January 25th

Today would be your 4th birthday.

You were very real to me and to your big brother, he still talks about our baby in heaven and wants to name you. I don't have the heart to tell him you were never really there physically because you were very there emotionally.

Laying on the table looking for you on the ultra sound I was certain I would find you, you were my second baby - I knew just what to look for. We hadn't been able to find your heart beat at the doctor's office but that wasn't a huge concern. I found you quickly. I found the sac, it was nice and round and explained my slowly pertruding belly. She measured it and the measurements were accurate, 11 weeks. I looked closer, straining my eyes. Where in the world was that heart beat? Where was the little white splotches explaining your presence? She wiggled the paddle all over and took more notes. Silence. She left to get someone else and came back to explain that my baby was nothing more then a "blithed ovum". I asked her to repeat it two or three times. I looked over at your daddy hoping he would have some kind of answer for me. Silence.

I sobbed uncontrollably when they told me the doctor was on the phone and wanted to explain the next steps, the D&C. I cried and cried as he slowly explained to me that you were never there. My body had tricked me.

I don't remember a lot about the days that follow, just that I carried you for another 4 days until the procedure. I cried some more when I woke up from the anesthesia, asking over and over if there was really no baby. The nurse answered with another dose of Morphin.

I remember going to Target on my way home to pick up the antibiotics, a friend came with me. We picked out some stools for the kitchen. When I look at them, I think of you.

Maybe you weren't real to some, maybe it was a nasty trick my body played on me, but you are very real in my heart and soul. And when Reece asks to name you, I let him because you are very real to him too.

Beautiful People

I was nervous to ask your mommy if I could hold you, but as I watched you sitting in your high chair with those big cheeks and those long eyelashes, I couldn't help myself. Your sister didn't seem too sure, but your mom said it was ok. I picked you up and you nestled your self up against me. You scanned the room to see what the commotion was about and you relaxed yourself against my chest and fell asleep. I could have held you all night long, but it was time for the families to go back to their floor and for the next group of people to come to dinner.

When I saw you crying I picked you up automatically, a reflex almost. Sweet little 18 month old angel. Your mama told me the sucker Reece gave you was your very first. You seemed to enjoy it. You also seemed very scared to be there. Did you used to have your own room?

And sir, when I asked if I could get you more to drink, your eyes changed immediately and you acted surprised that someone would care enough to serve you. I care.

As I talked to you tonight, Bobby, you made some comments that made me blush. You said some things I wasn't sure how to answer. But when I started asking questions about your life, your past and your future, you seemed to put those other things aside and open up. Incarcerated for 9 years, off of parole for 90 days, you have goals for yourself. You tell me it's simple, but we both know that isn't quite the truth.

I look around the room and I think of the million and one possibilities for each of these lives. I'm not naive. I know that for some, the choices that landed them there are still being made without a single thought of forfeiture... but I believe that perhaps if some had had a better start in life... a grander dream given to them... that maybe they could have dreamed bigger dreams as well.

Tonight, I will go to sleep on a mattress purchased for me only, I will know that if I am hungry I can eat and I will know that I am truly blessed. I am blessed because of there I live, because of my amazing and healthy children, because I my friends and family love and support me, because I have an awesome job and because I have been touched by the beautiful people I met tonight.

Reasonable

I really hate writing blogs like the ones I have in the past few days. My happy perky self is kicking my pitiful crappy self in the head once I pull myself out of the funk.

This is life though, isn't it? A constant rollercoaster of emotions. Good days, bad days, crappy days, joy filled days. And on and on.

I just about called D the other night because I couldn't stop crying. I wonder if therapists like that. Getting called late at night. Do they feel important or do they think "Good Lord, woman! Get a grip! We're making progress here! Stop with the blubbering!" She'd never say that to me, I know. But she might just be thinking it... Anyway, I didn't call her but I went to bed early. I'm just like a kid - if I get super emotional, send me to bed and I wake up a little more reasonable.

I'm a little more reasonable today.

The ripple effect

I think this is where the rubber meets the road.

We're talking 401k splits, where he'll live long term. How our childcare will work out through the summer and work schedule changes to make it all work. I'm a mess.

For 7 months I've been busying my mind with getting things in order and focusing on my healing. I've been plugging away and praying that the choice I make is the right one. We've talked this subject to death and in the end I chose divorce. I can't go through this again. I can't let my heart be stepped on over and over again. I know he doesn't want to do those things. I know he's hurting. Crap this sucks.

I haven't thought all that much about contacting a lawyer or trying to work out the details of divorce and now it's time. It's time to grieve the "never will be's"; family vacations, sharing in the ups and downs of parenting, identical memories of the children growing up, having him there to share about my day, living out the mundane with the man I promised to do that very thing with almost 11 years ago. I'm greiving.

This entire thing is based on one choice with thousands of ripple effects. I hate those ripple effects, they change everything.

" Just when you feel like it's over, just when you think you are down, someone comes along, picks you up and dusts you down; then you realize that the person who picked you up is your own hope and faith."

And here we are.

We met up for dinner and headed to church because Reece has a tournament tomorrow. He came over so we could go through our "kid list" of stuff going on and how things were going with visitation/life in general. It seems like this new relationship is forming well. That's the thing with us, we've always been able to go with the flow even when our lives were going to crap.

He left after we had both cried. Him for the pain of losing it all, me in seeing one of my best friends lose it all. His life turned upside down because of a string of bad choices. I told him tonight that I truly forgive him, with all my heart. I'm rid of the anger I had inside me. I've greived for what I lost, what I thought I had, what I wish I still did. He seems to just have begun some sort of healing but he has a long ways to go. That's sad too.

The tightness in my throat won't go away. I looked at him broken and tried to figure out a million different ways to save this marriage so that his hurt would go away. Each way, a compromise of who I am. Nothing seemed right. Divorce doesn't seem right and neither does staying married. Limbo seems great though... but unfair to the both of us to continue to live like this.

He misses the kids. He misses me. I wish the clock would turn back 3 years... no 8 years when I felt something was starting to go wrong. The "rightness" of it all went away and I excused it.

And here we are. Almost 11 years later. This sucks. Up and down.

Hero

He doesn’t leap over tall buildings. He doesn’t have laser beams that come out of his eyes. He doesn’t have spider senses and he refuses to wear pink, so you can imagine how he feels about wearing a cape. But in my eyes, he’s still a hero.

He has an interesting story and I’d like to tell you about it. It starts like any other; with his early life as a young boy and moves on to the start of his own family and ends to the present. I hope you will find this hero’s life as interesting as I do.

He was born in a small farming town in Quebec, Canada. He was one of 10 kids, the youngest of the boys, a good Catholic family. Having a strong work ethic was not an option but a requirement.

He went to school in a one-room school house miles from his house. He walked the distance with his brothers and sisters everyday after the cows had been milked, the eggs collected and the other chores done.

School was never a huge priority in his home because farming was a family business. His mother passed away when he was 12 and the hugs and kisses stopped then and the chores increased. His father didn’t have much time for feelings or dreams; he expected a lot from his boys and was very unsure about the girls.

At 14 he quit school and followed in his brothers’ footsteps and went out west to start his career as a lumberjack. Sure, he’d always dreamed of being a veterinarian, but for this hero, that wasn’t an option. From age 14 until 21 the boys were required to work in the bush and send their paychecks home to help maintain the family farm.

He moved to a province where his native tongue was barely spoken. He moved in to the logging camps with men two to three times his age. His older brothers kept watch over him at night but during the day, it was he and his chain saw against the monstrous trees. No amount of training can prepare an adult for that kind of life, let alone a teenager. He learned to speak the language of his co-workers by lying in bed at night listening to English radio stations or listening to nearby conversations. He started to understand the language little by little. He formed some great friendships and can sit for hours recounting the pranks and fights that formed his childhood.

When he turned 21, he left that area to log closer to home. His father was anxious to give him the family farm, but he’d had enough and wanted to pursue life on his own, creating his own dreams.

Soon thereafter he met his wife. They married and settled in a small town in Ontario. She was fluent in English and encouraged him to get more comfortable with the language in this area of fluid bilingualism but our hero struggled to do so. He was too proud to struggle for words during conversations.

He and his wife bought a home and home ownership brought on new challenges. He had to teach himself handyman skills in order to make this house a home. Not an easy thing to do for a hero who did not know how to put a nail in the wall. But he learned. He got better every year and eventually found a passion in carpentry.

After some years, the hero started his own family and became the dad to two little girls. He worked hard to give them all that they needed and more. The little girls knew that they were this hero’s weakness. As the girls learned to speak English at school, they would come home and read with him and it became easier. Of course the girls grew up and mangled the hero’s heart. They made decisions he didn’t agree with but always supported. He loved them regardless of the mistakes, words, and choices they made and reminded them always that we are the only ones who can set our own paths.

Because of his hard work, over the years the hero took on a new position as a carpenter in a wood mill. This required the hero to certify for this new position. In his 40’s the hero was able to graduate with a certificate, his first graduation and in his second language.

Presently, he and his wife celebrate their 36th wedding anniversary. He works in a gold mine doing difficult manual labor, work others half his age would never attempt. At 62 he raises two young grandsons and carries the weight of that responsibility and the burden it brings. He doesn’t pretend to know all the answers or to always say the right things, but he perseveres through the hurdles life brings him.

This hero’s nemesis is life. He may not have leapt over tall buildings, but he faces them. He doesn’t have laser beams that come out of his eyes but determination. And he may not have a spider sense but a sense of pride and his cape… well… he wears that everyday, his love. This hero is better then all of the comic book heroes because he is real. He’s my dad.

A little Star Wars humor

As I picked Reece up from early dismissal at school (which in my opinion, they have WAAAYYYY too many). I grabbed his hand as we wiggled our way through the crowd and he looks up and says "Hey Mom! This is just like Anakin walking through that crowd in Star Wars! All those people all around him."

I say "Yep! You sure are right buddy. Just like Star Wars."

Reece responds "Only he could have just took out a light saber and killed them all."

I respond "Um... yeah. We aren't going to do that."

Reece says "Yeah. Cause these guys are good guys."

It made me laugh... thought you might like it too! ha!

Letting go

I went to see D again yesterday morning. I ended up crying for about half of it. She asks "Why do you feel the need to blame yourself for things that happen. Why do you have to put blame on something?" That's my homework this week - figuring out why I have to be able to point to something and say "Aha! That's what did it! That's what made everything fall apart."

I already know the answer: because it's a conclusion and it's something I can fix. I can tell myself that this time it didn't end the way I had hoped for or planned but I now know what I did wrong, so now I can do a, b, c, and d and this will never happen again. It's a way to avoid this pain. I know this because I avoid looking for blame in his actions.

Really though, the answer here is to let it go of the pain and the blame. And I'm working on it. I can honestly say that right now I'd be sad to lose his friendship. That I think he's a funny guy. That he's a great dad. That I pray that he finds the peace he's in need of. And that I'm glad he's part of my life as my friend and co-parent.

Growing Pains

The new schedule starts officially this weekend. I find myself filled with anxiety and sadness. This is what it's come down to, isn't it? Every other weekend without them. I hate that.

It bothers me when it's refered to as a "break" by friends and family trying to comfort me. I hate being away from them for a whole weekend. Sure one afternoon here or there so that I can do the groceries or shopping on my own would be great, but I find such comfort in just being with them. They are mine, ours.

I feel strong about decisions being made until this happens. I know it's just another part of the "process" - the new dynamic of our lives, but it still stinks.

Sure I have plans this weekend, things to keep me busy but why is it that all my mind fills itself with are thoughts of laying on the couch and eating junk food until I get to see them again. Crazy, I know.

I also don't like that it's probably how he feels when he doesn't have them and that makes me feel sad for him - for the entire situation. This isn't how I pictured my life to be, but I find comfort in knowing that this is just a growing pain and in the end, it will be just as it was supposed to.