Late Night Thoughts

For the last week I have laid in bed and watched each minute turn into hour after hour. My body is exhausted but sleep just doesn't happen.

SO I lay in bed with my Kindle... and I Googled.

Google says "Grief Insomnia"...

ok... so I lay in bed annoyed at grief insomnia.

I think about my baby... my babies... all of them. I don't have any memories of my youngest baby... who we named Kellen. I don't know if my baby is a girl or a boy. I have no good memories at all. No joy of finding out we were pregnant. No excitement as we told our friends and family. Just total devastation... grief.

I replay the whole experience over and over again in my head. It is the only memory I have of my baby... a terrible memory... but I can't help but think about it... I need that connection.

I think about how different a hospital stay is when you had surgery to remove a baby from a fallopian tube versus delivering a term baby.

• When you are in the hospital to deliver a baby (in my experience with 2 cesarean sections)---nurses check on you very often... before and after the baby arrives.
• When you have a baby removed from your tubes--- your nurses don't visit as often... and you certainly don't get that tasty cranberry 7-up cocktail they so freely give in the OB ward.

• When you are in the hospital to deliver a baby--- you get a private room... which is constantly full of nurses all hours of the night, hospital staff and visitors... you are never alone... and all you want is peace and quiet!
• When your baby is removed simply because it grew in the wrong spot--- you get a noisy room, with flimsy drapes... and a room neighbor who snores, eats fried chicken, and walks around with their gown open in the back. You have no visitors... and despite your husband being there when he is allowed, you feel so very alone... and it hurts.

• When you are in the hospital to deliver a baby that you get to take home and love on--- a lactation consultant comes to your room... and despite your best effort to shoo her away, she stays and makes sure you are fully aware of the changes your breast will endure.
• When you are in the hospital to remove the growing baby from your tube because it is going to kill you--- no lactation consultant visits you... probably because the baby was not even 8 weeks gestation.... but two days later I got a painful reminder that I do not have a baby to nurse, when my milk came in.

• When you are in the hospital to deliver a baby---you leave with that baby... you go home and kiss on that baby, and make sure that baby is safe from every bad thing imaginable... you make sure that baby knows it is loved and cherished.
• When you are in the hospital to have a baby removed--- you go home with a pamphlet on 'Miscarriage', which ends up on the floor of your car... because you can't image holding on to anything that isn't your baby... and you pray that your baby, who is dead, somehow just KNOWS it is loved and cherished.

Despite the mood I am currently in, I am coping. I am healing. I have joy in my life. I laugh daily... often. That doesn't mean I am "over it" or "moving on". I don't know what the term is. I just -am-... and I -AM- a Mom... a Mother to many, on Earth and in Heaven. My babies here, need me to be ok... and to laugh and play with them. They know that "Mommy is sad"right now... it is good for them to know that. I am only human... God gave me emotions and it is ok to use them all.