Grief Sucks

I have to apologize to everyone. . . I just read all the cards/notes/messages from our miscarriage last August. I think I did kinda skim them at the time as they came in, but this time I soaked them in.

Other than our babies, I’ve only lost a Grandma (that I remember) so I am certainly not an expert on grief. But I think that child loss (miscarriage, abortion, SIDS, missing children, illnesses, unexpected accidents) is definitely its own category. With other types of loss, you are ‘somewhat’ prepared for it. I plan on outliving my grandparents and parents and maybe a sibling or two (though they are pretty stubborn). Nate and I have had discussions about what if one of us dies etcetera. But no one plans on outliving their children, its just not the way its supposed to be. So, not only are you grieving a death, but all the hopes and dreams and plans and love that you had for that child. Each day for the rest of my life is a choice to get caught in the “what if” or “how it should have been”. Up until the expected due date, this choice is much harder to overcome. There are the checkups that you have to cancel, the coupons that come in the mail, the people you haven’t seen in awhile that you have to talk to and might ask how the baby is, your period, the plans you had made to paint or unpack or whatever. So the grief kinda catches up to you at random times when you don’t really expect it. This tapers off after awhile and drops off a lot at the end of your planning ahead timeframe. After that you only have the days when you think, “The baby would have been 1 now.” Or “We could have had 4 kids today instead of three.” More wondering and somewhat less painful.

So anyway, I had finally finished scrapbooking the months we had the girls last year (this typically makes for double the pages) and got around to doing August. An event that took less than 24 hours and only takes up half a page of scrapbooking, seriously affected me for at least three months, and is continuing to affect me today.

May is still pretty raw, so I’m not really ready to compare the two events yet, but things are a little bit different this time around. The end of last year is pretty much a blur to me. My sleep schedule got really whacked out and I was pretty emotional on a regular basis. Plus, I was coaching volleyball (which was a good incentive for me to get up everyday) and that took a lot of time and energy. But I really can’t remember that much. Nate had to go on a couple work trips and those were pretty tough on me. Our trips home with family for the holidays were nice, but seem kinda faded. I’m basically reliving last fall as I scrap and look through photos. Crazy!

Well, the point of this was to thank everyone for your love and support and prayers. They were appreciated at the time, but are even more appreciated now.
And make some observations about grief so that I don’t feel so bad about not reading them until a year later. 🙂