2 years

Saturday the 29th was the second anniversary of our miscarriage. I'm so sad that nobody remembers our baby anymore. I don't mean that I expect friends to remember. And I don't even expect our family to say or do anything. But it's just that I could tell they didn't even have an idea that it was the 29th, 2 years since we lost our first baby. I don't think Matt remembered. It just makes me sad that it seems I'm the only one to think about it. I didn't want to spend the day moping or being depressed, but it was hard not to. I knew we were going over to my parents' house that evening and I was prepared for that. But I wasn't prepared to entertain my brother and sister all day for lunch and the rest of the afternoon. I had wanted them to come by to pick up the chaise lounge my sister is taking, but I didn't mean come to hang out for so long! Matt asked them to come a lot sooner than I had wanted them to. It was just hard to entertain while also being so sad.

I still feel bitter and sad and angry about it 2 years later. Maybe those who have lost a loved one or a child will understand. I remember my first baby every day. I have a box with the positive pregnancy tests (which, when I looked the other day, still looked the exact same as they did when I put them in there), pictures of us the day we found out about the pregnancy (5/18/08), and print outs of my blog posts about the pregnancy (not posts about the m/c). There's also a list of the names I'd started making after finding out about the pregnancy. Anyway, I feel like I'm keeping this stuff...and it's for nothing. Like, that little baby will never grow up and I'll say, "Here's this box...I was thinking of you even when you were still inside me. This is the story of how we found out we were going to have you..." I'm just so sorry for my baby. That he/she ended up with me...and look what happened.

I'm so disappointed in the people I know. That they can treat a miscarriage so flippantly. If I had had an abortion they would have been upset and there may have been tears and it would have been the death of a baby. But an early miscarriage at the same time? No big deal. The only emotions were them feeling a little sorry for me for about 5 minutes of the day, and then it was "get over it." I'm most angry at my in-laws' reactions. I still am. For those of you who were reading 2 years ago you may remember that the first time I saw my in-laws after the m/c they treated me horribly. We're having a different problem with them now and that makes the anniversary of our miscarriage even worse. They didn't care about our first baby, they didn't care that it took so many months of loneliness to conceive another baby, and now the worst thing is that they don't care about Evan.

Last year I think I was more positive. Grief comes in waves, sometimes it's easier to accept what happened than others. Sometimes I can mask it or pretend to be positive. But right now I don't feel like putting on an act. I feel like expressing my grief about my loss and my anger at the people who should have been supportive but chose not to be.

Mama

Thanks for all of the supportive comments on my last post!!! I made a visit to the vitamin store last week and bought fenugreek. Haven't bought any of the mother's tea or anything, but I plan to. Have been eating oatmeal every day (I usually do that anyway) and trying my hardest to drink a lot of water.

AND today was the first day Evan has nursed every feeding time since his tooth broke through 3 weeks ago!!! I still gave him a bottle of breast milk after his last feeding, but at least he nursed!!! I'm SO SO SO glad! I'm just amazed at how well we're doing. I can't believe I was that close to quitting. I really was. I had made the decision to wean him. But after writing that last post I realized how much I wanted to keep trying. So I decided to give it one more chance.

My letdown is happening quicker now and I think Evan has realized it will happen if he just gives it a minute or so. I'm still afraid we'll have more problems next time a tooth breaks through or something, but at least my letdown is better and I'm having much more success pumping, which is encouraging.

Yesterday was Mother's Day and it was great. :-) I still felt a little melancholy though. I just feel bad for all of the women who are excluded. And it was a little confusing when people told me "happy first Mother's Day." I was a mother last year. I was pregnant with Evan and if I hadn't lost my first baby I would have had a 3-4 month old baby by the time Mother's Day came around. Like I posted last year, I feel like women who have had miscarriages/struggle with IF are still mothers.

Plus the situation with the in-laws as escalated to the point where Matt called MIL to talk again (he had this same discussion with her in November and it made no difference), but I think this time he was a little firmer. She says she feels bad and asked what she can do to make it better. And we don't know how she can make it better. If she hasn't wanted to be a part of Evan's life up to now, why would that be any different now? Anyway, she called me twice on Saturday to talk, but both times I didn't get her call (I didn't do it on purpose though!). I really should have called her back today, but didn't feel like getting into it all. But it kind of put a little damper on Mother's Day. I think MIL was expecting us to come over for a cookout and stuff. And I just don't get why she's the only one attempting to make things better. FIL just gets off...like he hasn't done anything. *sigh* oh well!!! On to happier things........

Anyway, when I wasn't taking care of the baby (Matt parked at church in the morning and then did some grocery shopping in the evening), I was able to relax and nap a little bit in the morning. We all went to a park down the road in the early evening. It was a gorgeous day and perfect for doing some light hiking on the trails. When we came home Matt cooked burgers on our new grill...it was the first time we've used it. They were delicious!! Evan gave me a card that is adorable and is now sitting on top of the TV. It might just stay there forever. :-) The best gift was Matt folding the laundry, doing the dishes, and cleaning the house. And all of those things are already piling up again. lol


I'm so excited that I'm a mama! I absolutely love it. :-) Evan is such a sweetheart and he's cracking me up these days with how active and quick he is. He's still pretty laid back compared to many babies his age, but he's changing so much. He never ceases to amaze me with how he can change from one day to the next.

Thankful

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

I remember how hard last year was...and now here I am spending my first Thanksgiving with Evan. The holidays can be such a hard time for so many people for many different reasons. It makes my heart ache to think of all the women struggling with infertility, miscarriages, and infant loss. I know it's even harder to face the holidays without a child to share them with. My thoughts are with all of you, I'm praying that you will all find joy in this season.

Remember

Remembering Our Babies

I'm keeping all of you who have suffered a miscarriage or infant loss in my thoughts and prayers today. I'm so glad there's a designated day for miscarriage remembrance although I remember mine every day.

1 Year

It's been a year since my miscarriage. It's crazy to think about everything that's happened this past year. I still feel so sad for what I lost. For my baby, for my innocence, for my optimism, for my life before I suffered such a painful loss. It's crazy to think that exactly a year ago I went from being the happiest person in the world to the most miserable, all in one day. It's not fair that things had to happen that way, it's bad enough to have a miscarriage at all, but it seems even sadder that it happened at a time that should have been so perfect. Of course, it's always heartbreaking, no matter when it happens, but now I will always have the memories of my miscarriage associated with buying and moving into our first home. It's hard to celebrate owning a home for a year when that's also the anniversary of my miscarriage.

I'm so blessed, blessed to have survived a year. Blessed to have such a supportive husband who stuck with me through all of the hard times, blessed to have been able to do a lot of fun things over the past year, blessed to be pregnant again, blessed to have had a healthy and easy pregnancy so far. My heart aches for the women who suffer repeated losses, I can't imagine how hard that must be. Having one miscarriage has impacted me so incredibly much. I'll never be the same person, I'll always remember the horror and misery I experienced not only on May 29, 2008, but over the many months that followed. I'll always wonder about my first baby. I'll always feel sad to think of how many thousands of women have experienced the same thing I have. In one way it's been good to meet other women who know what I've been through, but it's also one of the saddest things I've seen, so many women who have lost babies whether once, twice, or even more.

The other day I visited THIS page and bought an awareness ribbon car magnet that I now have on my car in memory of my first baby. I want people to be more aware of what so many women go through. I want to reach out to other women who have experienced a miscarriage and that's not going to happen by sitting around keeping my loss to myself. For those of you who are on my blog list and have suffered a loss or multiple losses or are struggling with infertility, I want you to know that I pray for you all regularly. I'm always here if you want to talk. It's hard to see the good in a situation like the one I went through, but if anything positive came from my experience, it would be that I'm even more aware of what so many women go through and I'm willing to try to help them in any way I can, even if it's just to provide a listening ear.

BFP #1

Yesterday marked a year since we found out about our first pregnancy. I thought about it a lot, but didn't want to dwell on it anymore than I had to, so I didn't mention it in my post and I never even talked about it with Matt. The anniversary of the first pregnancy and the miscarriage are harder to deal with than I thought. I noticed that thinking about the miscarriage even after getting pregnant again was still hard, but I didn't think the anniversaries would be this rough. It's been on my mind a lot more than usual the past week.

I feel so sad that we didn't get to meet our first baby, that it had to end like that. At a time that should have been perfect. I still feel really bitter when I think about the events surrounding the miscarriage, how I was treated by the people who should have supported me the most, how I had hardly any help or encouragement from people I know in real life. It's upsetting to think that most of the people who knew I had a miscarriage didn't care at the time, and now if they even think about it at all they probably think I'm completely over it now that I'm pregnant again. But it still hurts and I still grieve for the child I didn't get to hold in my arms.

I'm so thankful for all of my Blogger friends though. I don't know what I would have done without y'all. You rejoiced when I received that BFP, grieved with me as I had a miscarriage, and supported me for a year afterward. Even those of you who haven't experienced a miscarriage yourselves have been very encouraging and have said and done all of the right things. It honestly doesn't take much to comfort someone who is grieving, you don't have to say any magic words or try to explain or justify the loss, just say "I'm praying," "I'm thinking of you," "I'm sorry." The most touching comments I heard were those that expressed concern for me and conveyed that me and my baby were special. One of the worst things is feeling that people didn't think that my pregnancy or baby mattered. So thanks to all of you who did care and continue to do so!!!