#20 - TODAY WAS NOT A DAY OF PEACE

Today had not been the greatest of days.  I guess I need to amend yesterday's Secret Garden post to read “most days I find peace….”   Today has not been a day of peace, but instead one of those days that you feel like everything around you is taking a big, fat header into the toilet.   I was sick yesterday and still don’t feel the greatest.  I am having my gall bladder removed next Thursday, and this morning was my pre-op testing.  It (inexplicably, of course) took longer for me to move through pre-op testing than it will actually take for the surgeon to remove my gallbladder and close me up.  I feel like most of the people that I came into contact with at work today took a big handful of stupid asshole pills this morning.  All day long an incredible urge to crawl to the top of the tallest building around and scream at everyone who pretended/s to understand what I am feeling right now…… ‘No.  No, you don’t know.  You are not carrying two full caseloads of school kids and outpatients, and trying to manage the business on top of it.  You are not searching desperately for another therapist to ease the load (without busting the checking account on advertising).  You are not having your stupid gall bladder out next week and eating up two days of the work week to do so.  Perhaps the best friend you've ever had in your life might live 3 hours away - or further, but your only sister is definitely not in Namibia.  You are not still working through the very recent loss of a baby old enough to have lived on the outside....and trying to figure out what is really going on inside your husband's head with regard to his own grief.  And since you mentioned it...no, 6 is not the same as 36!!!’  Top it all off with a major case of ‘Gracie on the brain’ and you have my day in a nutshell.  These days are becoming much fewer and further between, but today it hit like a category 5 hurricane.  I try to remember that it is all relative….someone else is always having a worse day because of worse circumstances….and I need to focus on sucking it up and moving forward when it all culminates like this.

All of that said, I needed something a bit positive to pick me up, so I did my weekly list today.  This week’s list is comprised of things that I believe or believe in.  

·        I believe that every childbirth preparation class should have at least a short segment dedicated to pregnancy and infant loss.  I have heard the same thing over and over during the last 3 months – “We don’t want to freak out the pregnant women.”  I’m sorry – that doesn’t cut it.  I agree that there is no reason to freak people out, but there is a big difference between freaking them out and making them aware that it can happen to anyone – at any time – without warning.  At very least, every expectant parent should know about NILMDTS.  Memorabilia is all we have left of our babies, and these incredible photos have the potential to be a huge part of that memorabilia. DH and I took 13 or 14 pictures with our own camera, but I wish so much that we had known about NILMDTS when Gracie died.

·        I believe in signs.  Big fat screaming signs that jump out at us, itty bitty subtle signs that we have to look a little harder to see and everything in between.  Many people say ‘not a sign, just a coincidence’….but I believe that there are specific signs for all of us.  I got a grandiose sign this weekend – I cannot go into detail about it in case my husband decides to pop into my blog (I turned the sign into a surprise for him), but I am quite excited about it!

·        I believe that every life is put on this earth to accomplish something specific.  Obviously, my tiny peanut fulfilled her specific purpose quite quickly, but I wish with every fiber of my being that I knew exactly what that purpose was.

·        I believe that everything happens for a reason.  I am so tired of hearing this from people, and it has been difficult for me to swallow over the last 3 months – but deep down, I truly believe this.  (It sure would help if we could eventually know the true reasoning for some things, though, instead of just guessing……)

·        I believe that we all come into this world with a ‘pre-stamped’ expiration date.  This completely contradicts everything I do in life and everything else that I believe in.  I think that I have always felt this way, but I cannot say for sure why.  I believe that everything in our lives simply lays the groundwork for getting us to that final moment on our predetermined day, and that our cause or mechanism of death is simply a formality that keeps life ‘interesting.’  To this end, I always wonder about the lives I have had a hand in ‘saving.’  Did we really save their life or was it simply not their time???

·        I believe that I will find true happiness when we welcome a rainbow baby.  Gracie cannot be replaced – no other child can ever be our first born, no other child can ever be our first love – but I believe that the living children that are yet to come will fill us with happiness.  I believe that Gracie will live on in each of them.  I hope with everything that I have that this happens sooner than later for us.