Food, inglorious food

Ugh. I just can't eat. I've discovered a way to drop 25 pounds in a week, although I wouldn't recommend it.

I love food. Christopher is a "eat to live" kind of guy--he's amazed at my "live to eatedness." I love to cook, sniff, taste, talk about and shop for all things gastronomical.

Those days are gone for now. I have been choking down all the wonderful treats people have brought us, because I have to be able to do things like walk and think. But given a choice I'd rather leave the food to rot and just not nourish my mean old body.

Quite frankly, I'm mad at my inner workings. What the hell were you doing, uterus--sleeping on the job? How could you let my tiny, defenseless baby die? It was YOUR job to keep her safe, hold her, protect her. You really let me down, bod. We've been through some tough times before, but this is beyond anything I'd thought you capable. Are you still mad at me for making you run the marathon? Is this payback for all the bad things I've ingested, inhaled in the past?

I know I have to eat. If I want to move forward in my life, in my family's life, I have to be nourished and healthy and whole. I need to look at mealtime as preparation, training for the future. But damn, that food's not going down easy.

Lonely

Just feeling kinda lonely today. In a strange kind of lonesome way--I don't want to be around anyone, per se, but I am feeling kind of left out of life at the moment. I think this is just reality settling in, the adrenaline wearing off, the caffeine going kaput.

The night before the shit hit the fan, Christopher, Eliot and I had a prenatal/maternity/family photo session. We wanted some pictures like the ones we took when I was pregnant with Eliot. This time we got some cute ones of Eliot kissing my belly, all of us laughing and smiling and just being a family together. We were happy, providing proof for a future sibling that we were waiting and waiting for her arrival.

I got the link to the photos in my email 2 days later--and today I clicked on that link. The pictures were gorgeous. All of us so happy and just, well, EXCITED! My giant belly with the popped-out belly button, Eliot's little hands on my stomach, kissing his sister through my shirt. Christopher holding me, cradling my stomach.

We'll buy some of those pictures. I want them. They are some of the only pictures we have of me pregnant with Calla. I want to remember how happy we were waiting for her arrival. I want Eliot to see them and one day understand his sister was once here, waiting for him to be her brother.

I am lonely in the quiet stillness of naptime. I miss my little baby who used to keep me company. Oh Calla. Why?

Youth: The Cure-All

Let me just put this out there: people are really, really nice. And there are no great words to say to us right now, I completely understand. Were I on the outside of my situation looking in, the best I'd be able to come up with is "I'm sorry," which-- believe me--is perfect.

Here's the BUT: But why have I been "consoled" the past 2 days with "You're young."

HUH?! I'm--gulp--YOUNG?! What the hell does that have to do with anything?

First of all, I'm not young--not in my 20's anyway, which, I suppose, is prime Fertile Myrtle time. But second of all, WHA?!?! It's OK to give birth to a baby who's not alive if you're young, and thank god I'm not OLD?!

Now, I know. I know. I'm being a bitch. I'm reading too much into a comment that's meant to be kind. Christopher tells me it's a generational thing--the older ladies have been there, done that, bought the stillborn T-shirt a million times over in their day.

But really, come on. It's not about me being young and, yippee, I might have a few more grains of sand in my child-bearing hourglass. We lost our BABY--and telling me I'm young and can try again--though possibly a valid point--completely discounts our sense of loss and cheatedness.

I'd never go to a funeral for someone's Grandpa and say, "Well, at least he was good and old," would you?

Arrrgh, I'm so being a bitch. No one has the right words, no one can undo what's happened. People are being kind and wonderful to us, more than I could have ever imagined people to be. I'm the one who needs to get a grip and realize words are sometimes hard to come by. No one means us any ill will or emotional distress.

And yes, it does help to hear stories of others that have happy endings despite the screamingly horrible middle. So maybe that's what the ladies are saying: have hope, young girl. Despite the sadness and tears always have hope.

We do.

Time Keeps on Tickin'

Wegmans. The tailor shop. Perfectly mundane errands. Except I am no longer my same old self. Who is this crazy person performing these pedestrian chores?

I had to get out of my house. Yesterday we took Eliot and Cosmo for a walk--an abbreviated version of our neighborhood travels. And damn, was it strange. Believe it or not, the outside world HAS NOT STOPPED FOR US! Same old at the coffee shop, same old at the bookstore, ditto at ETS and the bank and the bus stop. Huh.

I really don't believe myself to be the center of the universe. But for the past week or so I've not left the walls of my house, have watched the news without listening, haven't so much as glanced at a newspaper. So you can understand how I felt as though I was emerging from a cave into a strange new world. (Earthquake in Haiti? How terrible! Does anyone know about this yet?)

The last time I was out there, I was blissfully unaware of the future in which I'd soon be existing. I was a big bellied mama, loud and proud. That's the thing about being 8 months pregnant--it's out there for all to see, a billboard of fertility and possibility.

Who the heck have I become? What do I do now? I am at a bit of a loss as to where I fit in out in the real world. I do not want to become that preachy, "Kiss your kids because you never know . . ." type. Nor do I want to be the person who can't be invited to a baby shower or meet new members of families, or someone who cries at Pampers commercials. Ugh. I am afraid of becoming a pariah because I make people sad.

So I just decided to jump in with two feet. Do I WANT to go out an face all this crap? Hell,no. I want to go back to bed and get up in about 50 years. But that's crazy (tempting, but crazy). I went for a walk. I looked at people as best I could. I went to Wegmans. I bought the groceries.

I went to the tailor shop. The last time I was there they were fitting me for a dress for Tim--my brother's--wedding. A giant dress to accommodate my growing self. Today the kind Italian lady asked how my holidays were and I told her about our recent sadness. She was sad, too. But then she told me how her family from Palermo had been in for Christmas, and how they got to see snow for the first time. And the moment came and went.

Ahh. It will be a challenge, for awhile. But time will go on, we will go on, life will resume it mundaneness. And underneath it all there will still be sadness, grief, wondering, remembering. But the memory of Calla, our special, secret life together, will be there, too. And that will help make it OK.

All Weird, All The Time

We went to the cemetery today. Totally bizarre. The business of being buried is definitely a booming one. We are not burying Calla--went the cremation route--but are purchasing a plot with a "cenotaph."

Are you as freaked out by that last paragraph as I am? Christopher and I now know WAAAAY more about cemetery stuff than I ever thought I would, especially at the ripe old age of 32. (Or am I 33 yet? Can't remember.) It's such a strange business. We had an appointment with Mili, our Family Consultant (or whatever) who has been very nice and business-like with us. We had to wait a few minutes, and got to listen in on another sales rep discuss prices and plots over the phone. No prices, though, reflect "the discount." And oh, if the caller would like, there's a plot available by the creek right by " . . . Rick James. You know, the singer? It's a beautiful spot."

Weird, right?! (Oh boy, how did Rick James [BITCH!] get dragged into my life like this?)

We laypeople take our lives and the living at face value--not so in the cemetery world. My list of not-for-me jobs grows longer by the day.

Speaking of weird, or strange, or just WHATEVER, that's exactly how I've been feeling lately. I vacillate between being super-charged miserable, strangely normal, and emotionless. I guess this is how it goes for awhile, maybe for always. Ach.

Even more weird? I can't turn off my brain. I grieve for my little Calla, want her more than anything. My little girl I so dearly and secretly hoped for, barely daring to think pigtails and ruffles and raising a strong, confident, kind girl might lie in my future.

But I also know our family isn't yet complete. I can't help but hope for the future, wonder if there's another baby for us--a sibing for Eliot, a son or daughter for Christopher and me. I can't stop wondering and hoping and crying and remembering--my Type-A brain in the blender.

For now time will help sort it all out, and where hurt and despair now live, maybe soon there will be room for hope.

Shopping, stuff, whatevs

I ventured out to the mall today. Needed to get out into the world. Needed to see and feel and touch random stuff. As though shopping for anything could even begin to fill the hole blasted through my chest. (Although I did pick up a pair of electric blue strappy heels I've had my eye on for months. Meh. So what.)

A small victory: I didn't cry. Apparently Sunday is "bring-your-baby-to-the-mall" day--I guess I had forgotten. All the little baby girls in their pink strollers really didn't make me sad. I guess it was because they weren't mine--I wasn't seeing my little baby girl. Now, walking past the cute baby girl clothes on the racks, in the stores--that was a little rough. That led to thinking of the future that can't, won't, be.

But it was OK. For today.

This is Normal?

Tired. So very, to-the-bone weary. We are trying to adjust to this alternate reality that is our new normal. We are so blessed with amazing people in our lives who have been comforting and feeding us, keeping the ship afloat, so to speak. But what happens next?

My days are spent as a zombie. I feel as though the top of my head's been removed, and somehow my entire body has been filled with concrete. The little sparkly candle that was my personality has been snuffed out, leaving me faking the smiles and, occasionally, a laugh. My wonderful, amazing, fabulous husband tells me that if I go through the motions enough, someday they will be real. I have to believe him.

"The Girls" have been working overtime all week, ready to feed a baby who is gone from me. I've had to send them packing, back to the unemployment line, but they aren't going without a fight.

My little boy has been his bubbly little boy self, and for that I am grateful. He still laughs and plays and expects his stories read. I can't imagine life without him. Every morning as I lie in bed, mustering the courage to actually get out of it, I can hear his laughs and loud voice downstairs. He draws me to him like a magnet.

But being strong has its drawbacks, too. I would mostly prefer to be strapped to my bed, an IV of whiskey in one arm and morphine in the other. I don't want to be able to get dressed and get in the car and pick up my baby's ashes. The little body I was supposed to cradle in my arms is contained in an urn the size of an egg, which I can hold in just the palm of my hand. I don't want this. I wake up each morning holding her little hat from the hospital, the only physical, concrete item I have. Every time I look at myself in the mirror and see the salty trenches down my face I want to pound my head against the wall.

But I can't.

The new normal really sucks right now. Soon I will have to go to the grocery store, the Co-op, the drycleaners, the bakery. I will have to answer the well-meaning inquiry: "Did you have the baby?" I've tried to put the word out to as many people as possible so that when our face-to-face time comes, I don't have to say it out loud.

I want to feel something, anything, other than sad, or mad, or scared. I want my little girl, my beautiful Calla, here with me. I want Eliot to meet and know and love his little sister. I want my husband to have his little "Daddy's Girl." But all the wishing and wanting in the world won't make it so.

I have my beautiful little family. I have to still be a wife and a mother. I have to exist in this world. The real world is still real, still there. I don't have a choice in any of this. But I can choose to love my husband, my son, my family, my friends, strangers, neighbors. I can be present and kind, and someday, I hope, at peace. The new normal is a bizarre place right now, it's hard and rough and sad. But life, as a whole, is good.