I finally caved in and ordered jeans and a couple shirts that would fit me. They arrived yesterday. Pulling on the non-maternity jeans, zipping them up, buttoning them, feeling the denim waistband against my stomach. It pulled at my heart. I knew I had to stop wearing the maternity jeans, but I realized that giving them up was like another nail in my heart.
Tom and I are starting to feel normal for longer stretches of time, and it turns out I hate feeling normal. I want to ache and rage. I want to feel close to Tommy Jr. Moving on with my life makes me feel far from him, and far from being pregnant. Wearing normal clothes and being able to exercise and drink wine all make me feel far away.
May 10 was a lifetime ago. I feel like I’m backsliding, even though I should feel like I’m healing. I don’t know what I need anymore.
Today is my first day alone at work again. My throat is tight and my stomach feels hot and unsettled. I keep thinking about that day. I keep feeling like I’m standing at the edge of my sanity and not wanting to hold on to anything or anyone but Tom Sr and Tommy Jr. But Tom Sr is at his own job. And Tommy Jr isn’t in my belly, or in the NICU, or with a nanny, or at a daycare. I can’t feel him near me. I can’t sleep at night, I just want to lay awake and wait to feel him again.
I want to pound the walls and stomp my feet and scream. I want pain and blood and bruises. Anything but this emptiness.
I added this blog to my facebook feed a few mths back. I don’t know where I saw it, but I added it… yet, with most things on my facebook feed… I didn’t get to reading it for the past while.
Today it caught my eye. I read that you were pulling out the non-maternity jeans and having to give up the maternity jeans… and at first I laughed, because it has only been a few mths since I have been back into non-maternity clothing… and I still don’t have clothes that fit because of how my body has changed… So seeing this in my feed, I thought… oh, I understand that, and maybe I should get to ordering some new clothing, or make myself go shopping.
Then I clicked on the link, and actually read your post. I haven’t been able to stop reading your blog. I have gone back to it every moment I could spare, while sitting here at work. My heart does not know your loss. Your little Tommy Jr, looked like an amazing little boy.
I am not spiritual or religious… or at least, I wasn’t. When I first found that I was pregnant, I went to a yoga class, and the instructor talked about how every one of us, chooses their families. That even though we might not understand why, we are here to learn something, or teach them something… but that every baby had in our tummies, has picked each of their mommies. I cried. It struck me so hard, that this little thing, growing inside me, chose me… but why?
I can see by your posts that you know how lucky you are and for the time you had with him. I am so sorry to know that he is gone physically, but know that he will always be with you. You are a very strong lady. I think that life only gives you what you can handle… sometimes unfair as it may seem.
Be strong. Take care of yourself. Tommy Jr would be proud of you. Continue to make him proud. And remember, no one can put a time on grief. Stomp your feet. Scream. Let it out. Continue to let it out for as long as you need.
Children
And a woman who held a babe against her bosom said, ‘Speak to us of Children.’
And he said:
Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts.
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness;
For even as he loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable.
Khalil Gibran
I hung on to my maternity clothes, and my baby weight, for far longer than I should have. I think I just wanted to be pregnant still so very badly.
I don’t know. Although Tommy Jr. may feel as though he is far away, he is still your son. He lived inside your body, you were his whole world, I think that perhaps part of him always remains?
I certainly still have days when I want to stomp my feet and scream. Because it is the only way I can think of to try and conjure her back to me. I’m sorry. It’s so difficult. x