8/01/2011

Carrying on...


Grief seems to come in waves.  The first day, I felt terribly guilty.  Then just sad.  I'm also a little angry.  I feel like I got cheated; I was supposed to have two babies, and now I'm not going to have any.  It's rough.  I'm waiting for my really bad day to come along, like it did after Owen's birth and before Sophia's.  I know there will be (at least) one day where I'll be an absolute emotional wreck the entire day, but it's kind of nice to get it all out at once.  

I'm pretty sure my milk is coming in.  I was going to pump and donate it to our milk bank, but they don't accept donations after a transfusion until 4 months have gone by.  It seemed like it would be a nice thing to do in the month or so before I go back to work (and probably for a while afterwards), but I can't pump and dump for 4 months.  I don't think I could handle it emotionally.  I'm trying to decide whether to pump and give it to Ethan, but there is a little part of me that worries.  If my milk isn't safe enough to donate, is it safe enough for him?  He's getting organic, grass-fed milk from a local farm, so I'm not sure my milk would be any healthier/more beneficial at this point.

Shayne and I had talked before we even started trying to conceive this year, and we'd decided that if we ever had another loss, we'd just stop and be happy with our little family.  I realize I can't make any truly rational decisions right now, but I'm fairly certain that when I'm able, I want to try just one more time.  The idea of another loss like this terrifies me, and I know I'd spend my pregnancy even more anxious than I was this time.  There are a lot of logical reasons against it: I have my dream job waiting for me back at work (K9 officer), it would be a financial setback to have me off work again, and it means continuing to postpone fixing up and selling our home.  But I want so badly for Ethan to have a sibling.  I want to have another newborn nurse, watch him/her learn to coo, to smile, to crawl.  I want a rainbow after all of our tears...  And in the grand scheme of things, it seems silly to put work, money, and the like ahead of family.  I may regret not pursuing my dream job, but I think I'd regret even more not allowing another child into our hearts and lives.  But I don't have to decide right now.

My physical recovery seems to be coming along well.  I actually feel halfway normal today, which is good.  If I can DO something, then it keeps my mind busy enough so that I don't feel so miserable.  I also really miss physical activity.  I don't want to go jogging or anything, but it'll be nice when I feel up to taking short walks.  Right now, just walking across the house leaves me winded.  I can't imagine how awful I'd feel if I hadn't gotten a transfusion...

In other happy news, we had part of our huge box elder tree come crashing down on our chicken coop.  Thankfully Shayne over-engineers everything (especially good if he builds our house!), and the chickens and coop itself are fine.  The tree... Not so much.  We're going to need to have the tree trimmers back out to clean it up; the biggest part of the branch that fell is at least 16" in diameter.  And then it forks into two gigantic branches.  What a mess.  I can't wait to see how much this costs...

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