Life rearranged

Dear friends, I came across this the other day on a blog, Life ReArranged, I had recently been frequently for its love of all things instagram. For some reason, I stumbled upon a whole series she did about women sharing their stories from miscarriage and infant loss and it really struck me. After Trace died, I spent lots of time reading other mom's blogs about infant loss but it seems like these days I am doing less of it...unless something pops up out of the blue like this did. It really rang true with me exactly how I am feeling. It isn't the big things that get me like seeing other babies and pregnant women (love them and sooo happy for them....probably even more so now than I was before, however crazy that is) but it is the unexpected moments where the grief catches you by surprise. I know I started planning our new life with little Trace in it as soon as I found out I was pregnant. How can you not? All the thoughts flow through your head about your new family and then....you have to figure out how to keep on living with the big hole in your heart that is empty of all those dreams. 

The title of the blog which before I just thought was cutesy or whatnot has totally struck me in a new way and I totally get what it means to have your life rearranged. My life is rearranged now, too. I'm trying to figure it all out again. I thought I would share this excerpt from the Life ReArranged blog with you today:

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With my last pregnancy, I was unusually apprehensive. 

I was excited, but terrified to announce.

With the last two, we yelled it from the rooftops before we had set the test back down on the sink.

This time, I felt like maybe it was my turn.

Certainly I couldn’t go through this unscathed.

Surely, it was some awful rite of passage…right?

I shook it off.

Told the world.

Bought a tiny stocking.

Told Henry about the baby in mama’s belly.

Planned around due dates.

#4 was on its way and we were thrilled.

And then the baby died inside.

And the tears and sadness and sheer pain was like nothing I had anticipated.

The mourning was deep and real.

The grief palpable.

My heart broke into two and I immediately wanted nothing more but to hug all of my girlfriends.

All of the women who have gone through this…all of my sweet sisters who were now a part of this wretched, ugly club.

The most crippling part of the experience so far has been the way my emotions hijack me.

I’m fine.  Truly.

I go about my day.  All is well.  Days, even weeks without a tear.

I can even talk about it calmly and without welling up.

I’m good.

No problem.

And then…out of the blue…suddenly and without warning, a pang of pain so real and true will hit me like a freight train I never saw coming.

Just when I thought I had it all under control.

It’s not the obvious: seeing pregnant women, belly pictures of sweet friends swollen with their own bundle, snuggling newly born babes…

all of that, in fact, makes my heart swell.

Seeing two pink lines for a friend, a tummy extended, the squishy wrinkly 2 week old skin…

Pure joy.

Genuinely over the moon happy that they are not in this crazy mixed up reality of being a mama to 4, but with only 3 to show for.

It’s the unexpected grief that always surprises.

Planning for a summer trip to the lake that I wasn’t going to go to…because I would be much too pregnant.

Remembering that I packed away the tiny stocking and knowing that opening Christmas boxes will be like scratching the scab off a freshly healing wound.

Christmas.  As a whole.  Christmas sounds really miserable.

Preparing to speak at Blog Sugar in September…and realizing that I should have had a tiny babe snuggled tightly in a Moby as I share my bloggy heart.

 

Giggling with the three.

Finding Jilly’s shirt…the one that says “Big Sister”.

This summer.  In general.  When I should have been big as a house, aching, toes like sausages, and back throbbing…instead plans are being made, life goes on, as if nothing ever happened.

A little life erased.

Gone before I could ever trace the contours of soft cheeks and button nose.

“Mommy, I can jump by your belly now!  It’s okay Mommy…the baby died and is in Heaven so it won’t hurt if I jump on you.”

“Mama, can the baby come back from Jesus?”  “No son, it can’t.”  “That’s so sad mama.”

And then I move on with life, and everything is back to normal and I laugh and I yell and I do laundry.

Always laundry.

 

And I’ll be folding some indiscriminate pair of pants and I’ll remember the comment:

“I still remember mine 22 years ago.”

I know I will never forget.

I don’t want to forget.

But it’s so hard to remember too.

And even through all of this, my heart just about falls out of my chest when I think about mama’s who held their bundles and had to say goodbye anyway.