9 months

3/4 of a year.  273 days.  9 months. It's been 9 months since Riley died / was born.  9 months since I got to see her sweet face.  9 months since I held her.  9 months since I felt her weight.  9 months since I kissed her.  9 months since I said hello and goodbye.  9 months since my heart was ripped out.  9 months since my world exploded.  I can't imagine a weekend away from my first-born and I have survived 9 months without my third.


On Facebook today (my disgusting addiction), I saw a small gross of newborn pictures from a small business and had the realization that it wasn't a gut punch.  Oh, I unliked the page, but I saw the images of those random children and didn't want to rip my ovaries out.  I didn't bring me to my knees.  I didn't fall apart.

Now don't get me wrong there are days that random images of babies would kill me.  Quite literally I would almost die of grief, but most of the time.... I'm okay.

I can look at real babies about 9 months old.  Sure I'm sad, but it oddly helps to look at them and realize that that is NOT my Riley.  That might be her size, that might be her age, but I don't know because that's not her.  Those strangers don't have my baby.

Newborns are still incredibly hard.  I find myself staring at them from a distance.  The mothers look at me like I'm insane.  And I'm sure I look it lurking across the park staring at them nursing, holding, cradling their sunshine.  But I can't tear my eyes away no matter how much I try.

The point of this post is not the awful.  It's not that newborns are still a terror magnet.  My point is that.....I'm healing?  Sort of.  Do you ever really heal?   Ok, I'm scabbing?  I'm de-sensitizing?  My hole has a thin, bloody crust that can stand up to small attacks.  There are still weeks of inability to move but they aren't a constant.

In the past 9 months, I've lost dear friends but have reconnected with some who I had lost along the way, I've seen some true colors and am working to accept them, I've become okay with being publicly weak, weak, weak, vulnerable, and needy, I've tried to learn to accept and ask for help, I've been trying crazy new things I'd never, ever have done before (5Ks, support groups, parties, and kickboxing?????), I've been trying to be okay with me, for the first time in my life. 


9 months out.  And I'm trying to accept my new normal.... and still trying not to lose my mind... Things are heading up....?  At least today.

Back to School

I am a Stay-at-Home Mom.  This was never the intention or plan for my life.  I always thought I would juggle a successful career AND being a mom.  Then I had my Hunter-Face.

I tried to return to school to get my Teaching Certificate when he was just 3 months old and I was miserable.  I missed him so much.  The stress of school and the stress of being a new mom about broke me.  I finished the semester and never went back.  Now I can't imagine someone else raising my boy and can't imagine being away from him for 40-50 hours a week.  I can't leave him even if being home makes me lonely, stir-crazy, squishy-brained, and generally crazy.

Last year, Hunter started preschool.  I was under 4 months from my due date when he started school 4 days a week for 2.5 hours a day.  I did not want him to go.  I did not trust these strangers with my baby.  But mostly, I felt like I was shipping off my Precious Boy to have another one.  Like I was done with him and moving on to Baby #2.  It did not feel good and there were many nights of sobbing.

This year, Hunter will return to preschool.  Tomorrow.  This year I still don't want him to go.  But this year I feel like taking a big yellow highligher to the fact that I will be alone.  Sitting around the house by myself.

This is not how it is supposed to be.  I am supposed to be home with a 8ish month old Riley.  WE are supposed to be waving goodbye to Big Brother.   Not just me.... lonely waving.

I miss him already.  I DO NOT want him to go.

Life Fail

I am 29 year old.  My life is almost half over.  I have done nothing worthwhile.  I have had no career, no business, no purpose.  My only accomplishment is birthing one healthy child who hates me, who I fail every day, who cries for daddy constantly and has for years.  I can't keep a house remotely clean, I cant play with my child.  I take him places because I can't make fun for him at home.  So I say to myself its okay that you have no career or purpose, you can make your kids your purpose and try to be a mom, but I keep killing them. I have no friends, no social outlets, no coworkers.  I sit upstairs because I don't know how to play with Hunter.  I don't see how the next 30 years are going to be an upswing at all.  Hunter is going to go to school then move on to life.  I have no career to go back to.  I have no experience to get a job with.  I play dumb things online because I have nothing else to do.  I lay up here as Hunter calls for me and hope, hope, hope he doesn't come up here and see this.  Please go downstairs buddy.  Don't walk in here and see me crying on the floor in a towel.   Im so lonely.  When you do all this shit, you lose friends.  When you only had 1 or 2 to begin with... that puts me down to 0.  I can't get the voices in my head to shut up and stop saying mean shit about me.
This has to go out into the universe somewhere.  It started out as a text to my husband, but that's too heavy.  A facebook update?  Yikes.   So here it goes for no one to ever see