the after

nine days.  it only took nine days for the course of our lives to change.

i think back to the utter joy we felt when we realized that our first IVF cycle had been successful, never once believing that just five months later we would be grieving the loss of our twins.

sadness seems to be the ongoing theme these days.  pure, unadulterated sadness.  hubbie and i vacillate between crying spells to feeling okay and back again, trying to take each day at a time.  the days have never felt so long.

 

and the nights are the hardest.

 

every night when i go to bed, i realize that one more day has passed without our babies.  like we're pulling further away from their memory.

 

whenever i close my eyes, i can see their faces, and then it just hurts all over again.

 

we feel stuck between wanting to move on, but not willing to forget.

 

i asked hubbie if we could survive this, and every day he assures me that we can.  that we will.

after we said goodbye to our son, we were discharged the following (saturday) morning.  although i was relieved to go home, being in our little bubble in the hospital had been a comfort.  the world seemed big, and scary, and reality just wasn't something that was easy to grasp.

 

reality can be cruel sometimes.

 

i don't have the words to describe what it's like to leave our children behind.

 

we came home to the netflix movie on our coffee table, what to expect when you're expecting.  to maternity clothes i had just ordered the week before on our doorstep.  to the remnants of our daughter's unexpected birth in our upstairs bathroom -- blankets, a stethoscope, the aspirator.

to instructions to finish out my prenatal vitamins, which seemed so pointless in the aftermath.

 

on monday, my breast milk came in, a painful physical reminder of what we had lost.  on tuesday, an automated appointment reminder for the fetal heart echoes, made two months in advance.

everything else seemed inconsequential.  unsubstantial.  i felt like a different person, unable to go back to the way things were, because it simply wasn't possible.  or plausible.  it's then i concluded that i'd never be the same.

 

and then came the guilt.  hadn't i done everything as instructed?  eaten all the right things?  been super cautious, knowing this was probably our one chance, after years of infertility, after three surgeries and countless tests, after taking a chance on IVF, always knowing that every week we made it through was almost too good to be true?  because that is how i'd felt -- lucky beyond all reason, blessed.  blessed that we were finally able to conceive, and we were given not just one, but two, because of all that time trying to so patiently wait was paying off.  because all of our prayers had been answered for good.

 

i can ask myself why, why, why? countless times, but have realized that the reasons are far beyond my comprehension.

 

the grieving process is such a personal, respective thing.  it's difficult to share it with others, but we recognize the outpouring of love surrounding us.  we are lucky.  and blessed.  perspective is a wonderful thing.

 

so another day... another day closer.  closer to what, i am unsure, but hopefully one day i will know.

 

"Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things." 

--1 Corinthians 13:7