Wednesday

An 'old' favorite: Haley-Bug fresh out of the bath tub and snuggling in my arms. I can smell her freshly washed hair and all that lovely pink baby lotion. I can feel the way her cheeks felt when I kissed them. My arms can feel her weight and know just how she likes to be snuggled. I can hear those sweet baby noises she made in her sleep. My heart feels more incredible than it ever did before she was born, even though now she is lost. There is no love, no feeling in the world, like the way a mother loves her baby. I love you Haley-Bug. Always and forever.

Oh, Kidney stone

I look at these pictures and they make me sad. They make me sad because I no longer feel like I'm the same person you see in these pictures. The person you see there is happy, and more importantly she is hopeful. Hopeful that there are good and happy things to come in life. Hopeful that even if life might be stressful right now (vet school, wedding planning, complicated pregnancy, sick baby, etc) that all the stress will pay off and create happiness in the long run. Deep down, that girl is happy. Even with a sick Haley-roo, she was hopeful. Deep down in her heart of souls, that girl hoped and believed that her baby would be okay. I am not that girl anymore. The moment nurse Stacy gave me a look I hope to never see again, a look of such heart-wrenching pity it makes me cry even to remember it, and at that moment I knew there was no reason to hope anymore. I am not hopeful anymore. I am not happy. I am angry. I am very, very angry, and I am very, very, very sad. And now, on top of everything else terrible in life that has come our way, and this seems like a funny straw to have broken the camel's back, but it did all the same: we went on vacation to the outer banks this past week, a vacation I felt I desperately needed. I was feeling frustrated at work and like I just needed a mental break. But on our way down to Duck, we were staying the night in Newport News when I started having a terrible pain in my right sign. This pain got worse and worse, till honestly giving birth was a lesser pain than this. A few hours in the emergency room later and wah-lah: a kidney stone. So I was sent on my way with a lot of vicodin and a strainer to look for a stone. I spent my week of vacation sleeping 21 hours a day. It wasn't until the Friday before we left that I felt well enough that I got to go into the ocean that once. Saturday it stormed and Sunday we left for Ohio.

I am irrationally furious that on top of everything else in our life that sucks, my vacation was also ruined. I really, really needed that. As whiny as it sounds, it's just not fair. That vacation was going to be hard enough as it was, because the whole thing was really planned for Haley-Bug, it would've been a very baby friendly vacation and I think she would've loved the beach. So as sad as it was to pack to go there without her, and as sad as it was to be there without her, and as horrible as it is to live without her - couldn't I have just had this one week go okay otherwise so I could try to regenerate my soul? No.

In the Twilight book series, Bella talks about wrapping her arms around her chest tightly to try to keep her chest together when she feels like there's a giant aching hole in it. For me it more feels like someone is standing behind me and has wrapped their arms around me and dug their fingers into either side of my sternum and trying to literally rip my rib cage apart. I feel like if I don't do something different of make some change immediately that in one minute I will explode. That my chest will be wrenched open and I will die. But then a minute passes, and here I still am. Feeling the same way. I know it's not exactly as the author described the way Bella was feeling, but I know what she meant. And it's terrible. I need a change. I need something good to happen again. Or at least I need a change of scenery. I'm off to Wooster tomorrow for some quality time with my Grandma, I'm hoping I'll come home feeling a little more together.

I think smells trigger the strongest memories

Haley-Bug snuggled in her favorite blanket, being rocked by Daddy in our most amazing rocking chair that we got just for our little Bug who loved to be rocked more than anything. (Well, eventually being walked surpassed being rocked!) She liked it when Daddy wore his pink shirt all the time, it's sort of his 'I-have-an-adorable-pink-baby-girl Pride' shirt! :)

I remember the weight of her in my arms, snoozing while I rocked her, perfectly. And right now I can remember her amazing baby lotion, dreft, and indescribable baby smell so well that it's impossible to believe she's not right here. I've held many other babies since last I held Haley, and only cousin Ryan has even come close to smelling like her. He was close enough I think I could've just stood around, closed my eyes, and smelled him all day - but he might've gotten a little creeped out with that! For awhile Haley's one blanket still smelled like her. I folded it up carefully with the best smelling part inside, and once in awhile when I really needed it I could go bury my face in that smell. Only inhaling mind you, never exhaling on that precious blanket. But much to my dismay it did not last. Now I can only smell her in my mind, but it's amazing how real it is. I think the only other smell I have that's that distinct in my mind is the smell of airbags after they've gone off (can you tell I've been in a couple car wrecks?) And as acrid and distinct as that smell is in my brain, as vivid of memories it brings up and how the smell of it comes to be randomly or I might smell it when we drive by an accident and it makes my heart race, I can't just make it magically appear when I want to. (Though I don't know why I'd want to...) But Haley, Haley I can smell anytime I want to if I just think about it hard enough. I love it, I love that I can do that, and it terrifies me that with time I might lose that ability. I don't want to forget a single second of Haley or of my life with Haley, and I pray to God that I don't ever lose that smell. But that airbag smell hangs in there, even though it's been 5+ years, so I hope that the much better, longer exposure, infinitely more craved smell of Haley will last for at least the next 50 years. And hopefully it's always available on demand. It's crazy what you can cling to when you have to.

Posting on a Thursday again, shame on me

Grandpoppy tickling Haley-Bug and Haley-Bug really checking out Grandpoppy! I'm pretty sure she was talking to him in this picture. :)

Sorry for the late post again, at this point I thought I should just plan on blogging on Thursdays, but then the next thing you know I won't post till Friday. So it's probably best just to stick to thinking I'll do it Wednesdays and then be guilted into doing by Thursday at the latest! Wednesdays are my afternoons off, so you'd think I'd have more time those days but somehow I never seem to. Or, to be honest, sometimes I don't feel up to going through pictures. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE all the pictures and don't know what I'd do without them, I only wish I had a million more of them. And somedays it's just plain hard to scroll through all those happy memories and moments. Other days it's all I want to do and I can spend hours looking at pictures and watching videos of my sweet little Bug. I have videos with her hiccupping, fussing, talking, and lots that are just of her being cute - and while they're heartbreaking to watch, I sincerely don't know how I'd survive without them. Somedays I just have to hear her voice again. Even though I can still recall it exactly in my mind, I just need to hear it out loud again. Or like when Mom came over the other day and she just had to hear the little song Haley's play gym played. We spent so many hours listening to that little tune, it's hard to believe I've only heard it a couple of times in the last 4 months.

I will confess now that I didn't write much last week because I was feeling pretty devastated. After being 4.5 days late, my period showed up that night and crushed our hopes of being pregnant for another month. Day 1 of a new month is just so frustrating and sad; it's the loss of hope for a few more weeks at least, disappointment in myself, feeling like time is wasting away - like we're standing still even though the world seems to move around us, and incredible impatience. Not to mention the intense sadness that there is not a Bebe #2 for us to start looking forward to yet. All the horror stories of people who never manage to get pregnant again ever, or who spend years and years trying before they succeed, rush through my mind each new month and no matter how I try to keep them out they worm their way back in.

So here we are, in another new month, with the hope slowly creeping back in though I always try hard not to get TOO hopeful - it just makes the disappointment all that more difficult. But I can't help it, the hope worms its way in too and just like I can't keep the scary things out I can't keep the overly optimistic things out either. So here's hoping for another month - hoping that this month is more successful, that this month will be a month free of disappointment, that next April will be the month we deliver a healthy, happy, full term baby, and Haley-Bug becomes a big sister. Here's hoping.