Disclaimers are annoying, but I feel the need to say once again that if you’re not a fan of some “dirty” details, feel free to pass on todays post. No love lost <3 But this is going to be an update on where my body is and where my heart is and all of those things.
Its been four weeks. I’d be a solid 20 weeks pregnant today if all had gone according to my plan. But it didn’t. I delivered Jamin exactly four weeks ago this morning, and like I said last week, I’m stuck between feeling like everything is so recent, and also like so much time has passed.
My body is finally starting to settle down. I think. I know its too much information, but I have finally stopped bleeding. Literally, yesterday was the first day that I didn’t bleed. It has been exhausting on my body to bleed for so long, and very exhausting on my spirit, to suffer from these physical symptoms for so dang long. When we lost Theo in January, I bled for two weeks, and it felt like an eternity. I always bleed long after I have a baby, but at least I usually have a baby to show for myself. Its so much worse this way. But anyway, hopefully that’s finally done. My boobs are still leaking, and my skin is still rough, though I’m hopeful thats on its way to calming down too. We’ll know soon enough when my blood tests come back and tell me if my hcg level is completely down or not. I should say here that I actually haven’t lost much of my baby weight at all, and I have mixed emotions about that. I started my pregnancy with Jamin a tad lighter than I cared to be, so I was happy to gain some weight back. Now, I’m slightly above where I’d ideally like to be, but not by any important amount at all. All this is to say that, while I would happily drop five pounds along the way, I’m happy I didn’t just quit eating when we lost our baby. I’m an emotional non-eater, which can get unhealthy pretty fast. I’ve been there. This part of my recovery is ALL thanks to my amazing friends and family and church who came around us and made us meals for so long! I don’t think we prepared food for literally two weeks! It was an amazing gift, and because of it, we stayed healthy and as well as we could be. How do you even thank that many people??
As for the rest of me. Its been an interesting four weeks, with lots of twists and turns. I know, that sounds SO cliche, but I’m not sure how else to word it. The ups and downs are all over the map, with those couple of days where I couldn’t see which way was up, and days like yesterday where I felt normal and like we didn’t lose a child last month. I have never sorrowed so deeply. Never. Its been completely unreal, but SO real at the same time. Its hard to sort all of these things out. I almost wish my desire for a larger family died when my babies did. It would make this whole thing so much easier, to just know that we were done now. Except that we don’t. We do want more kids. The desire hasn’t changed. What we feel called to do, and how we feel called to grow our family has not changed. It is still there. But its just so much scarier now. And I don’t want to live in fear. So there is a lot of soul searching still to do, but I’m glad to feel somewhat clear headed on the subject. I learned earlier this year that it was in fact POSSIBLE to miss someone so desperately while eagerly anticipating someone else. I learned that it wasn’t cruel or unloving to keep moving forward. And while I know there are some jerks out there, I learned that the important people in my life KNOW that wanting another child doesn’t mean we’re trying to replace the ones we lost. If you know us at all, you know where our desires are rooted, and you know how much we love our little baby boys. That will never ever change. I feel like it is a sign of recovery that we can look forward with hope. And we’re there. We are recovering.
We are definitely still grieving and struggling, but we LOVE to talk family with people! Don’t be afraid to talk babies and pregnancy and future plans with me 🙂 I’m serious. Don’t be too too careful. I hate when I can tell that people are tip toeing. I have this constant ache to talk family with women who want to talk to me about it! And even though we are in this difficult place, that ache hasn’t left either.
Healing is coming. Its already started. I see these wounds as always being sensitive, and I anticipate they’ll tear back open a handful of times over the years, but they will be healthy wounds that I will always attend to and take care of. They’re part of my life now, and rather than waiting for them to be gone, I’m just making room for them to be here.
Rather to have loved and lost, right?