Every morning I wake up and still I have to talk myself down out of my anxiety and into getting out of bed. How do you start a day with fear? I fear that I won’t be able to make it through the day the way I want to…without disappointing myself, my son, my husband. I want so much to be the same person. The openhearted, loving, smiling person that I am in my mind. But, my reality is different right now. I can’t seem to keep my heart open each day. Somewhere along the line, no matter how good my intentions are and how much I pray when I feel it starting, I sink back into this black hole of loneliness and despair. Sometimes I can make it all the way until my son is in bed. Some days my progress ends before it begins. When I wake up, I am usually hot with anxiety so I close my eyes tightly and remember what has happened to me, the progress that I have made and remind myself that there is life around me and people who need me. I look at my son and watch him sleep next to my husband. Both of them in their own way have gone back into a life where nothing has changed. Something happened, but nothing has changed. They can just look at the future, and so can I. I see the future too, clearly sometimes and I’m full of hope and joy and I can put the past in its place. But only for a time. And then, it’s hard to explain, but it just comes back up. Fear. Fear of everything. Fear of what I have already gone through. Fear of having that overwhelming loneliness of not having my baby to hold grab me and not let me go. I think it’s basically a fear that I will never completely be the woman that I know… five weeks ago, I could tell you that I loved every single part of my life and I want to be able to say that again. My biggest fear is that I will never be able to say that again.

Today I won't lie. I spent at least an hour under a blue blanket in my living room. It felt oddly comforting to hear my family's life going on around me but not having to participate. It is pretty much how I wish the world would go most days. I could just sit in the corner and watch...maybe just hear. I don't want life to stop. I just don't feel like being a participant most times which even the thought of brings pleasure and guilt.

I did get up though. I cleaned up the house and the photo books I ordered came today. One for me and one for my mom. I wanted it to replace all the disjointed photos around my house and in boxes and taken out of frames as we have prepared for our daughters service and as I have tried and changed the best way to memorialize her here in our house. I have had a huge push, created in my own mind, to organize all these physical reminders received since her death; the obituary, her clothes that I kept, gifts from people, memorial service programs, pictures. It's like I want to make my home the same way I want to make my mind work. I want everything in it's place. I want some things to be easily accessible, I want others just to be shared at specific times, and I want others out of my life entirely. I know this might sound strange, but I have a clear picture in my head of how I want it. I made her birth announcements and I put one in the huge frame with the other big announcements in our lives...our wedding and our son's birth. I have a picture of her beside the urn that holds her remains. I have the picture I ordered to go over her crib. These things will always be in our home. For Christmas, a friend from church sent me, out of the blue, a beautiful silver ornament engraved with her name and the words "A Gift from Emmanuel". It is a treasure to me and each Christmas eve as a family we will hang it on our tree as we pause to remember another that we are waiting for. As for all the other things, the ones that can't be displayed, or I guess they could but it can get to an unhealthy point for me at least, I have a small box. I only want the extremely important things there. I think so far ahead, maybe too far. What will happen to these things when I die? I don't want more in that box than can be buried with me. So in the box there is the small photo book with her obituary and her service program and her birth announcement, all the cards from her shower and the ones sent after her death, the guest book which I filled out today with pictures and information, I have her sonogram CD and a CD of all the pictures, I have her baby book filled out as far as I could, and I have her beautiful sweater and hat that my mother ordered for her.

And all the other things, reminders, papers? I have no room for them. My heart can't bear making emotional attachments to every single thing that reminds me of her. In fact, last week my mother in law sent a present to my son. She casually mentioned to my husband that she put an angel for the baby in it. As our son dug through his presents, he flung the angel out at me. I looked at it in shock really. It was a plastic dollar store angel that read "You're Special" across it. I actually got physically hot as I looked at it. It was obvious that it was some afterthought. "Oh, the baby is an angel now so obviously she will want to have angels everywhere all over her house." Well I don't. Maybe that sounds cruel or mean, but it's survival for me. I have felt like I am on the verge of being swallowed up by these memories - many of them horrible - and being swallowed up by these things. Somehow I guess I feel if I make sense and organization of the things, I can start to organize and control my own thoughts. That if I make that hard decisions now and throw out these things that have little or no meaning I can preserve some part of my heart so that it's not totally swallowed up by this.

We made it through Christmas. I made it through Christmas. My son and I made a batch of cookies. We wrapped the presents. We unwrapped them. We spent time at church. We spent time with some family. I went through the motions. It’s so hard to explain. I could feel the joy. I could feel the happiness. I could take it into my heart, but there it was quickly swallowed up by that black hole that remains right there in the middle of me. It hurts. An unexplainable pain that doesn’t really cease no matter what happiness I feel.

And the anxiety. We will go and see our doctor again soon. I wish I could say that being pregnant was not even a thought in my mind, but it is. My husband and I have been planning to expand our family for 2 years now. Before the loss of my daughter, I had 2 miscarriages. They were devastating to me mostly because they were delaying our plan. We desperately wanted more children. So, I went through them, kept hope and learned that both of them were totally random and due to genetic abnormalities that had nothing to do with us. After tons of tests and bloodwork and worry, our doctor sat us down and told us we simply had some of the worst luck he had ever seen. So, when we were surprised with the news that I was pregnant again with our daughter, it was pretty fair to expect that our bad luck was over…until November 26^th when we shockingly found out that our darling long waited for baby had no heartbeat. And the next day, after having her and finding out that it was a cord accident, the doctor pulled up a chair beside my bed and said once again that we were just stricken with the worst luck.

It still seems impossible. Who could ever have luck so bad? Yet I know, we knew, from the start that we would not stop. In life you have 2 choices. Give up or keep going. In our case, like many others who have experienced tragedy of all kinds, to keep going means heartache. To give up means heartache. I am well aware that there is no way over or under or around this reality. It is our reality and it means that everything will be harder for us. If only there were some guarantee that next time things will be perfect, but life holds no such thing. Maybe that’s why I am suddenly unwilling to let my son out of my sight, even to go to the movies with his father. I know there is no guarantee for me, for him, for any of us. And there was no guarantee for my daughter. On my better days I know this. On my worst days I feel like an utter failure.

Today is Christmas Eve. We woke up this morning with my son between us. My husband whispered in his ear that Santa was coming tonight. His eyes lit up with the magic of a three year old as he turned to tell me the wonderful news he had just heard. I smiled too, almost totally meaning it. I reminded him that it is also when Jesus was born. “Like baby sister” he said “Baby Jesus and baby sister are like twins.”

These past days have been rolling along a little better….just heavier. I finished reading a book. An Exact Replica of a Figment of Imagination by Elizabeth McCracken. It is about a woman whose first child was stillborn and she writes it right after the birth of her second child. Many things she wrote spoke to me. One passage in particular described in words I don’t have what kind of grief I feel. It is not the same kind of grief as most. It is a special, specific grief when you lose a child that you never really had.

“After most deaths I imagine, the awfulness lies in how everything has changed: you no longer recognize the form of your days. There’s a hole. Its person shaped and it follows you everywhere, to bed, to the dinner table, in the car.

For us what was killing was how nothing had changed. We’d been waiting to be transformed, and now here we were, back in our old lives.”

The hole for me is baby shaped, but I knew so little of her I can’t fill that hole with memories. Those are mostly awful. I can’t fill the hole with my imagination…imagining what I would be doing now, or how she would look. That would surely kill me. It just remains a hole. A reminder that nothing and everything is missing all at the same time.

I wake up with this overwhelming anxiety every day. I’m not sure where it comes from. Even if my son gets up to go to the bathroom, panic is already coursing through my veins. I heard once that when you sleep your mind tries to make sense of whatever is troubling you in your life. If that’s the case, then no wonder I wake up with this intense mind numbing anxiety. It’s hard to function when that is how your day starts.

This weekend, we went out of town. It was okay but I found little joy in experiencing anything new. It was just like me, struggling with the same things I struggle with anywhere, walking around in a different place. The hardest part about being out of the house is seeing all the strollers. I walk along with my son and my husband and I see another family with a son about my son’s age. They look the same as us but with one huge difference. They have a stroller. I can’t even stop myself from glimpsing inside the half pulled cover to see the little blankets with a pink hot dotting the top. A newborn. Out with her new family. In many ways we are actually the same family. We just had a baby too. I am a new mom too. I just gave birth. But in reality we are the exact opposite. Changed in the complete opposite way. They push their sleeping baby around in a stroller. I carry mine so heavy in my heart. They wake up to their baby’s cries. I wake up to my own tears. They have the joy of recently bringing a baby home from the hospital. I have an urn.

My husband thought it would be best to get out of town for a little bit. My son is just like his dad. He is always up for something new so they have been very excited. I feel like I am just going through the motions though. I am just so sad. I almost feel numb. So numb that I barely even have the energy to talk at times. I just sort of walk behind them. When they smile, I smile with them but it doesn't come from very far inside. This is making me so sad too. Generally, I am one of the happiest people I know. I am always smiling and my smile comes from deep inside. I love my life so much. All of it. Every part of my every day makes me feel accomplished and helpful and joyful....but right now it feels like I am struggling just to see glimpses of that old feeling. Tiny sparks of it in my heart. I just pray that those sparks will slowly ignite the fire that was me and burn away that numbness that I feel like it is slowly killing who I was. More than anything, i don't want that. I want to be the mother she would have known. I want to be stronger and even more joyous than before so that when I see her again, I can give my whole self to her.

It's empty in the valley of your heart
The sun, it rises slowly as you walk
Away from all the fears
And all the faults you've left behind

The harvest left no food for you to eat
You cannibal, you meat-eater, you see
But I have seen the same
I know the shame in your defeat

But I will hold on hope
And I won't let you choke
On the noose around your neck

And I'll find strength in pain
And I will change my ways
I'll know my name as it's called again

Cause I have other things to fill my time
You take what is yours and I'll take mine
Now let me at the truth
Which will refresh my broken mind

So tie me to a post and block my ears
I can see widows and orphans through my tears
I know my call despite my faults
And despite my growing fears

But I will hold on hope
And I won't let you choke
On the noose around your neck

And I'll find strength in pain
And I will change my ways
I'll know my name as it's called again

So come out of your cave walking on your hands
And see the world hanging upside down
You can understand dependence
When you know the maker's land

So make your siren's call
And sing all you want
I will not hear what you have to say

Cause I need freedom now
And I need to know how
To live my life as it's meant to be

And I will hold on hope
And I won't let you choke
On the noose around your neck

And I'll find strength in pain
And I will change my ways
I'll know my name as it's called again

We put up our Christmas decorations. I didn’t really want to. Well, actually I didn’t want to at all. I dreaded it, but like most everything, it had to be done. It wouldn’t be fair to my son if we didn’t carry on like usual. My mother said tonight that it takes courage, but I told her it doesn’t. The sun comes up every day and so I have to get up, but thank God it does and thank God I have a son that needs his breakfast. I am grateful that I don’t have a choice.

What is troubling me the most right now is a thought that occurred to me slowly today. I think it started with a friends email. She used the word cruel to describe what I am going through. When I read it, it was the most appropriate word I could think of. I can admit that looking lately, the whole thing does often feel like a cruel joke. Not a joke that anyone played on me. I am not angry at anyone. I have no one to be angry at. But, all the preparation, all the joy, all the happiness that this pregnancy brought to me and to my family with an outcome of….nothing. Even to me that word sounds harsh. Nothing. I don’t mean that she was nothing. She was everything. She was perfect. She is my daughter. She was created by God and known by God. I truly believe that with all my heart and I know that I will be with her again….just not here. Not ever in this world, and I guess this world and the reality of my life now is what has been on my mind and in this world the word “nothing” does apply. It is harsh and so is my reality. It is awful. It is terrible. It is awful that I think of her every second some days. Everyone keeps telling me to keep thinking of her, but when I looked at her picture tonight, I wondered why. Why? It is not like there are memories of her that are wonderful. In reality, my memories are a living nightmare. What I went through was a nightmare. I have said before I would do anything asked of me when it comes to my children and I did. I will. It’s not that. It’s like I have no past with her that I can cling to. Each book has a beginning and an end, and as a believer I know that the end we see is no kind of end at all, but there is an end to this reality and it is death. So what is this experience then? The beginning was the end and there was no middle and I am left here with nothing but to try to have hope for a future on this earth that will never have her in it. How cruel is that? Not for her. She has something greater than any of us can know and if I was a part of that then I gratefully gave it. The cruel joke seems to be on me.

It is so hard to wake up each day. I lay there and wonder “how will I feel today? Will I be able to handle this reality, or will today be a day the day that I will completely lose it?”. And then I have to get out of bed with that uncertainty. And it lasts through every minute of the day. On the way to church the other night I asked my husband when the terrible ache I had would go away. When he replied “probably never” I started sobbing telling him that I would die if it didn’t. I can live with sorrow, I can live with remembering, but those days where every other thought is of her and every thought brings this terrible gut wrenching knot into my chest…those days I feel like the pain will kill me. It’s a struggle to breathe. It’s a struggle to get through just minutes on those days.

Other days, I can remember more easily that she is not gone, just gone from us. I remember that she is more fully alive than any of us can know. On those days I am able to remind myself of one truth that I hold on to when I start to wonder why this happened. I hope I can explain that thought. It’s not that I wouldn’t do anything to change what has happened. I would. If I had been given a choice, I would gladly be gone from this earth and have her here with her brother and father. But I didn’t get that choice. I didn’t get any choice. What I try to remember is that even if I had some crystal ball and was told that after carrying her for eight and half months I would have to give birth to a baby that I would never get to see alive in all my days on this earth, I wouldn’t have stopped my pregnancy then. Les and I have never done any testing each time I have been pregnant because I know in my heart that for me, no choice that could come from them is one I could make. “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding. In all things acknowledge him and he will make your path straight”. I am so aware that my inability to control things is my biggest struggle in life, a struggle punctuated by becoming a mother. As for this trial, I don’t know how. I don’t know why. I don’t know what I will do. I do know that if the only thing I could give her in this earthly world was that many months of care in my body, if all I could give her was those few moments after her death to be held by her waiting family then so be it. I waited those months with the hope of giving her everything that I had inside of me, until the day I leave this earth, but it turned out that I was not given that opportunity. What I had the opportunity to give was so much less, but what I did get to give her I would have given willingly even if I had a choice. That I hold on to when I wonder why.

I have no idea how yesterday was so different than the day before. The day before, I had nothing to give to anyone. Yesterday, I felt such love and gratefulness, I couldn't stop trying to give. Today... today I am struggling. Struggling with the feeling that nobody asked me about this. Nobody asked if I could handle this. All I can see is the mountain in front of me and I don't want to climb it. And today I don't feel like I can. It has been a little over a week but it feels like a lifetime that I have walked through. I have no idea why this is but I know it's not my place to opt out of the hard parts of life. I know its my job to take it. I know I can't ask to skip the bad parts, and I know that nobody is asking me...i'm being told. But why God, why I me?

Yesterday was not a good day. It was my husbands first day back at work and it was my first day alone at home with my son. I don't mean I was alone. I have many friends that I know are waiting for a phone call to come over, but it was my first day to be back to "normal" and it didn't go well. I really for some reason thought it would. All we did was go to Wal Mart. I had a few more things to get for our Angel Tree angel and some milk. I knew I would see baby clothes, and babies and it was fine. Then I turned another corner and I see a mother with a son and a new baby it's carrier and it was okay. Then another corner, and another corner and it became less and less okay until my eyes welled up with tears. It just snowballed from there. And my son, he was there, witnessing his mother fall apart in the lotion aisle. He looked at me, confusion in his face and said "Mommy, are you sad? Are you sad about my baby sister?" I said that I was and he reached up to hug me tight and pat my back. "I will tell Jesus to come to Murfreesboro and bring her back". By this time I was choking back tears. All I could do was go home, get his lunch, leave the bags at the door and crawl into bed.

On Saturday we took down her crib. I can't tell you how I did it. I would be lying if I told you I did not take one of the Valiums that I left the hospital with, but that doesn't ease the pain. It just gave me the tiny bit of strength I needed to just start, but once I started, I was somehow able to continue. I had planned exactly what I would keep and what I would give away. I only made two changes. One is that I kept her crib. My son still uses his as a toddler bed, so we had bought a very small crib for her knowing that we wanted her in our room for several months. It was plain and black. We didn't decorate it with bumpers and bedding. Just a single pink sheet waiting for my baby to come home. I had planned on giving it to a charity so that another baby could use it now instead of me saving it for who knows when, but for some reason I decided I wanted it. If we have other children will it be a comfort to get out that familiar crib, or will I be too scared to be reminded of the terrible loss to put it up once more? I don't know, but I realized that I will know clearly when that time comes. I gave away all the clothes that I had purchased or were purchased just for her. The ones that I had out, folded in drawers waiting for her arrival. I don't want to get attached to things because my ache is for her. I only want reminders of the life that was, not what life could have been. Her monogrammed sweater and hat, I kept and a blanket to hold on to. Other than those clothes, I was ready to summarily put them all in a storage tote to go, until I saw one little pink dress. It was bought for her by one of my students. I loved it so the day he gave it to me. The card simply read, "I wish her to be like her mother". It made me cry and it certainly makes me cry now. So when I saw it, I stopped. I realized that someday, someday I might have another daughter and I just might give her the dress that belonged to her sister. I realized that maybe that would not hurt as much as it seems it would looking from where I am now. It might be beautiful. I know clearly that my son will always have a sister and my husband and I will always have a daughter. I saw her, I held her still warm from my body. She was mine. She is mine.

I woke up today with my son in the middle of my husband and myself as usual. I was able to sleep...I have been able to sleep. I am not sure how. Maybe its the pain medicine I am still on or maybe it is sheer emotional exhaustion or maybe, and this is my hope, it is some peace in my heart. If it is peace, it is shattered as soon as I wake up. I open my eyes and roll over and see her crib.
I know that today is the day I picked to put many of her things away. I have thought carefully about what I will keep, what will be be displayed in our house, who I will give her things to, but the reality of folding up those tiny clothes - the clothes I unwrapped from their their beautiful packages at her shower and dreamed of putting her in - hits so hard. I grabbed the tiny pink and green blanket that I have been sleeping with and held it tight. I closed my eyes again and thought for a slit second of waking my son up. Just to feel some life. But I know I can't use him to feel my void, I can only be grateful for his presence that helps me through each day. So, instead, I held her blanket and began to pray. To pray for myself. To put the parts of verses and comments and wishes whispered in my ear from from friends together into thoughts for myself until I could get out of bed...knowing that I will get through today...like I did yesterday...like I will tomorrow. I know there will be some joy today, some tears, but the sadness of not having that life inside of me, or outside of me, that loss of the hope I had in her, my baby girl, will be present all this day.

It has been exactly one week since I was told that my daughter died. I was 34 weeks pregnant. Yesterday was her funeral service. When we went to bed last night, my 3 1/2 year old son saw that I had brought to bed a blanket that I had picked out for her. He asked why I was sleeping with it. I told him it was because I missed baby sister. He put his hand on my face and said "I don't want baby sister to be with Jesus". I reminded him that none of us do but that she couldn't be with us. To that he thought for a moment, yawned, and then said "Tomorrow I will fix this. I need your help tomorrow momma...to fix this."