My blog is ever a work in progress and I want you to notice that I did add a new tab entitled "Resources" this week. I hope you'll check it out. I'll be adding to it often as I document the resources that helped me through my miscarriage in addition to the resources that have helped me through my current pregnancy. PLEASE, please, dear reader, contact me if you have any good resources that have helped you through your journey! I want to know who or what helped you. I so want this blog to be a light to others who are suffering the same hardships.
In the meantime, here is a picture of my beautiful Sweet Pea....
I love this picture. After we lost Sweet Pea, I deleted it from my phone as I couldn't bear to look at...
After the D&C, I packed up everything associated with Sweet Pea - the cards, counseling packets from the hospital, paperwork, ultrasound pictures, everything - put it in a manilla envelope and stuck it underneath the bed in our guest bedroom. I never told my husband where I put it... But I couldn't bear to have it all out. I couldn't bear to see it all everyday.
In a freak turn of events, that envelope somehow became the only thing in that room (and our whole apartment for that matter) that got destroyed by water. We aren't entirely sure how the water got there. Our best guess is that the apartment complex paid to have our carpets cleaned at the beginning of August and while we were told the cleaners would not clean under furniture perhaps they cleaned under the guest bed and soaked the envelope. We don't know for sure as nothing else was wet. We, of course, didn't find anything until about a month and a half later when we were moving furniture in the guest bedroom in preparation for turning it into a nursery for our current soon-to-be-baby.
When I saw the saturated envelope, I lost it. I sat at the kitchen table and cried, heaving sobs until I couldn't cry anymore. The thought that the only picture I had of my Sweet Pea was ruined was more than I could bear... And quite honestly, I think seeing everything in that envelope just brought it all back...
But I remembered, I had texted my mother a picture of Sweet Pea and by the grace of God she kept the picture on her phone. Sweet Pea was the first grand-baby for all the grand-parents between me and my husband (we have 3 sets as my parents are both divorced and remarried). My mother told me once, a few months after we lost Sweet Pea, that she wanted to print the picture and have it framed because Sweet Pea was her first grand-baby. I am so thankful that she kept the picture... I am so thankful that I can still look at my Sweet Pea and know that baby was real.
Grief is a funny thing. Loss is a funny thing. It can totally hit you out of nowhere when you least expect it. I truly believe that it never goes away, you just learn how to live with it. You learn how to function with it. And eventually you learn how to laugh and smile and find joy again even in the midst of all you've gone through, but that doesn't mean you forget. I think too the intensity fades a little as you find acceptance and you look back and see some of the beauty. Sweet Pea was beautiful. The beginning was beautiful. The crazy amount of love I felt for a little being that I hadn't met, hadn't even felt move, was absolutely beautiful. Look for the beauty, dear reader. It's there, sometimes you just have to dig deep to find it.
Love,
Jess
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