tears, bullshit and butterflies

We loaded the kids in the car, Gabbie too.  Friday was a hellish kind of day anyway and it took us a bit longer to get to camping than we’d wanted but we got there.  We unloaded.  Then I cried.  Or I cried while I unloaded.  We’d not have been there if not for circumstances being the way they are.  Derek says they are unrelated events.  We lost Gabbie because we lost Gabbie.  We went camping because we bought a camper… for us.  It’s hard to agree to that, but there is no argument in it.  If telling himself that works then okay, for me there’s no way the two are unrelated but it is what it is and it can’t be changed.  We did it for the girls, and for us, because of the sadness and the need for change.  And the girls had fun, and Derek had a decent time, and I did too, sort of.  At least it'll get better, the firsts of something tied to her are the hardest.  So… so we went camping and so I cried.  On and off all weekend, I cried, sometimes by myself and sometimes he would know.  I wanted him to have a nice Father’s day weekend.  Father’s day weekend when the man I love doesn’t have one of the precious children to hold that we made in love, together, to love endlessly, because she’s gone.

 “It’s just another day,” he said, “I don’t need a specific day to appreciate them or for them to appreciate me.”

So I cried again, because I miss her to the pit of my stomach that tightens and pulsates where I used to feel her kick, and I wish we had her for him to hold and appreciate.  I wanted to say that I’m sorry… I still feel as though it was somehow my fault, that I should have known, but I can’t say that because he’ll just say, “sorry for what? You didn’t do anything.” And I won’t be able to explain.  I hugged him instead and told him I love him, and I cried.  And I pretend I have fully convinced myself that it’s not my fault. 

Gabbie must have known how I felt about it all.  She’d been around all weekend, and no one but me seemed to notice the orange butterfly that swirled around us on and off all day Saturday.  No one seemed to notice her slipping through the greenery around the puppies that played or the fireplace that still smoked.  He didn’t notice her, I asked him, and neither did some of the others when I asked them if they’d seen the butterfly.  He wanted to know jokingly if I’d created the delusion of a butterfly, and then said with a smile, “Coincidence? Or not? We’ll never know.”  Not.  I know it was her.

Then it was Sunday, yesterday, and time to start my first birth control.  There’s that tightening in my stomach again.  “We don’t need another baby right now, right?” His voice.  Not so much a question, much more like a statement phrased just right to feel out the opposition.  I absolutely do too need a baby right now.  I need Gabbie.  But I can’t have her.  And it’s terribly unfair, and f’d up.  I want to throw a tantrum like this two year old here who has grown far too quickly the last few weeks that she’s hardly a baby.  She was supposed to stay a baby a bit longer.  But he’s right I guess; he’s right that physically I probably can’t handle one right now.  Emotionally, it’s probably not wise to have one now, either.  Not with all the anxiety that will go with it.  But oh how I want one.  I’m exhausted all the time anyway from not really sleeping well, what would be the difference if I were exhausted from pregnancy too?  I know it wouldn’t replace my Gabbie, I just want her damn it!  And I can’t have her and I’m so sad that I have to take something to keep from having anymore right now even though I know it’s probably the best for me.  But it makes me angry too. He said I didn't have to take it if I didn't want to.  And I don't want to.  But I do have to.  I know that as clearly as I know that birthing a dead baby is more than just a nightmare and something that may break me if it happens again. Not that I don't feel broken as it is, terribly shattered and taped back together in little shards that threaten to break apart with the smallest gust of emotion. 1 in 150 births end in stillborn births.  I've been that awful percentile once, why couldn't I be on that side again? So I take birth control partly because I'm terrified to love another one and lose it too. 

Life has decided that it’s not enough for me to have a c-section and to have my body wrecked by a baby that I can’t even show off to feed the vanity that is totally lost now, but also to now have to take birth control that initially makes my body feel like garbage until it kicks in.  Let me just say that the headaches, the nausea, body aches, the crazy-bi-polarish mood swings oscillating between anger, tears and angry tears are more than I can handle with any amount of grace. 

So awesome, I get to feel like shit, to not have any babies, and not have MY baby to hold close.  Super f’n awesome.