I'm smiling & taking goofy pictures?" because I know I've been one of those people who have decided how someone should or shouldn't be acting after something bad has happened, so I'm sure someone looked & thought something about how they can't believe I'm having a good time with things that have happened over the past month & how they wouldn't do something like that if they were in my shoes. Kinda like I'm sure people will wonder why I'm able to go on & try to make funny blogs, since I should throw myself into some deep depression or something along those lines. And really, that's alright. I once concerned myself with those worries & didn't want to come off as this or that, but I've come to the conclusion that it's alright for anyone to think that. As a dear friend named Dawn once told me, I shouldn't waste my time caring about those who don't care about me. So if people think that, so be it, they obviously don't know me or care enough to know me better than that.

But, of course, if anyone actually says something to me I totally reserve my right to tell them to go fuck themselves. :)

OK, some things haven't changed I suppose. I guess that's reassuring in some way.

And to end this blog, I'm not sure if you've heard but some guy named Michael Jackson died. Personally, I'm more sad about a man named Billy Mays, who made me want to buy things like oxyclean (even though I thought it sucked), mightly mend-it & various other "as seen on TV" products. We enjoyed him greatly.