You take the good, you take the bad…

Lions stalk the Jungles around us in August.

This August, Leo was hiding behind one of those particularly bushy and leafy plants in the Jungle, doing his Kingly Duties without me noticing him too much.

As the end of August neared, I walked past his hiding spot. I was expecting there to be a Virgin hanging around somewhere by that time, but it seems he ate her up, and when he saw me, he roared and reached out with a giant, furry paw and gave me a whap.

This was no friendly cat batting. His claws were out, and he threw me into September in a painful way. I landed in the Ninth Month ‘O The Year hard on my ass and with jagged claw marks on my heart.

It was September, I realized with a jar, and midway through this month, it would be a year since I’d conceived the boy who had then died 3 months later.

A deep, aching sorrow captured me for awhile. On a few occasions I cried it out. One late night, in particular, left me on the living room floor doing what is known well as The Ugly Cry. Oh, that it was. Ugly with a side of Stinkin, Holy Hell.

For twenty minutes, I lay in a heap, pouring it all out into the carpet.

My face was a swollen mess the entire next day; my head throbbed.

But life keeps moving, and you kind of flow with it most of the time. I got back to flowing. In fact, I threw myself at going, even. Lions be damned… bikes, and hikes, and picnics… oh my!

I can laugh in the sun as well as I can cry in the dark, it seems.

But then, can’t we all? Yes is the answer. (Remind yourself of that if you need to, sometimes. It can be easy to forget.)

Then I realized as the end of September ran out that someone resembling Lady Justice had me sitting on her outward facing scale. Before I could throw something on the opposing one to keep things steady, she dumped me face-first into October, and crashing into another of those dates I can never seem to forget.

I knew, of course, the whole time I was flying down the bike path with the wind slicing past my grin and throwing out my pony tail in whips and flips behind me, that this next bump was coming. Of course I did.

Today is that date, and it marks one year since the last time I realized I was pregnant. It’s been a year since I spied that little pink cross next to that little pink line.

It was an odd day one year ago, emailing my husband a photo of the pregnancy test with a message that spoke of my fear, instead of joy. A few weeks prior to that, I had finally come to terms with emotions and thoughts I’d been having and I felt sure enough about what I had decided to announce it out loud.

“I really just don’t want to be pregnant again right now. Maybe one day, but not any time soon.”

Soon after, I began having… those strange, but familiar sensations. You know, the bloating, the craving, the heightened senses. When my period was late, I pulled out an extra pee stick that was in the bathroom, and sure enough, it was time to turn off the neon vacancy sign on this lady’s uterus.

I was struck almost simultaneously with fear, anger, disgust, disappointment, guilt, sadness, and grief.

The irony of the situation did not escape me. Luckily, a new set of emotions rose quite quickly from deep inside, as well: Hope. Longing. Joy.

Guarded, those three were. But they were there, unmistakably.

You can follow posts back through my miscarriage tag and find me talking about the feelings I had being pregnant again after a miscarriage earlier that year. You can obviously also read the posts that detail what I went through emotionally when this new baby also died, in early December.

This, right now and through December, is a hard span of time for me – it is the first anniversary of the pregnancy that ended in a second miscarriage. I know, it’s confusing. But I think the first anniversaries are hardest. I tend to believe that while the dates will always have a sting, these initial ones offer the deepest blows.

And if you think I should be over this, I forgive you. You don’t understand, and that’s okay.  I sincerely hope you never do.  If you think I’m dealing with it all so very bravely and I am very strong,  you are sweet and kind. I appreciate that, but I’m just like you.  Some days I’m so strong. Other days, I’m nothing but Jello. In the sun.

October 3rd is the first blow of that second time when I decided I could let myself hope. I wrote a post about that hope. I damn near internally promised my dead son that I would never give up the hope that he taught me it was okay to have.

And yet?  I’ve spent a damn lot of time this past year being pissed off, signing off on hope, and mentally giving the finger to anyone who dared suggest I hold onto it. (Not you, really.)

Did he really teach me, in those short 3 months that it’s okay to hope again?

I have to believe that was the truth, no matter how things turned out. I have to, even if I don’t feel that way every day, you dig? I just have to keep believing that the lesson Davin taught me was true. About hope.

Because if you don’t have hope for something new and maybe even better, if not every day, then at least with some consistency, how do you keep moving forward? How, without hope, can one keep flowing and going, smiling and laughing, growing and loving?

I just don’t think you do, and so I know I still have it.  Even if it’s a bit dented and has lost some of its shine.

Today I’m going to be sad, that’s for sure. Really, really sad.

And that’s ok.  But I refuse to allow myself to wallow in misery this time. This will actually be difficult for me – it seems I’m an innate misery wallower. (Spell check wants me to change this to “swallower.”  So you hear it here first: I don’t spit misery, I swallow it, folks.)

Yesterday, I said, on Twitter:

“Oct. 3, 2008 I took a pregnancy test & it was positive. Can’t decide if I should let myself be miserable tomorrow or fight it tooth & nail.”

I got a variety of answers, and lots of support. Thanks to all of you who reached out then, and to those who have done so in the past. Even when you don’t hear back from me, please know that if you’ve done it, you’ve been a part of a support network that I value deeply, that keeps me going, and I thank you sincerely. (Even later, I come back to these posts and read your comments again.)

My favorite response yesterday was from @wbgookin (author of Daddy Is Tired), and I thought I’d share it with you. It is simple, and yet seems powerful to me. That’s the best kind of advice, isn’t it?

It’s what I aim to pull off today, and hopefully any time this same kind of question arises inside of me.

“Be both. Be sad for what might have been, be glad for what is.”

So yes… Today, I’m going to miss Davin. I’m going to be incredibly sad about what could have been, but was not. I am going to wish he was with us while I still rejoice in how wonderful it is to play in the sun at the park with Braden.

I’m going to do the Sad, Sad, Happy, Happy, Joy, Joy Dance.

Here’s hoping your Saturday is peaceful and beautiful, even though you live with a sorrow, too.

Even if it’s a crooked rainbow with colors missing. It still counts, damnit.

This past Sunday was an anniversary.

But not the kind you celebrate with an extravagant weekend getaway.

If you’re like me, it’s the kind you await with anxious trepidation, wondering what sick emotional games your head and heart will play with you.

A year ago last Sunday I suffered a miscarriage.  It was the first (but not the last) time I would experience the realized loss of a living being within.

The bottle of Prometrium prescribed by the kind, helpful, and compassionate doctor on the other end of the phone with a sobbing, fretful, worried mother that night, one year ago last Sunday, still sits in my kitchen cabinet.

I still don’t have the heart to throw it away.  Yet, I have no use for it.  Seeing it reminds me of the baby.  That’s not a great thing, but it’s not altogether a bad thing, either.  It’s just… a thing thing.

Even though that first miscarriage ripped my heart out, and then I got an injection of Unexpected Hope only to suffer another Cosmic Sucker Punch, I have experienced a bit of healing in a whole year’s time.

But I don’t want to forget.  And I don’t mean forget the babies (which I most certainly will not).  I mean the pain.

There is something about the pain that is left after something that tears at your heart so fiercely.  There is something about it that I don’t want to lose.

That sounds crazy, doesn’t it?

Perhaps it’s just the idea that this pain is the only thing I have left of this baby (of both of these babies), and the thought of letting go of it and moving on is just… well, shitty.  Unpoetic as it may be, that is the best word for it.  Letting go of that pain feels shitty.

If I can smile all day long every day (even when I’m looking at the damned bottle in the kitchen cabinet), then it feels as though I have nothing left of them.  As if it does not matter that they were here one moment and then gone the next.

Fault me for it if you will, but nutty as it sounds – this pain is a tragically beautiful thing, and I don’t plan on letting go of it until I am holding my babies somewhere.  Whether that is in some eternal dream or Heaven, or wherever else… that’s when I’ll release this gnawing grief.

Until then, that very pain helps me appreciate every hug, flower, and ray of light in this world.  Because I’m a foolish girl, and when the light of the sun shines too prettily for too long, I have a tendency to take everything that’s good in my life for granted.

This pain?  The way it lingers and sometimes flares up?  It taps me on the shoulder and says, “Be grateful, woman.” It’s my reminder.

I refuse to even want to let go of that.

This past Sunday, I planted flowers for our lost babies, who we call Taylor and Davin.
They were purple alyssum, a choice made in order to simultaneously bow my head to another soul that was spirited away too soon.

I could want to be numbed (and some nights, I kind of am) or I could wish for complete healing, to leave these feelings behind and forget them.

Instead I’m going to hold onto what’s left of this pain, and when it feels the most raw, I’m going to try as hard as I can to turn that prism of pain toward the light, so that it creates the most beautiful rainbow I can make that effer shoot out.

With this ring, I thee wed.

Today’s Photohunt Theme is “Hands”

Photograph by Joan Williams, at our wedding. It is in my collection.


Today we have been married for five years.
I kind of like him.

He loves me for everything I am, and all the things I am not. He accepts me even though I show him my faults.

I am able to be at my very most “relaxed me,” in his presence.

One in the company of the other can do the most stupid things that come to mind.  The other not only does not mind, but most of the time thinks it’s pretty hilarious.

And he rubs my feet. Keeper.

Last Year’s Anniversary Post
The One About Our Wedding
When We Decided To Have Braden

I love you, John.

Online we first met
and he wrote a word that I
found hilarious.

In that old chat room
my future husband typed out
the great word, “brown-eye.”

Just friends at that time,
but his use of that silly
word made me like him.

A little over
two and a half years later
we were united.

The ceremony
was simple. All that mattered
was our real, shared love.

We celebrate now,
our fourth complete year married.
Today is that day.

Our journey has not
always been completely smooth,
but such is our life.

I would never choose
another path; destiny
gave me my best friend.

You have my heart, John.
For me there is no other,
and never will be.

But the rack does make a difference.

Dawn’s most recent SOOS Challenge, in honor of Sandy and her family moving into their new house, was to talk about what makes your house a home.

(Also, Veronica and her family are moving into their house in 6 days!)

I wasn’t all together sure, so I decided to walk through our (rental) house (that we’re staying in for another year, despite this, ugh.) and look around a bit while mulling the question over.

“Hmmm… what makes our house a home?”

Is it John’s Forever And Ever, Amen Junked-Up Nightstand?

No… that can’t be it.

And yeah, I’ve tried repeatedly to organize it for him, but it generally only stays clean for .52342 seconds. So I stopped trying.

Wait, maybe it’s the pile of dirty clothes!

No, no… hold on, it’s The Pile of CLEAN CLOTHES!

And the rack that relates to it?

Ugh. That can’t be it. It’s not about clothes or even racks.

“Think, Lotus, Think!”

Let’s keep looking…

Is it the Poor Man’s Loveseat?

Or maybe ALL THE FREAKIN’ TOYS!?

(where did they all come from? we never planned this! i think they multiply at night.)

Ack. I think I’m still way off. It’s not the lack of reliable seating or the 8 million and five toys (though I’m beginning to realize why we can’t afford a real loveseat).

Oh, WAIT. I’ve got it!

It’s the highly disobedient dog!

And the URINE SOAKED BELONGINGS!

Why are you shaking your head? I got it all wrong again, huh?

Okay, let me sit down and think about this some more.

*Jeopardy Tune*

Ohhhh. Wait.

This is where Braden crawled for the first time.

And then walked.

And where we celebrated when he turned One Year Old.

It’s where my husband comes off the road and back to his son.

Their first Father’s Day together was in this house.

John and I celebrated loving one another for six years here recently.

And soon, we will celebrate four years of marriage at our tropical getaway! in this house.

It’s our home, because we are here together, building memories.

Here’s to all the family memories you will build into your new home for many years to come, Sandy and Veronica.

6 Years

Yesterday was the 6 year anniversary of the day my husband and I saw one another, in person, for the first time. We still celebrate that day, even though we’ve been married for over 3 years, because it was the real beginning to our romantic relationship.When I see a Ferris Wheel, fireworks, leather pants, or smell raspberry bath ‘n body works body spray, I think of that day.

That is the day I met the man I would, one day, marry. I met a person who would come to know and understand me like no other on earth. I met a man who would take me on a journey of emotion, Love being the greatest. I met the father of my children.

For that, I am grateful beyond words.

November, 2001:

Yesterday – October 1st, 2007: