I don't know if any of my readers aren't already Angela's readers too, but just in case you aren't, Angela of Little Bird is having a give away to celebrate reaching the 100 follower mark.

Deja vu (well almost)

The universe has decided to play another cruel trick on me. I just got D.G. all bundled up and sent him out to the Grey Cup (the Canadian equivalent of the Superbowl for my friends who live a little further south). A year ago, we watched our favorite team lose the 2009 Grey Cup in overtime. Shortly after, D.G. started making plans to go the the 2010 game because it would be played here in Edmonton. I was never planning to go to the game because I KNEW I would have a baby who needed me to provide their beverage of choice and finding a babysitter for a 3 year old and a 7 month old would be next to impossible.
Our favorite team is playing for the Grey Cup again, they are even playing against the same team as last year. And I am not going to the game because being in a stadium with 60,000 happy/excited/drunk people is something I can't do. I don't even want to watch the game on TV because it just makes me think about last year and what should be happening right now.
And on top of that I feel so stupid because back in June for some bizarre reason, I thought I would be able to do it and I spent $145 on a ticket. No wait I know the bizarre reason: in June I thought I WOULD BE PREGNANT by now and that I would have some hope of being some type of happy again.

Which is my best pile of drivel?

I want to submit something for the Creme de la Creme of 2010, not because I think anything I wrote was that great, but because I can. (Damn, Mel is awesome.) However being a horribly indecisive DBM, I can't decide which post to submit. Help me out my wonderful readers, should it be:

Drowning

My baby is dead but at least...

So what's left?

Any other suggestions? Seriously, I can't look at my writing objectively so I need your help.

I actually finished something (besides a chocolate bar)

So you wouldn't think being at the low end of low would encourage me to finish projects, but I've stopped expecting things to make sense around here. I bought most of the materials for a photo album for Reid months ago, but I've been dragging my butt about actually making any progress. (And it's a glorified photo album, NOT a scrapbook, I do NOT do scrapbooking.) My support group does a craft afternoon once a month and this month I needed to be around other DBM's so I went and I took Reid's album to work on. I didn't quite finish it on Saturday, but I did "finish" it yesterday. I will probably add a few more pictures, but it's finished enough to let someone besides me look at it. Not that there are many people I currently trust enough to show it to, but I can take it out and look at it whenever I need to. Of course right now just looking at the cover is enough to make me cry because this is the only photo album for Reid that I will ever have and he's only actually in 2 pictures. Of well, here are the highlights...

I picked the brown because it was masculine without being typically blue
(and the brown looks good with the red I needed to use.)

Of course all the accents are red.

The one good US picture we have.

My favorite pregnancy picture. I was so big I could not
see D when she stood under my belly. It's also the one of
the last "happy" pictures that I have.

Yes, it is that bad

I got angry at D.G. today. Angry enough to finally spew out just how bad things are in my head when I am at my lowest. I am not at my lowest all the time but once every 2 or 3 days, something happens that just destroys me. I end up sobbing on the floor and after a few minutes my thoughts turn to how I am so sick of the way things are and how nothing and no one can make things better. Because no one can bring Reid back and we aren't having any luck with ttc and no one (who doesn't have a dead baby) seems to understand why I would be having a hard time dealing with it.

At my lowest, I run out of hope that things will ever get better. I wonder what is the point of making myself go through the motions. Most of the things I do are because I am supposed to do them not because I want to and on bad days that includes spending time with my living child. I know that's horrible and ungrateful, but I am being honest here and right now having a living child just doesn't help me deal with the loss of my other child. Right now it seems like every time she does something good or cute or smart, it's just another thing that Reid will never do. I love her but it hurts so much at the same time.

Then I feel bad for not be able to just love and enjoy her and I start to wonder which is worse: having to grow up with a messed up mom who can't get over her dead brother or having no mom at all. So far the no mom at all seems worse but mostly because I think D.G. would be a terrible single parent. (I was mad enough at him today to tell him that which is an awful thing to say but at least he gets how bad things are in my head now.) I know thinking like this is dangerous but knowing it's bad doesn't mean I can stop those thoughts. I have no idea how to stop them but I don't think that AD's are the answer for me. I guess I'll see what the EMDR therapist has to say on Friday.

I know this is serious stuff, but it's not a plea for help. I am writing this to try to get it out of my head or get some perspective or something else like that. I'm not looking for advice or suggestions, just understanding.

Another month wasted. AF is back and so are the tears and wailing and loneliness. This time my cycle went a couple days longer than normal and I let myself get my hopes up the last couple days. Stupid, stupid, stupid. I was going to be pregnant and I was going to be able to handle visiting some of my pregnant friends and I was going to be able to give D a live sibling before her 4th birthday and the universe said "Screw you, that's not happening."

---

My mom called Tuesday and acted like everything was perfectly normal. I wasn't in the mood for drama and it's not like talking about it going to change anything that happened so I just let it go. D.G. also talked to his mom last night (for the first time since she went into Reid's room without asking) and also pretended that everything was normal so I guess that's what we all do around here.

Trying is highly over-rated

(This is a big long ramble, but I just need to get it out of my head so forgive me.)

So we are back. I saw the baby. (I held her, but only once) I tried to pretend I was normal, but could only hold it together for about 2 hours when everyone was around, so I would just hide out in the guest bedroom and read/cry for the rest of the evening. Except for the first night, when I locked myself in the guest bathroom with the lights off and the exhaust fan on to drown out the noise of everyone else talking right after supper was finished.

It was just all kinds of weird. Everyone would reply to me if I talked to them, but it felt like everyone was avoiding me. The only time I held the baby was when we first got there. After my parents held her, my dad gave her to me and I held her for about 2 minutes. My brother never asked me once if I wanted to hold her. I really felt like having a dead baby was some kind if communicable disease so they kept the baby away from me. We stayed with my aunt and uncle and my parents stayed at my brother's house. They all came to my aunt's house for supper every night we were there (D was the only one with an early bedtime) but we were never invited to my brother's house.

I guess I just have to accept that my brother having a child doesn't change the fact that he's an ass. I thought it might make him more understanding of what I have been through, but an ass who loves HIS baby is still an ass.

I barely talked to my mom during the whole ordeal and since I went to bed early the night before we left, I never even said goodbye to her. I figured she knew where I was, if she wanted to talk to me she could try, but she never did. I wonder how long I'll have to wait for the inevitable guilt-inducing phone call how about horribly I behaved during the trip.

Well at least D had a good time, apparently the dead baby taint has not been passed on to her.

November 11

I have to pack, but I need to be here more right now. Today we are going to visit my new niece and I am both excited and terrified. What if not freaking out at the sight of her was only enabled by technology and I have to run from the room before I start screaming when I see her in person? I think if I could just go see her myself it would be easier, but my whole family is going to be there and it involves driving to another city and staying with my aunt and uncle and just being away from my cave for 3 days. Uggh, this should not be stressful, I should be nothing but thrilled at the prospect of seeing my first niece.

---

A year ago, D.G. and I were packing for a few days away too. My mom came to watch D. and we spent 2 days at The Mall (It's the the biggest mall in the world and it's only 30 minutes away). We did nearly all our Christmas shopping, we ate whatever we wanted at odd hours, we rented movies and we slept in. Well he slept and I got up to pee frequently, but it was still good because we didn't have to worry about our 2 year old. It wasn't fancy but it was as close to a baby-moon as we were going to get.

When we came home, I found out that my friend L's son was stillborn. I was so shocked. I remember thinking "Full term babies don't die these days." How could that happen? (My cousin also delivered her son 11 weeks early that week and he didn't make it either so it was not a good week.) I was at 17 weeks and just wanted to wrap my arms around my belly and shield my baby from all this bad news. It was so sad for L, but something like that couldn't happen to us. Ha ha, the joke was on me because 5 and 1/2 months later, it did.

Anyways after all this rambling, today should have been L's son Kaelen's first birthday. If you have a spare moment, please stop by her blog and remember with her. (And yes it was me that gave her the gift.)

100

Wow, this is my 100^th post. I have an epic saga/ rant saved up, but I don’t want to waste my 100^th post on something even more painful and stressful than the usual Dead Baby Mama stuff.

I went back and read my first post and nearly 7 months after writing it, I still don’t understand how my life got to be this way. I now accept that I am not going to wake up one morning and realize that this has all been a horrible dream, but I don’t have any idea what I am supposed to with myself now. Maybe it’s because I am no closer to having a living baby in my arms now than I was then. Maybe it’s because I am just as antisocial right now as I was back then.

What has changed is that I know where to look for understanding and support. Thank you all for sticking with me for 100 posts and helping me get through the worst time in my life. I hope that I have been able to do the same for some of you. Love to you all.

Am I crazy or are they?

If you were lucky enough to get to bring home a real live baby and everything was "normal" and you got the point where you were making baby announcements, why the hell would you ever chose photos of the baby sleeping, i.e. with its eye's closed? Does this bother me just because I am a DBM and associate pictures of babies with their eyes closed with dead babies? Sure,you should take pictures of your kids while they are sleeping (I did it a couple weeks ago when D fell asleep while her dad yelled at the TV during a football game.), but why would you pick those pictures for a birth announcement? And it's not like one of those Anne Geddes elaborately posed photos, it's just a regular close up photo of the kid's face. I don't know if I am just reacting as someone who only has pictures of her son with his eyes closed or it's just that I am pissed at the mom of this kid (more on that later) but really, would anyone else be bothered by this?

I can do this

I saw my niece tonight, literally. My dad called me to get my help to get his Skype account working and when it didn't work, I got the jump the cue and see her first. Of course she is gorgeous and despite all my fears, I love her already. I just so wish her cousin Reid was here to meet her too. (Okay maybe it's more like desperately want or would do almost anything to make it happen than wish.)

Trying to avoid it

So it's another 3rd, this time November 3rd which means it's been 7 months. And I'm trying not to think about it because Mother Nature (that nasty bitch) has made it so that I am about to ovulate and thinking about dead babies is not conducive to making more babies. (Funny how that works because if I didn't have a dead baby I wouldn't be worried about making babies right now.)

.....


At my last counseling session, my counselor suggested trying another form of therapy, EMDR. (there's lots of info here so I won't get into details.) I know I'm not getting better, I can see myself getting worse with every anniversary and bfn, but I have no idea how to make myself feel better. Just letting myself live with the grief and waiting for time to pass isn't working. I have no idea if this will work for me, but I guess it's worth meeting the therapist who uses it to see if she thinks it will help. Has anyone else had any exposure to EMDR?

Uggh

Depressed Dead Baby Mama who also happens to be a chocoholic and comfort eater

+

tons of left over Halloween chocolate bars

=

Massive sugar hangover

Really Halloween could have been much worse. D loved it and no parents brought any baby boys to the door. But thoughts of last year when I wore a orange shirt to emphasize my pumpkin shaped belly and thoughts of what this year should have been were never far away.

(And I hate everyone's cute baby Halloween pictures on FB.)