A shattered heart kind of day...

"If a man dies, will he live again? All the days of my hard service I will wait for my renewal to come. You will call and I will answer You; You will long for the creature Your hands have made. Surely then You will count my steps but not keep track of my sin."

~ Job 14:14-16

Day 26: My little bit of happy - today is a hard one. It's a toss up between the comfort of my bed and fruit by the foot.

Today was both a bad day and a not so bad day.

Actually, it started out as a really good day. I started out feeling so positive, so thankful for the GRACE the Lord has shown to Caleb and thankful that I have a clear understanding that while I may be frustrated by my circumstance, God does not owe me anything. This morning I felt awed and honored that God saw fit to trust me with this task.

But then the day wore on, and my flesh began to take over and my heart became increasingly heavy.

My mind has been so full and heavy with trying to figure out WHY CALEB DIED!!! I am the type of personality who must come to the WHY of a thing before she can rest easy in it.

When Caleb was born it seemed so simple and so obvious. He died of an incredibly rare tragic cord accident. But my doctor insists this is not possible.

Ok then. So what killed my son?! Was there something physically, structurally, wrong with him? Was the body God designed for him incompatible with earthly life? We will never ever know the answer to that unless his karyotype shows something. Did Caleb die because of something that happened in my body? Was it preventable? Can we prevent this from happening again?

And what if it does happen again. That is and always will be a very real and distinct possibility. Even healthy babies that come home from the hospital die suddenly and tragically.

I regret choosing not to do the NTT (nuchal translucancy test). Not because of what we might have learned about Caleb leading up to his death, but because it would have afforded me one last oppurtunity to gaze at my son while his body was still living. We chose not to because the company that Kaiser uses to do them are big on aborting "imperfect" babies and we didn't want to give them our business. It was a matter of principal. I asked my doctor if there was anything that test could tell us that we would need to know in order to help us plan for a safe delivery if it ws bad and she said no, so we chose not to do it.

Ironic isn't it, that 15 minutes after signing a waiver declining the triple quad screen we found out it was a moot point anyway, the baby was dead?!

I am just... emotionally exhuasted is the best way to put it. It's been an entire week since I've been able to visit the grave site. Yes, I know Caleb is NOT THERE. However being able to be there brings me a measure of comfort and relief. Between parenting responsibilities and snow I've not been able to go.

In addition, I feel a certain isolation. Which is funny because I am surrounded by people. But so few people can relate to where I am. To where this road is going to lead the Super Hubbie and I. Because frankly, it's a road that very few people ever travel on.

You can find lots of people who have experienced early pregnancy losses. And there is a huge network of support for people who's babies were born still at term and especially for those who suffer the loss of a baby who was born alive.

Then there are the rest of us, stuck somewhere in the middle. Lumped in with "regular" miscarriages - and trust me, I've been there... this is nothing like that. NOTHING. But at the same time most people don't acknowledge us as parents who have held the cold dead body of a child we loved and eagerly anticipated!

Today has been a day where I just wanted to run away and escape from reality for a little while. I wanted to pamper myself. I wanted to go visit my son's grave.

And on top of all the heavy emotions, I seem to have started a new menstral cycle. So I get no real break between post partum bleeding and menses. Oh. Goody. I hadn't planned on having another period for well over a year - I would have been induced about 16 weeks from now and then it would have been another several months before my cycles returned thanks to breastfeeding.

I want my son back! 21 weeks... that's how far along I am supposed to be. My belly was already quite swollend when Caleb was born - I sorely miss how swollen it would be now, and how active my boy would be if he were still here. I absolutely LOVE feeling my sweet little ones growing and playing inside of me.