Twenty-Two Months
22 months ago...Emma was born, and then we handed Emma away.
A daily realization, as you can imagine every single morning I wake, I realize that these last 22 months aren't a dream...they're real. Of course some surreal amazing things have happened within that time, but the majority of the time has been spent longing for her to come back, for what happened to have never happened in the first place. As any mother who's gone on to have their rainbow baby will tell you, they can't totally wish the time away, can't totally wish the experience away, because when they do, they feel like they're wishing their rainbow away. Of course I could never wish Isaac away. I worked so hard to get him here, before he was even conceived I worked and prayed for him.
But that doesn't fix what happened, of course, just takes some of the edge off.
I find myself legitimately stuck in 2014. Everything goes back to 2014, relates to it. I fear I'm going to be the old lady who still dressed like she did in 2014. Buys lotions and perfumes in bulk off eBay from 2014 because they're discontinued (mad about you by b&bw, pink by VS lotion in the pink and orange and purple bottles).
Speaking of mad about you - I just bought a new bottle in Lexington Thursday. I hadn't seen it on the shelves in a few months and I just had to buy it. Pretty sure my good friend Maggie had given me a bottle as a gift because it was at the time in 2014 her favorite scent, around when we worked together at the nursing home. We were always bathing in it. I sprayed some of the body spray on myself in the B&BW store and I had a PTSD moment. So I bought a bottle of the lotion. I remember rubbing on that lotion when I was sitting in the hospital praying they'd discharge me...trying to distract myself from reality. Some might would say that me buying that and using it is subjecting myself to these memories on purpose, but no I don't feel that way...I feel that is one of the things that keeps me close to that time. I remember the smell as related to not even a week later we took Shade to his 3 year old check up in Prestonsburg, and I was wearing a new pair of leggings and a long sleeve vs PINK tunic tee and my new chuck taylors...and with every move or turn I could smell the scent and that whole time frame is just decorated by that smell.
But anyway...I know its just a little under 2 years but it already seems like a lifetime since 2014. Will I feel the same next year? When its 2017? When its 2020? Will it feel even longer ago or would it still feel like it does now...close but so far away?
Will time be my friend and help heal me or will time be my enemy and keep me sad, or worse, sadder?
That smell...I remember vividly being on the couch most of the time watching TV, well not watching but just looking at TV. Scrolling instagram. Reading about pregnancy after stillbirth and ways to get pregnant fast, scrolling through Emma's photos. Having deactivated my facebook due to the fact that everyone whining about their 'problems' just continually pissed me off, I had little to read up on. I blogged. I read. I slept. I cried. I ordered stuff, we blew money to ease the pain.
We went to Lexington and spent money and just to get out of town...
I took post partum pics of me hoping my deflated pregnant belly would go away and stop reminding me it was empty and I had nothing to show for it.
All the money in the world would not have eased the pain -- unless it gave us access to hard drugs and then yeah that would've eased the pain permanently (lol) I laugh because we never had access to a plan, but we probably wished we did. I ignored the house work. I didn't care that I was living in a dump. I ignored my firstborn. He pulled away from me as I've mentioned before, because I wasn't me...I was some shell, shadow of myself, and even he could see it. I remember he barely spoke to me, or at least that's what I remember.
I would visit her grave every few days, just to check up, it was mostly empty, and have the hard smack of reality that I was visiting a grave, and not holding a live baby girl
But that smell, also, MAD ABOUT YOU - Coincidentally, or not so much, I was...mad about her...it also reminds me of myself rubbing lotion on after a shower or just to freshen up and covering my big old pregnant belly with that scent and putting clothes on to go somewhere with just EMMA in tow, or all of us, out to enjoy the day, with our girl, innocently and naively going about our way never thinking anything bad would happen except maybe the a/c would stop working again, or maybe we wouldn't be able to figure out how to organize the car seats in the back of the Honda the way I wanted...or that my water might would break in public - god forbid anything that horrible happen. I can't type 10 words without smelling my hand and going back.
(actually the outfit I had when I found out Emma had passed)
Surely there would be no reason that this wouldn't be filled in just a few weeks would there?
Buying clothes like there was nothing to lose...
The last outfits Shade bought her just 4 days before we lost her...and she was buried in the floral sleeper and hat.
My last preggo belly pic at 39w exactly.
Our last outing before we lost her.
Its okay though, that's her...pulling me back, reminding me, in the future I'll get a glimpse. Something has to give eventually...I'll find a way to facilitate everyone, find the time, find the money, things will change and she'll follow us, and I'll figure it out, and I'll get to use that hot air balloon outfit and those flowery gowns and I'll cry with joy at the face of what she's created once again...and cry with sadness that I had to lose her to gain this.
until then --
xoxo
A daily realization, as you can imagine every single morning I wake, I realize that these last 22 months aren't a dream...they're real. Of course some surreal amazing things have happened within that time, but the majority of the time has been spent longing for her to come back, for what happened to have never happened in the first place. As any mother who's gone on to have their rainbow baby will tell you, they can't totally wish the time away, can't totally wish the experience away, because when they do, they feel like they're wishing their rainbow away. Of course I could never wish Isaac away. I worked so hard to get him here, before he was even conceived I worked and prayed for him.
But that doesn't fix what happened, of course, just takes some of the edge off.
I find myself legitimately stuck in 2014. Everything goes back to 2014, relates to it. I fear I'm going to be the old lady who still dressed like she did in 2014. Buys lotions and perfumes in bulk off eBay from 2014 because they're discontinued (mad about you by b&bw, pink by VS lotion in the pink and orange and purple bottles).
But anyway...I know its just a little under 2 years but it already seems like a lifetime since 2014. Will I feel the same next year? When its 2017? When its 2020? Will it feel even longer ago or would it still feel like it does now...close but so far away?
Will time be my friend and help heal me or will time be my enemy and keep me sad, or worse, sadder?
That smell...I remember vividly being on the couch most of the time watching TV, well not watching but just looking at TV. Scrolling instagram. Reading about pregnancy after stillbirth and ways to get pregnant fast, scrolling through Emma's photos. Having deactivated my facebook due to the fact that everyone whining about their 'problems' just continually pissed me off, I had little to read up on. I blogged. I read. I slept. I cried. I ordered stuff, we blew money to ease the pain.
I took post partum pics of me hoping my deflated pregnant belly would go away and stop reminding me it was empty and I had nothing to show for it.
But that smell, also, MAD ABOUT YOU - Coincidentally, or not so much, I was...mad about her...it also reminds me of myself rubbing lotion on after a shower or just to freshen up and covering my big old pregnant belly with that scent and putting clothes on to go somewhere with just EMMA in tow, or all of us, out to enjoy the day, with our girl, innocently and naively going about our way never thinking anything bad would happen except maybe the a/c would stop working again, or maybe we wouldn't be able to figure out how to organize the car seats in the back of the Honda the way I wanted...or that my water might would break in public - god forbid anything that horrible happen. I can't type 10 words without smelling my hand and going back.
Its okay though, that's her...pulling me back, reminding me, in the future I'll get a glimpse. Something has to give eventually...I'll find a way to facilitate everyone, find the time, find the money, things will change and she'll follow us, and I'll figure it out, and I'll get to use that hot air balloon outfit and those flowery gowns and I'll cry with joy at the face of what she's created once again...and cry with sadness that I had to lose her to gain this.
until then --
xoxo
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