Right where I am: 1 year 4 months 1 week 5 days and 10 months and 4 days

Right where I am: 

1 year 4 months 1 week 5 days (since Riley went to Heaven)

and 

10 months and 4 days (since Peyton went to Heaven)

For those who found me from Still Life with Circles thank you for reading. I think this is a great project that Angie is doing and I am glad to take part in it.

To the reader: this post will be all over the place. As my mind is all over the place. Thus is the life of a grieving mother. So I hope you can stay with me throughout this lengthy post. I apologize if I hop around a lot. I believe I was like that before this grief entered my life too though that part of my life seems like a distant memory...

Where to start. My babies. My sweet sweet Riley and Peyton. When you lose a child you think "What did I do to deserve this?", you look to others, you fall into yourself because well life seems like it's over. You think nothing will ever get better. The utter loss of all that was precious to you that you were CARRYING in your body is gone. I had nothing to "show for it" as they say. No ultrasound pictures. Nothing. To the world it was as if nothing had happened. To some it still is.

When I started this blog 10 months ago right after losing Peyton I was obsessed. I blogged every day and read many many blogs (as you can see from my blog roll to the right). Nowadays I don't write or read nearly as much. Not because I care less or losing my babies doesn't effect me. Simply because life changes.

I think that the hardest part of losing Riley was the fact that EVERYONE knew I was pregnant. Cute, naive me wanted the world to know. I posted it on Facebook and told everyone at church. Two days later my world crumbled. It was like a cruel joke. I still look back on that time and it makes me so sad. I relive that day in the ultrasound room sometimes. How cold and heartless the doctor was and the anguish that my husband and I were in. It breaks my heart every time. I relive the day I lost Peyton often too. I was alone because naive me though all was well that time. In the same room I found out Peyton had no heartbeat. That room scares me and I will never enter it alone again. Ever. People told me (and still do) that I am "young" and we can have more children - blah blah blah. Like any of that made it okay that I lost my children. Honestly to this day - almost a year and a half after losing Riley the worst part is SOCIETY. To be frank PEOPLE SUCK! I am constantly in awe of how people would rather IGNORE the fact that I AM A MOTHER. They would rather not think about the fact that my two children died a mere 6 months apart from each other. People often ask if they were twins because of this necklace that I wear and the fact that the losses were so close together:

www.themidnightorange.com

I tell them no, that they were two separate pregnancies. This for some reason seems to make people feel worse for me. Two children is two children - whether they were twins or not or two separate pregnancies does not make the loss more or less difficult. 

Just last week when returning from Florida I was wearing this necklace and a woman said it was beautiful. I told her that it was for my two children that had died and she just very sweetly said "How beautiful, God Bless them" and I thanked her and we went about our ways. Society should be sweeter, like this woman was to me. Sadly strangers tend to be sweeter about my loss then people who know me. Maybe because it effects people who know me more, who knows. 

Even 1 year 4 months 1 week and 5 days and 10 months and 4 days later I even dream about them. Sometimes I dream that I have living children. I never call them by name in my dreams. It's just this precious, perfect film in my mind of me playing with my kids. Their first steps, smiling in my arms, playing on the swings, moments I long for... I often wonder if someday I will be playing with my children and have a deja vu moment like it has happened before. Maybe I am dreaming of my future children. It may sound crazy but I often have moments 4 or 5 times a year where I remember EVERYTHING about what is happening - know it will happen before it does - like I have been there before - but I haven't. I have had those moments since I was a child. Who knows. Maybe I dream them before they occur and don't remember them until they happen in my life. You never know. I like to think these perfect films are God's way of telling me everything will work out in time. 

Maybe my dreams are transitioning with my grief. Last night for the first time that I can remember since both losses I was telling someone about my losses in my dream. I was telling them about Riley and Peyton and explaining one of my pieces of jewelry to them. They were reassuring me that I would be a mother soon. I hope they are right. I used to take dreams with a grain of salt. Now, however, it seems the ones I remember are ones with my babies and I believe I remember them for a reason. We dream every night and I sure don't remember every dream. So these precious dreams are for me: a reminder to not lose hope and faith that I will have living children on Earth one day. 

We are able to start to try again this month. With that comes a whole lot of fright. I am scared that I will miscarry again (even though what was causing the miscarriage has surgically been fixed - there's always a chance). I am afraid of people's reactions - do people really want to be happy for me when they know I could miscarry again? Will they even smile when I tell them? I worry about my families reaction. I currently am looking for a job and so financially we are not as well off as we would like - I don't want to be judged - I want people to accept that after all this loss I can not put off having a child - God will provide. Sometimes I miss the naive me because well - none of that was ever on my mind then - I was happy to tell people - thrilled to be pregnant. I thought getting pregnant was the hard part and I accomplished that so I was good to go... other times I am glad to not be naive. At least I know what to watch for, what to be prepared for... though it doesn't in any way mean it will be easier. 

The bad stuff always happens at once it seems. The last year and a half have been very very very hard. 2/11/10 we lost Riley, we moved to a bigger apartment in May 2010 to make room for a future child and two days later I lost my job. On my birthday, July 22nd, we found out I was 6 weeks pregnant and on 8/19/10 we found out we had lost Peyton. They say bad things come in threes - I am going to group losing my job in there - or maybe my THREE surgeries (2 D&C's after my miscarriages and a surgery to correct my uterus). I would say bad things came in more than threes for me. It's been hard. I pray every day that things will start to look up for us.

Honestly I did not properly grieve Riley. I in no way "pretended it didn't happen" or "forgot about it" but I choose to try not to think about and I certainly did not express myself as I needed to. A blog back then would have been helpful. After the loss of Peyton 6 short months later the grief abounded and it had to explode somewhere so it did - onto this blog. Some people - who have no freaking idea what they are talking about - think I should not "think about them" as often as I do. As if that is truly a choice. If I had a five year old that died no one would ever tell me to FORGET that child or not think about them! But for some reason our stupid society cannot wrap it's precious little head around the fact that my children were HUMAN BEINGS. They had eyes, fingers, toes, and heart beats! They were indeed alive! In a world that applauds women for their right to choose and the millions that go off and choose to kill their children I am surrounded by a society of people who prefer to think children are not humans until they are born. People shouldn't be so cruel and so dumb with such a huge loss.

1 year 4 months 1 week and 5 days later I still grieve my baby. Had Riley been born he/she (I was 7 weeks along so we have no idea is Riley was a boy or a girl) would have been about 10 months old. Riley's due date was 9/27/10 - someone from my church had their son on that exact day. So needless to say it is VERY hard for me to see her child. Such a reminder of what we lost. 10 months and 4 days later I still grieve my sweet Peyton too. I was less than 2 weeks away from my second trimester when we saw their was no longer a heartbeat. Peyton's due date was 3/16/11 - 3 days before my husband's birthday. Peyton would be about 3 1/2 months old now. So much loss. It has aged me. I feel far older then my nearly 30 years. 

It will ALWAYS piss me off that on my medical records it says that I had 2 "spontaneous abortions" within 6 months of each other. It will always make me cringe to think that the word "abortion" is anywhere NEAR my name. I am dead set against abortion and had I not been so depressed the first time someone told me that was what was in my chart I may have slapped them!

I have passed both of my children's due dates with no living child in my arms. That, I imagine, would age anyone. It's so very very hard to watch women my age, or younger than me, who have three children already BEFORE they are 30 and I have none. So hard, and down right maddening to watch people get pregnant "by mistake" when I long to get pregnant! To know that there are people out there having abortions when there's so many people like me who wish they could have a living child. My body was killing my babies and now that has been fixed and I potentially should have no issues carrying a child but I will still be afraid. With every pregnancy because you know what? The naive me is gone. If I didn't FEEL like an adult before on 2/11/10 I certainly became one and I became years older on 8/19/10 after losing Peyton. 

1 year 4 months 1 week and 5 days later and 10 months and 4 days later would I say I am "better"? No. Will I ever be? No, because my children are in Heaven and they have a piece of my heart with each of them. I am glad that they have each other and I am glad that I KNOW without a doubt that I will see them again one day. THAT is when I will be better. I will tell my children about their siblings in Heaven. Riley and Peyton will not be forgotten. I will represent them on my skin every day and almost always wear a piece of jewelry to represent them too. 

"He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away." - Revelations 21:4

Mommy and daddy love you Riley and Peyton. We think of you every day... We will always love you!

Me singing at church: