Adelle - Our Angel Baby

The inevitable is inevitable. 

I've been thinking of ways to skip this week, maybe find a cave to hide in until next Monday.  Unfortunately, as it has always done, the world keeps spinning and like it or not we're all on for the ride, including me.  This week marks Adelle's 6-month Angelversary (I take a big pause and a deep breath before replacing the word birthday with Angelversary again) and if the timing wasn't cruel enough... Mother's Day.

The thing about loosing your baby is:

1) every day you wonder what you'd be doing if she was here and what she would look like
2) your body doesn't care whether or not your baby is here, it wakes up like clock work at night (every 2     hours at first and subsequently less but then it's the nightmares and reality that do it) 
3) you look for signs that your baby is with you everywhere and want to believe in them
4) you get bitter when people minimize your loss or don't want to understand the magnitude of the event
5) your relationship with people changes
6) you hate that you can't go to baby showers for people who have always been there for you
7) everything seems trivial and you hate that you don't care as much as you used to
9) nothing makes sense and the world seems really unfair

And finally:
     10) you loose a big part of yourself too

I can probably fill that list with 1000 more things, but these are just some of the things I've been dealing with lately.

I should mention that, when you loose your baby you find out who your real friends are and learn to be grateful for these people.  My little Angel Adelle has brought me to some great people and tomorrow I am excited that I will meet (in person) an Angel Mommy of 12 years who's been a great support for me lately on my hardest days.

According to Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, the expert on death and grieving, one of the steps to grief is a little something called "anger".  Let me tell you about this fun tid-bit, because it seems you can apply the Kubler-Ross stages to any loss including loss of a job or news of infertility...

I used to be a very-patient-for-most-things individual (but very intolerant of anything that hurt anyone else).  Now it seems every single little thing makes me angry...  Recently I've heard people complain because of illegible handwriting...and get this... a client complained because he has to PAY for something or other for his grown-up kid.  (Hello buddy!  I wish!!!)  Among those trivial comments are more significant instigators,  like a letter from Mount Sinai Hospital asking for donations (it's funny because just before going for the MRI, I told M that after Adelle was born we were going to start donating to Mount Sinai to help them continue to save babies. I know they still do, they are great and I appreciate every expert who helped us... but still MY baby wasn't saved and now I get this letter with good news stories and a request for money. Ouch!)

The kicker is, I HATE feeling this way!  My brain says "stop!" but my heart doesn't know how or vis versa.  I don't recognize myself anymore...  I'm tired of feeling angry, negative and bitter over such trivial and non-trivial things.  I'm tired of reading into people's words and adding my own spice (my thoughts are usually peppered with jealousy and you guessed it anger)... 

I hope this will pass... because of the whole grieving process.... this is by far the worst.  I don't want Adelle's memory to be associated with bitterness.  I love her so much, that's the emotion I want to feel.

I must say that as far as Angelversaries go, this was a good one (Of course, what do I know?  This is one of the first of many, many Angelversaries).  Sara and I distributed flyers for Angel Mommies Support Group.  We're convinced that someone (or maybe two someones) were looking out for us...  As we entered the Obstetricians' offices, NICU and funerals homes it was sometimes hard to hold it together but we found strenght to do what we felt was right.  Luckily we were greeted, for the most part, by people who were open and gave us positive feedback. 

Today I feel that I was exactly where I was meant to be... however distraught this made me feel.  (If you ask me tomorrow, I might tell you something different).  This doesn't take away the pain, it doesn't make me accept the situation, it just means that I feel that I was doing something positive and that Adelle's short life might give a purpose to mine afterall, even if she grew her wings too soon.

So, I will put on my mascara again tomorrow morning, hope it doesn't smear (again) on the drive to work and face the day head on...  We'll see what it throws back at me.

What can I say?  It's just (another) bad day...
I looked at Adelle's picture for the first time since November.  I probably shouldn't have done that before going to work....  It brought me right back to November 6th.  The wound reopened and is bleeding freely again.

So, I finally had a meltdown and came home.  Fortunately, I was sent a special Angel Mommy, she called me and talked to me for over an hour.  It was so nice in my time of deepest sorrow (of today anyways) to be able to talk freely about Adelle to someone who understood completely (her story is so similar to mine).  And now I look forward to meeting later with Sara and to sharing with her too. 

After all, we are moms, as I was reminded today, and moms love to talk about their kids...

When I was little, I remember hearing: "Stop the World I want to get off!"  I used to think it was quite funny... Imagine!  Why would anyone want to stop the World AND get off of it?  Sadly, I am in total agreement now. 

You'll have to excuse me now as I go Google the way to stop this huge marble...