A New Reality

My dear friend Meaghan knows all about loss and even more about anomaly. We are bound by love as much as we are connected as sisters in the best of luck/worst of luck club. Our highs are HIGH and our lows are LOW. We worry about things that have the slightest possibility of happening because they happen to us. For those of you who believe in the secret we never put anything out there into the universe. I don't even try to think of all the things that can go wrong, but sometimes they just do. Among so many other impossibilities she's had to cope with, Meaghan also almost died from the procedure they did to harvest her eggs during IVF. Strange, flukey infection. An infection they didn't catch until after the successful transfer. I'll never forget that phone call...when she asked me to take her to the hospital. I'll never forget that feeling when I waited by the phone to hear news. And then waited, waited, waited for her to re-emerge from the darkness that swept over her after her loss. I understood. We are the same, we close into ourselves. Many don't understand and get frustrated. Some stop even trying after a while. That's okay too. But I get it and I waited.

Why am I rehashing all of this? Because when I started to come out a little from my darkness, the one thing that stuck with me is Meaghan telling me that the pain will never go away, but one day I'd get use to my new reality. My new reality. Not the other reality. The happier one. The one where I got pregnant so easily without any help. The surprise of all surprises, the baby that must have been meant to be. The baby that survived the heavy bleeding at weeks 8 and 10, when Fred and I thought for sure that I'd miscarried. The baby that made it through a terrible lung infection, then a raging UTI that knocked me on my ass, both with 103+ fevers around weeks 13 and 14. Nope, still a strong heartbeat, moving around like a champ. This baby was meant to be. Then a month later... just kidding... Let's throw a crazy rare placenta abruption at you, but we won't give you any of the symptoms, because that would be too humane. I really have this image in my head of these gods--like the Greek mythology gods-- looking down at me and kicking me around like a pawn. Let's see what she does if we throw this at her... Hey, great recovery, now take this... My OB said I had a greater chance getting struck by lightening while getting my check from winning the lottery. Awesome. There's that anomaly theme going on again. But back to my new reality. My incredibly flat belly. Lucky me lost a couple units of  blood after I delivered Declan, so I got to deliver AND have a D and C. Need I say it again--not the normal way things go down--anomaly.

But I'm supposed to be concentrating on getting used to my new reality. So after a couple of weeks of being pissed off at the world for my flat belly and what that meant- the loss of Declan, news stories about idiots who can have kids, stupid things people say that have no clue how they sound until they've experienced a loss and a endless list of other things that just made me so enraged, I realized that my new reality also came with a realization that I had to deal with our life rather than just go through the motions, pretending to be okay. I'd rather my life be about a new reality, instead of the list of anomalies. I'm trying. I still don't talk to anyone and I pretend when I do. I keep even my closest friends at arm's length. Besides Meaghan and my across the street friend, Lori, who I constantly loose it and look like I need  a straight jacket;  I also confide in my newer friends--mainly because they are the ones I have to talk to daily upon drop off at school, coordinating school events or play dates, etc., but because they get me the same way I get Meaghan. We starting getting close this early spring and dare I say it??? Did that happen for a reason? I hate when people say that in reference to Declan. But  all these wonderful woman, who just let me be, but prop me up when I need it, make me put one leg in front of the other, don't tell me that it was meant to be or that God knows best (my all time favorite) and just tell me they are thinking of me and Declan when everyone else has forgotten. They make me want to try harder to embrace my new reality. Or at least greet it without wanting to kick its face in. Ok, I still want to rip the face off of my new reality, but I really am trying.   And my not so new reality--the wonderful husband and beautiful children I am a mother to--all three of them. They are keeping me going too. If you call what I am doing "going" that is.

My old reality: I don't really need to define. It's all above in my ranting.

My new reality: Fred and the kids. My amazing sister, who also is so supportive and is due with her baby a month after I was supposed to have Declan. No bitter sweetness there. I can't wait for that baby and so happy for them. PROMISE, I am good there.  My parents and Ellen and Fred.  Del, Mark and the kiddos. An amazing group of girlfriends. The end to Fred's residency. A new adventure in the Mojave desert. And a road of possibilities--anomalies or not.
 
I am trying to mesh my two realities together and know it's still such a long road. But in the mean time, Declan, kick the shit out of those gods up there.