It's quiet.

Mother's Day has passed.

How are things going for you? Are you feeling ok? Are you especially sad? Are you finding some moments of peace or comfort? What's happening with you?

Thanks to Represitol® I don't feel a thing ;-p

But really, I did start taking anti-depressants and have now achieved a sort of numbness mixed with longing. It's really more uncomfortable than I thought it would be. I think I might go back to the foggy sadness and despair. This feels fake and makes me itch in my own skin. Also I haven't cried in weeks and that also rings false.

Mother's Day feels like weeks ago instead of days. I am so all over the map that I can't trust myself to know how I will feel an hour from now. I feel cooped up staying at home with my daughter, but if we go out all I see are pregnant women and babies. I alternate between wanting to tell them that they should be worried because that belly is not a guarantee that you get to bring a baby home or wanting to just scream that it isn't fair for everyone else to get to have the baby/families they planned when I don't. Then the next day I can be worried that I am doing too good and not crying enough. Definitely no peace here.

I am lonely. I feel so profoundly disappointed in so many of my so-called friends. Only one friend reached out to me to acknowledge my due date/Mother's Day. Everyone else has moved on.

Well, I haven't.

I honestly have thoughts like: "Well, I guess I will just make new friends." I can't even be bothered to make the effort with people anymore. I've been cut by their insensitivity/lack of acknowledgment/discomfort too many times. It is easier to remain cloistered off in my own world.

Jesus, I am depressing myself.

I don't really know.

New tenants moved into my first floor. Sweet couple... with a 5 month old girl. I picked them. What? I'm ok. I'm ok?

The pregnant woman at a school I consulted to today said, "OK promise me I'll see you this summer- I'm delivering in 2 weeks and i want you to meet her when she's born. Promise??" Yes I said lying.

I went through my stories with the acupuncturist on Monday. After, laying on the table, needles in, she talked about the muscles- lack there of actually- around my very dark 9 inch long vertical scar up my belly.... and I remembered something I had forgotten to blame myself for.... the weird way my muscles morphed into a dome when I sat up and I was pregnant.... how it was 'ok' but I showed it off that week before to my daughter. Not good for a uterus with a previous classic c? see: uterine rupture: 2% chance after said surgery. Forgiveness never lasts- there is always something I forgot... that I suddenly remember.

I carried a congratulations baby card around all day with me with this beautiful mother quote. Is it even for someone?

I'm working. I'm more social. I'm out in the world more. All zen-ed out. Moved to a beautiful renovated 'treehouse'. I miss my boys. 11 months out and 4+ years out.- I miss them.

Mother's day? it was as bittersweet as most days for me. Strange holiday. Mostly I was so aware of how little most people are aware. And how good that is for them.

Elizabeth McKracken says something like, "Grief lasts a whole lot longer than sympathy. That's one of the great tragedies of the grieving." Yup.

Oh, Sooze, I remember that line of McCracken's so well.

I envy everyone else's ability to just live in blissful ignorance. I used to live like that, too. Hard to remember.

I guess we all did.

McCracken has so many lines that just ring through my head. That was one. The one about being not just a cautionary tale, but a horror story is another.

Mother's Day was awful. Thank God for friend who were there. One friend - a mom who could have been off doing something nice while her husband took the kids so she could have total quiet time - sat online with me and chatted for a few hours so I wouldn't feel so lonely and sad.

The due date didn't hit me the way this did. I think it was the total bombardment of MOTHER MOTHER MOTHER CHILDREN LUCKY SMILING HAPPY!!! that just about killed me. The timing and circumstances of my period did not assist the situation.

Gradually, things are improving. Today is better than yesterday was better than the day before was better. Things at work are busy, but uninteresting. Hard to stay motivated. I'm walking again, which is good and healthful and all sorts of such things.

But I miss my son more than I did a few weeks ago. The loss has been brought back anew, the cut reopened. Almost like a scab that is nearly done healing, that gets pulled off before it's finished. The wound is new again, fresh again, and it hurt even more because the mended parts were torn with it, and you begin healing again.

The last few days were really hard. We received his death certificate on Saturday. Mothers Day was OK, very much a roller coaster. A lady at church who lost her son a few years ago shared a hug and some tears with me. It was nice to not feel so alone.

The last couple days I have just felt really down. So very heavy with the weight of it all. Yesterday, my year old was crying about him. It just about broke my heart all over again. Today was an improvement, but it is a struggle right now. The hole feels as big as ever.

Mother's Day was painful, and this week has been not much better.

Monday the finality of it all hit me / us - that Foster will never have a night of teething or coo at me or smear cake on his face on his birthday. Oh the pain. Yesterday we had our 6week pp visit with the midwife (a week late, but whatever). I'm so glad they're in our life and there was a bit more information about his birth that I could ask about which gives me some closure (I think).

Today I was laid off from my job, which means instead of going back in July / August like I thought I was, I'm going to be job hunting. And we still want to have a family. How am I ever going to be able to balance a career and kids? Am I ever even going to have living children? Or a career? I'm 33 and feel like all I'm doing is losing things I've worked so hard for - my baby, my job...fuck.

Sorry for the whining, but this week sucks.

Feeling sick. Waiting, seems like, but I don't know for what. Hungry all the time, stomach constantly growling. Don't know what is grief and what is not at this point, just keep getting tired.

Oh, Sarah. So very sorry to hear about your job. We're waiting on word of RIFs now (have been for weeks) and should be hearing soon, as the rumor is that they want the positions cleared by end of fiscal year and there is a long process to have RIFs approved. I feel relatively secure, but . . . who knows, really? In some ways I'm probably redundant.

What an awful spring this has been for you.

(i tried to post this last night but there was something wrong with comments. glad it's fixed.)

i was doing ok. then, suddenly (or maybe it wasn't so sudden) i wasn't. i was bad for 15 days before someone said 'you know, why don't you think about going back to your doctor?' i was so bad by that stage that it literally hadn't occurred that i needed to talk to someone again.

the same person sent me home from work on 28th april as i was a complete wreck. i haven't been back since. current estimate, i'll go back on 26 may (and as if i'm off much longer than that i go onto half pay, i'll pretty much force myself back then even if i'm still not ok).

i currently score highly for anxiety and moderately for depression currently, so i started to take a low dose antidepressant that deals with anxiety and depression as well as helping sleep (i've been having a lot of trouble sleeping too). it apparently works quite fast and is non-addictive, but i still don't plan to stay on long-term. i want to be weaned off after six months. and i'm seeing a counsellor. a much better one than the woman i saw in january.

someone told me that after her father died, she cried for pretty much two years straight. i found that really reassuring. it normalised my reaction to the bereavement, the grief. it made me feel more normal.

it sounds like we're all doing pretty badly at the mo :( Mothers' Day seems to have hit everyone really hard. i'm glad it had already passed over here.

I'm thinking of you all.

(ttc mentioned in next paras)

about the anti-ds - i did say to my doctor that part of the reasoning for taking them is that if do get pregnant again and lose the baby, i shudder to think how i would cope if i wasn't taking antidepressants already. i hate that i think like that now. hate it.

and the mother-in-law and her husband are moving 1500 miles away, knowing that we are ttc her first living grandchild. my husband is ok with this, but it really really hurts me. i know they're not doing it because of us, but i feel like she's rejecting me and our not-yet-conceived child. i know she'd be horrified that such a thought has even crossed my brain, but hey. grief and depression do weird things to you.

I've finally admitted that I'm probably nuts. Well, depressed, but hey, I look at that as nuts, just another way my body is failing me besides killing children and keeping me away from anything that would be fulfilling in some way.

And, was pretty well told that I need to let people shove drugs at me, back off controlling my care, and let things go.

So, "shut up" means "I love you," I guess. But I can't hide this, that's not who I am; I just can't seem to get things set up to where I feel "caught up" to anything, nothing at all.

Anyway, goodnight folks, have to lie down and try to sleep even thought I know I'll just sort of pass out rather than drift off.