Miserable

I am so miserable this morning. I am trying to remember that some of it must be the hormone shift happening in my body, but I woke up at 5:30 this morning, hungry, like I did every night of my first trimester with the boys, and now again with Curly Five, and I just felt this complete sadness that there was no reason to get up and eat. But I was so hungry that I couldn't go back to sleep, and I tried to calm my mind, but I just couldn't; I kept yelling in my head at everyone and anyone causing me angst, from the managing agents of our house who won't come fix my closet, to the Ben Hur assholes who messed up our move, to everyone who has ever succeeded in bringing a child into the world. And when I finally got up at 7:00 to go to the bathroom, I found I had bloodied the whole bed, down to the mattress, my nightgown and everything, and I thought, this is Curly Five, spilling out of me. And I was so profoundly sad and I missed all my lost children so much.

I am wallowing in self pity. I know it. I am so sad about the past and present and so scared about the future. How many more losses to come. How much more agony, and will there be any children for us at the end of this road. How long will I be out of joint, not pursuing my career, gaining and losing weight, making and draining hormones, bleeding and bleeding and bleeding.

The HAND meeting last night was pretty intense. There was a new couple; well, they were new/old. They were back for a meeting, after attending about a year ago during their loss. They had twin girls at 25 weeks and 4 days. They opted to try to save them. Both made it to the NICU, but one was discovered to have severe brain bleeds after 9 days on life support, and they decided to take her off. She lived for two more days. The other was in the NICU for four months and now is home and doing great and just celebrated her first birthday.

As you might imagine, I found this story incredibly hard to listen too. I was sobbing, and trying to shut the hell up because this was their story, not mine, but it brought me right back to the hospital, to all those statistics and conversations and decisions. We know why we made our decisions: our boys were boys (statistically lower survive/thrive rate) and a whole week younger (every day makes an enormous difference at that point) but still, I saw Archer's sweet little face, his mouth open taking breaths, and wondered what would have been his fate if we had tried to save him. Arrgh. That is probably why I'm such a wreck this morning too.

I talked last night about how lonely I am. I am one of the only people in the group without a live child. And I feel fucking lonely. I especially feel lonely in contrast to how surrounded I felt being pregnant again. I forgot how glorious it is to always have someone with you, a companion to talk to, to steer the eating and the resting, someone to take care of. I have never been able to muster it to simply take care of myself; I always need a reason: I'm sick or I'm in a show, or I'm carrying twins. I guess I've just found the next lesson.

I think I need to walk away from all this, catch my breath. I thought I'd be able to jump right back on the horse, but I am bruised and I don't think I can tolerate more trying and angling and counting and tracking and hoping. I just need to walk away for a bit. I feel like I'm back at the beginning. Wonder if it will take as long to claw my way into the middle again.