This will be my fourth year celebrating Christmas without my family. And that sucks. It's actually been so long now that I really don't remember what it was like to be with my brothers and parents. It's weird how we've all grown up... My parents are spending Christmas Eve down in St. James with my Grandparents, Aaron is (I believe) spending it with his wonderful girlfriend Abbie's family, and my baby brother Matty is hunkered down somewhere in Afghanistan. Matty definitely has the worst deal of all. And I feel bad. I miss him so much. But thankfully he will be home *hopefully* early February and then come August, he'll be getting stationed at the Army base across the island from us- how lucky are we??
This is the first year we're going to be spending Christmas just the four of us. Jack's first Christmas Jacob's brother Jared was living with us, and last year and the year before Jacob's mom was living with us. Don't get me wrong, I love my in-laws dearly, but it's just not the same as having MY family here.
I have to admit, it's probably better this way. Jack's pretty edgy these days. He's been out of school for exactly a week today, and it's starting to show. I hate how changes in his schedule really mess everything up. And there's nothing we can do about it. Such is life. Tonight I'm going to sit down and make up a picture schedule for tomorrow morning to try to help Jack through the chaos. It'll be interesting to see how he handles it all. We're just crossing our fingers for no major melt-downs... I'm sure there will be some crying and screaming but if we don't have any HUGE tantrums, it will be a success. We're going to cross our fingers and hope between the picture schedule, lots of sensory, and lots of deep breaths (on my part of course!) we'll all survive :)
Merry Christmas!!
Friday, December 24, 2010
Monday, December 20, 2010
Life
I have such a heavy heart today. I knew it was coming. After all, today is the 20th, a day that will forever stand out in my heart...
Two months ago today, October 20, I had a miscarriage. It feels so wrong to even type those words. I guess it was naive of me to think that I wouldn't ever suffer a loss of a child. And quite frankly that isn't even true. It's my biggest fear. But I honestly didn't imagine I would ever have a miscarriage, literally no one in my entire family has had one, or so they say. Surely that would mean that I should be in the clear. And after having such a difficult pregnancy with Jack I guess I kinda thought my body was super tough or something. But oh was I wrong.
I had no idea I was pregnant. We have been trying to get pregnant again for nearly a year with no success. Once we came to September and I knew I was going to be having surgery on my foot the end of the month we were actually trying NOT to get pregnant. Ironically, that is exactly when we did. And with that comes all sorts of feelings of guilt. I should have known. I had a pregnancy test shortly before my surgery but it came back negative. I guess I wasn't pregnant enough yet? That whole thing is a mystery to me. But I was. It really is no wonder that we lost the baby, I had surgery on my foot and I was put under for it, then was on pretty heavy pain killers for a couple weeks after that. Everyone kept telling me that heavy pain meds can mess with your cycle so not to worry about my period being late... Which was exactly why I never thought I was pregnant. But I should have known...
It all happened so fast. I had no idea what was happening. My parents were here. It was awful. Even after it happened I wasn't sure that THAT was what happened. So I called the hospital and after hours of waiting finally spoke to a nurse who told me just to take a pregnancy test and come in the next morning. That is when it became real. Those two lines I had been waiting for the last year were the exact thing I feared seeing more than anything. And there they were. Glaring at me. And that is when reality hit. I have no idea how I managed to tell my parents I had to go pick Jacob up from work, I have no idea how I drove to Jacob's work, but I'll never forget the moment he got in the car. Our lives were forever changed.
The months since I've been a zombie. Trying to maintain consciousness when all I want to do is cry. Trying to pretend like everything is ok when it's anything but. Holding my boys so tight and trying to find a way to hide my sobbing because I'm so thankful for them yet so broken that I have a baby in heaven who we'll never meet on this Earth. A little brother or sister that I know they would have loved to pieces. A missing piece in our life. Forever.
And now it's Christmas. And although it's supposed to be a joyous time I can't help but feel there is a rain cloud above me always. Ironically, I got pregnant with this baby the exact same time I got pregnant with each of the boys. They were born June 7th and 10th and my due date for this baby would have been around the 9th or so. So I can't help but remember... remember what the Christmas' were like when I was pregnant with them and long to be pregnant right now...
After the miscarriage we spoke with our Priest and his wife and they suggested that we name the baby. Something I hadn't ever thought to do but seemed so right. Since I wasn't nearly far enough along to tell if we would have had a boy or a girl we thought about using a unisex name (seems silly in hindsight but we did). But nothing felt right. And when we were on our way to Church one evening Jacob suggested we use the name Zoe which means "life" in Greek. We can't ever find out if we would have had a boy or a girl but one thing is for sure and that is that we had a life, another child, our child. And so that is the name we decided on. Our little Zoe.
I'm still drowning in this all. Hopefully I will find some peace, preferably sooner than later. But for now I'm just going to keep doing the only thing I know to do, and that's just keep breathing.
Two months ago today, October 20, I had a miscarriage. It feels so wrong to even type those words. I guess it was naive of me to think that I wouldn't ever suffer a loss of a child. And quite frankly that isn't even true. It's my biggest fear. But I honestly didn't imagine I would ever have a miscarriage, literally no one in my entire family has had one, or so they say. Surely that would mean that I should be in the clear. And after having such a difficult pregnancy with Jack I guess I kinda thought my body was super tough or something. But oh was I wrong.
I had no idea I was pregnant. We have been trying to get pregnant again for nearly a year with no success. Once we came to September and I knew I was going to be having surgery on my foot the end of the month we were actually trying NOT to get pregnant. Ironically, that is exactly when we did. And with that comes all sorts of feelings of guilt. I should have known. I had a pregnancy test shortly before my surgery but it came back negative. I guess I wasn't pregnant enough yet? That whole thing is a mystery to me. But I was. It really is no wonder that we lost the baby, I had surgery on my foot and I was put under for it, then was on pretty heavy pain killers for a couple weeks after that. Everyone kept telling me that heavy pain meds can mess with your cycle so not to worry about my period being late... Which was exactly why I never thought I was pregnant. But I should have known...
It all happened so fast. I had no idea what was happening. My parents were here. It was awful. Even after it happened I wasn't sure that THAT was what happened. So I called the hospital and after hours of waiting finally spoke to a nurse who told me just to take a pregnancy test and come in the next morning. That is when it became real. Those two lines I had been waiting for the last year were the exact thing I feared seeing more than anything. And there they were. Glaring at me. And that is when reality hit. I have no idea how I managed to tell my parents I had to go pick Jacob up from work, I have no idea how I drove to Jacob's work, but I'll never forget the moment he got in the car. Our lives were forever changed.
The months since I've been a zombie. Trying to maintain consciousness when all I want to do is cry. Trying to pretend like everything is ok when it's anything but. Holding my boys so tight and trying to find a way to hide my sobbing because I'm so thankful for them yet so broken that I have a baby in heaven who we'll never meet on this Earth. A little brother or sister that I know they would have loved to pieces. A missing piece in our life. Forever.
And now it's Christmas. And although it's supposed to be a joyous time I can't help but feel there is a rain cloud above me always. Ironically, I got pregnant with this baby the exact same time I got pregnant with each of the boys. They were born June 7th and 10th and my due date for this baby would have been around the 9th or so. So I can't help but remember... remember what the Christmas' were like when I was pregnant with them and long to be pregnant right now...
After the miscarriage we spoke with our Priest and his wife and they suggested that we name the baby. Something I hadn't ever thought to do but seemed so right. Since I wasn't nearly far enough along to tell if we would have had a boy or a girl we thought about using a unisex name (seems silly in hindsight but we did). But nothing felt right. And when we were on our way to Church one evening Jacob suggested we use the name Zoe which means "life" in Greek. We can't ever find out if we would have had a boy or a girl but one thing is for sure and that is that we had a life, another child, our child. And so that is the name we decided on. Our little Zoe.
I'm still drowning in this all. Hopefully I will find some peace, preferably sooner than later. But for now I'm just going to keep doing the only thing I know to do, and that's just keep breathing.
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