Throwing in the Towel

I GET IT! I GET IT! I GET IT! I am a complete fat-ass with a gigantic gut! Can people PUUUUHHHHHLLLEEEEEEEEEEEEZZZZ stop reminding me of this?!?!?!

Once AGAIN today someone referenced the alleged baby in my belly. SON. OF. A. BITCH! I could handle it if the people were mean--it's the niceness and sincerity that kills me. I'd have no problem firing back a witty, hurtful retort if the person was malicious. I can't bear to hurt someone's feelings who thinks they are connecting with me--WOMAN TO FREAKING WOMAN.

FUCK! Have NONE of you learned ANYTHING in your years as a woman?! DO NOT COMMENT ON ANOTHER WOMAN'S BODY! EVER! NO MATTER HOW PREGNANT YOU THINK SHE IS!!!!!!!!!

And then I started to cry--went from furious to sniffling in about 40 seconds. I get it. I walk around as the worst sort of nightmare: a poser, a ghost of a pregnant lady who had the worst possible ending. I got kicked out of the club with one swift boot but failed to give back the uniform.

If only I hadn't been in the middle of a yoga class. So much for zen.

Clearly, this isn't the worst thing about having your baby die while inside your body. Far from it. But these are the the far-reaching ramifications, the physical reminder. It's easier to deal with grief than weight loss, I guess.

Regression

What the heck is going on with me? Suddenly everything feels so fresh, so recent, so new. The slightest reminder makes my eyes well . . . I don't get why here, why now.

Spring is supposed to be a happy time, a time for renewal and rebirth. Why do I feel like crap?

So much for feeling better and things getting "easier." Ha.

The Old Gray Mar

She ain't what she use to be.

I ran my first race back after, well, all this. This morning. The weather was chilly and a bit breezy and sunny and fair. I was fat and slow but happy to be running. I put my watch on as I was getting ready, and the stopwatch showed the time from the last race I ran--the Turkey Trot, on this past Thanksgiving. When I was nearly 7 months pregnant.

OK, Universe--I GET IT!!!

Anyway, the race this morning got me thinking about the crazy path my life has taken since first becoming pregnant with E. I found out a few weeks after winning--WINNING--a 5K on a sunny September Sunday. Two and a half years ago. Today, my race time was two and a half minutes slower than that day. And, if things had gone differently that fated weekend in January, Calla would be two and a half months old today.

Bwaaaaaaaahaahahahahaha! That Universe and her games--she is one funny bitch!

Back to my point. A few weeks ago--before a hair appointment--I looked at myself in the mirror and noticed--GASP!--about 7 gray hairs! On MY head! When did that happen? Turns out, over the past few years time has left her mark on me. I guess that's the inevitable post-baby physical manifestation of time: the body's a bit softer, the face a little more weary, the legs a little slower. For now.

And I guess that's merely a product of getting older IN GENERAL--I just wasn't really prepared for it. When E was merely a bun in my oven I started out slow--the post-holiday sales too good to pass up, a cute dress in yellow bought in February, when things are the dreariest (DON'T I KNOW IT!). About 7 months into my pregnancy with E I caved: I started buying all sorts of cute things for spring and summer I thought I'd wear after delivery. I bought everything in my regular size. Heck, I'd been the same size for nearly 10 years, what's the diff?

(Psst: carrying a human inside one's body for 9+ months and then shoving said human out your ladybits changes things. Quite a bit.)

Sad me discovered her ribcage just ain't what it used to be--and many of those cute invisible-side-zip dresses had to go back to the store, or, even worse, the consignment shop. My point is this time around? NOTHING fits. NOTHING. Going out to dinner, ordering clothes, getting dressed in the morning--all ruined for me. A fashion junkie, a shopping addict (I do NOT use the term "addict" lightly)--I find myself yet again out of place, the clothing world making no sense. Where I was once a reliable size __, now it's anyone's guess what number fills in that blank.

This and the running, teamed with some lingering body issues, and, oh yeah, the DB thing, leads me often to a serious case of the "I-SUCKS."

To which C so rightly says, "MB, you JUST had a baby. Give yourself a break!"

Yep, that's true enough. Easy to forget the whole"I-gained-all-this-weight-and-slowed-way-the-hell-down-because-I'm-getting-a-brand-new-baby-at-the-end!" feeling when, as we all know, that didn't exactly pan out.

I guess, as with everything, this will either pass, get easier, neither or both. Maybe some day I will confidently click that familiar size button during a online buying frenzy. Someday that stopwatch will read a familiar time, maybe even a faster one.

But you can be damn sure I'm dyeing my hair from now til kingdom come, no matter what.

On and On and On . . .

I wonder if this will ever end. This "I'm-happy-for-you-but-sad-for-me" phase. With every new spring chicken hatched, it gets a little, well, fuzzier, I guess. But the sting is still there.

It just makes me so sad that the babies are a-plenty for, seemingly, everyone else. But us. But really, I can't indulge in that thinking too much, because we are lucky enough to have our living son.

Thank. The. Fricking. Universe.

Every baby has his or her issues. That idealized baby image goes kaput as soon as that kid comes out screaming. But he, she, whoever, comes out. Screaming. Unlike ours. Son of a fricking beesting.

it's just been a weird couple of days. Ebbs and flows, ebbs and flows goes the grief. It hits without warning, sucker punches me when I'm feeling fine. She's a bitch, she is.

By my count, we've lost:
*our little girl--duh.
*innocence about being/getting/staying pregnant.
*a spring, a summer, a life we'd planned.
*sleep.
*gallons, oceans, buckets of tears.


On and on and on. And when I think about that fateful weekend, I flipflop between "It's already been 2 months" and "It's ONLY been two months."

One black cloud . . .

Just have to get this out:

While running after E as he escaped C in the pool, a sunbather says to me:

"The other one in there gets lulled to sleep, huh?"

Yeah.
Ouch.

Such is life.

Sunshine Therapy

So, were back. We spent a fantastic time away from home in sunny weather. A balm for the scorched soul was that sunshine. We went away where few knew us, and we basked in the anonymity.

Calla's memorial service was just, well, lovely, if I do say so myself. But it took a lot of emotional wherewithal to make it through the day. When Sunday rolled around, suddenly we were faced with packing and last-minute errands before our trip on Tuesday. A welcome distraction, indeed.

As the plane ascended and I gave a "peace out" to the B-lo, I felt--well not really BETTER, but a bit of relief. Of course I had the worry that the statistics would strike again: the plane would crash, our luggage would get lost, or some other such catastrophe. (Not that a plane crash and lost luggage are equally catastrophic, but you know where I'm going.) Amazingly, everything went according to plan. Luggage: check. Rental car: check. Rented baby gear: check, check, check and check.

Thanks to some generous, lovely friends, we enjoyed a week away in a borrowed condo in sunny weather. We ate dinner out every night and there wasn't a stinker restaurant in the bunch. We went to a children's museum, the aquarium, the zoo. E even fed a giraffe. We met up with my brother and sister-in-law, her brother and his girlfriend. We went to the windy, but still beautiful, beach.

We behaved like a normal family on a normal vacation.

Yet this vacation was anything but normal. In our planned-for life, we'd never have taken a trip at the beginning of (this) March. So, lemonade from these lemons, once again.

And here we are, back at home. Amazingly, it's not freezing. The sun is actually shining and we didn't have to wear our boots. The snow is melting. There's even little green buds on the bushes.

Is it too dramatic to say the weather is a metaphor for my mood and state of mind? Because somehow, it's less foggy, a little lighter. That sense of hopefulness I so desperately clung to is beginning to feel real. Acting like a normal person has somehow made it somewhat so.

There's still sadness, and darkness, and disappointment. Yet they are beginning to find their own places in my life, rather than ruling it. The sadness coexists with a sense of peace. As I ran through the sunshine on vacation, I smiled thinking of my daughter, dreamt up a relationship we might have moving forward. I will always miss her, will always want her, will always wish our lives could be what we'd planned. But that doesn't mean it's all or nothing. She will still be here, in my heart and mind, despite not being here in her body. It's up to me to figure out how to make this work.

It's amazing what a little sunshine can do for the soul.