All preggo and no baby makes Canape a dull girl

Maybe I shouldn't have addressed a letter to the baby. Today, I walked around talking to him in my head all day. It has left me feeling a little crazy. Not the yelling and hitting crazy though. I'm finding it difficult to write though, because I liked writing to him so much.

Adding to my insanity are the two 10 year old girls in the other room who have been playing Karaoke Revolution for most of the afternoon and evening. It would be alright except that the only 3 songs they have sung are "Complicated," "Hit Me with Your Best Shot," and "You're the One That I Want." Once, they started "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun." I chimed in from the kitchen that it was a great song only to be answered, "We don't know this one. Is it old?" Funnnnnnnnny.

It's Lovely's first sleepover at our house. I've forgotten how much fun kids are when they are silly together. Disregarding the quarter tone off they are from the real pitches of the game, they are adorable. There is laughter, burping, and of course the cries of, "That's not fair!" In truth, it is great timing for her to have a friend over. She is having fun. Someone here should.

I have received some of the kindest emails over the past week. Women that I never knew shared this grief have come to me and told me their stories. It has been unbelievably helpful. The comments that have been left here have been read at least a dozen times each. Something else I never knew was how much comments mean to a blogger. Thank you.

We put up the walls in the baby's room today. The lights will be run tomorrow. We also went and picked out a treadmill. I have not completely figured out why these things are important to me, but they are.

I am planning to put myself on a schedule. There is cleaning and unpacking to do. There are things that can be thrown out. There is reading and writing. And for some reason, there are miles and miles I want to walk. When Guy goes back to work on Monday, I want to make sure that I am occupied and not holed up in the bedroom.

During my separation and subsequent divorce, I walked everyday. By the time I stopped, I was walking around 90 minutes a day. While I walked, I dreamed. It wasn't just your normal thinking about life and its events, it was full fledged dreaming. I dreamed of finding someone who I could be their partner. I dreamed of a family. I dreamed big dreams while I walked.

The thing is, most of those dreams have come true. Guy embodies every dream I have ever had in a husband, a best friend, a partner. Lovely is a fantastic girl, a wonderful stepdaughter. The pups are happy. We are renovating a couple of houses, working, playing, and generally loving life.

I just miss my baby. Is anyone tired of hearing that yet? I can't be sorry for saying over and over again. If I said it as much as I thought it, my blog entries would look something like Jack Nicholson's typing at the end of The Shining. I miss my baby. I miss my baby. I miss my baby. I miss my baby. I miss my baby.

I want to walk enough that I can get into those dreams again. The last time, they came true. I want that to happen again.

The book I mentioned before, more of a booklet really, said this:

"Even if you had a miscarriage a short time into your pregnancy, you are still a mother. You conceived this child, and carried her inside your body for her entire natural life."

I love that. That single statement is helping me see that I did have a child and I did take care of him for his entire life. His life was much shorter than I wanted it to be. Shockingly short. But considering this as taking care of him for his whole life, it is better.

The book is called, When Your Baby Dies Through Miscarriage or Stillbirth. It is short, to the point, and very helpful. My mother would disagree since it "made me sad again." And of course by "made me sad," all I mean is that I cried when I read it.

There is a chapter for fathers. I read it aloud to Guy on the way home yesterday. He said it was right on the money. It described how a father's connection to an unborn child is mostly intellectual. It is still an abstract concept to them. After the birth, the father bonds more closely with the child. There was even a section about how masculine grief is often demonstrated by "doing." While reading it to him, I inserted all the chores he did at my parents' house into the list of things the authors said fathers sometimes do during grief. For a moment, I had him believing that "building cabinets" was actually a noted form of grief. For him, it is.

This is rambly, isn't it?

The stream of consciousness thoughts of a woman in mourning are not always great writing. Sorry about that.

One last random thought. I got to spend some time with Boo today. It was great, and I marked it as my first "normal" outing since the baby died. We went to my most favorite shoe store to exchange the most fabulous boots I have or will ever have owned. She thinks that she doesn't know what to say, but she is wrong. She knows just what to say and when and how to say it. Today she made me think. We know another woman who lost her first child. She now has 3 beautiful children. Boo said that when the oldest child was born, she sent a card and the note she wrote mentioned something about, "their first child." She said that after she mailed the card, she realized in horror that "their first child" was the child that had died in an ectopic pregnancy. This was their second. Personally, I think her friend understood.

People do know. Friends do understand. You don't have to have felt the grief to understand that your friend is hurting. You don't have to know what it feels like to wish it hadn't happened to them. And the other thing is, they have had a loss too. My friends were genuinely happy for me and Guy, and they were genuinely excited about this baby. I can find some solace in the fact that they are sad for me, and sad for the baby that they won't get to meet either.

And here is a gratuitous picture of the fabulous boots. Thank you, Guy. They were the perfect Christmas present. I love them, and I love you more.