Happy Birthday, Holden!

Has it really been a year? It doesn't seem like it's been that long. I still miss Holden so much. More so lately. I don't know what I thought it would feel like at this point but I guess I didn't think it would still hurt this much. I thought at one year I would be happier. That time would have helped heal my wounds. I know that my mental state is much different than it was a year ago and I've made a lot of progress. I don't cry very often and there are a lot of days where I'm happy and forget the sadness. But it never leaves me and still hits hard. Like today. Some wounds cut too deep to ever heal.

I didn't really think much of how significant today was when getting ready for work this morning. I thought maybe it can be a happy day, celebrating the short life of my sweet little boy, and not a sad and depressing day.  I went to write something on my calendar and just stood and started at what I wrote for November 19th: "Holden's Birthday- 1 year." I didn't want to forget...not that I ever could! I hate that all I will ever have are reminders and notes as signs of time progression instead of a growing baby boy. I almost lost it right then. It was so hard not to cry. I just hate starting off my day like that so I stopped myself. I kept tearing up at work all day though. I didn't need a trigger. I would just get this surge of sadness, my eyes would get watery and I would have to stop myself from letting them flow. At 10:00 am an alarm went off on my phone. Another reminder that it's Holden's angelversary. I had written in the description "Happy Birthday baby boy!" Another almost cry.

I'm going to bake a cake for him tonight. I think his one year birthday calls for something special! I'll post pictures later...if it turns out good!

My dearest Holden,
How is it possible that it has been a year since you left me? I can't believe it. Every day without you has been so difficult. I miss you so much. I'm so sorry my body failed you. I wish more than anything that you could be here with me now. Every day I wonder what you would be like. If you had made it full term and survived you would be 6 months old now. So old! I wonder what life would be like with you. Would you be a quiet baby like I was, sleeping all through the night? Or would you be like my little brother (your uncle) and cry, cry cry? Oh how I would love to hear you cry. Would you have your daddy's curly hair or my light complexion? You looked like you were going to get his big nose! I wish I would have had the chance to find out. I miss you today and everyday and words cannot express how much I love you.
Love,
Mom

ETA: Here is his birthday cake that I made all from scratch. Chocolate cake with butter frosting, covered in fondant. Unfortunately I don't have any cookie cutters so everything was cut out by hand with just a knife. I think that it turned out pretty good though! I really wish I could have been making it for our living baby.

Unjust Universe

Do you ever have moments when you think because you lost your baby/babies other bad things shouldn't happen to you? Both big and little? Because when they do, it's just not fair. Seriously, universe? Seriously?? You're going to throw this at me too?

I find it difficult to cope with the negativity of life lately. With certain things, like relationships, I forgive easily. I think "life is short" and it's not worth investing all this negative energy on unimportant circumstances. So what if Andrew didn't do the dishes like I asked? I don't need to get upset; I just need to ask him again. It's not a big deal. In other situations, even when I try to be positive and think "it's not the end of the world," I wonder why it happened in the first place. Haven't I endured enough tragedy not to experience more misfortune? Maybe I'm being selfish. Bad things happen to good people all the time. Sometimes life just kicks you when you're down. Why shouldn’t it happen to me too? That still doesn't make it okay.

First, I lose my two baby boys. Then I get pregnant only to have it taken away two days later. Then, I find out I'm being laid off. What the heck do I do now? I have to make some serious decisions about the direction of my life at this point. Maybe go back to school? Then I do some research on my laptop and it crashes for like the 4th or 5th time in 3 years (thanks Vista). WTF? I spend easily over 15 hours trying to fix it only to have to reinstall it to factory settings. I can't have an unreliable computer, especially if I go back to school. So I buy a new one. Of course I put it on the Best Buy card since we're broke. I give my mom my old one and she is so excited that I think maybe something good came out of it after all. All is well. Oh, wait, we're broke? Rent and other bills lined up just right this month so that our paycheck wasn't enough? Three days after we get paid we have -$3 in our account. Dammit. What are we going to do? Oh, we have those checks to deposit! We'll be fine as long as we only use our near maxed out credit cards for the essentials and we postpone all automatic payments until after we get paid again. Shit, I just signed up for automatic withdrawal for my student loans last month. I can change the date! But it takes up to 10 days to adjust and the pay date is in 5. It still comes out. At least the overdraft fee is only $36. Only a week until payday and we'll be fine. Now it's Andrew's birthday (November 15th) and we can't not do something. So we go out to eat with friends. I make sure to grab my camera. We sit in a booth and I ask him to put my purse on the inside of the booth instead of in between us. I never think to grab my camera since I'm not next to my purse. I know that this is when I lost my camera. Last night I'm looking for it, taking the flashlight to our cars, looking in the most ridiculous places in the house for it. Maybe they found it at the restaurant. Did you find a camera? We were just in there yesterday. We were sitting in the bar area. No? Thanks. Then I cry.

I guess the difference between scenarios that are more upsetting, is the money involved. Relationships are free, well, of any monetary value. You invest time, emotion, and love. I can and will invest them in the people I want in my life. These are values that I like to think I have a limitless store of.  I can't run out. I can run out of money. I can't afford to replace every material possession I own. I try to justify it as a "thing." It's just a "thing". Unfortunately even "things" can be important and necessary. While I can buy another camera, on the credit card of course, I can't buy back the pictures I had on it. Luckily I just transferred pictures on Halloween, so not too much time has passed. But I had taken cute pictures of the dogs and other "things" that have emotional importance to me. I always end up feeling stupid for being upset over something so insignificant. Why is this so important to me to cause such emotional distress? It's so hard to be positive, as much as I try, when life keeps throwing difficulties at me. When they build up, it makes even the smallest inconvenience a mountainous obstacle to overcome. I can’t move mountains but it's time to learn how to climb.

Halloween Weekend

Halloween was...mediocre. Not as bad as it could have been and not as good as I was hoping. I had been really excited to dress up and go to a couple of parties on Friday and Saturday. We had really great costumes too! I was Flo from progressive and Andrew was the Geico caveman. We made his latex mask from scratch. We got so many compliments! Still, once I was all dressed up, I wasn't as excited to go out anymore. Then, when we got to the parties, all I wanted to do was go home. I've always had a bit of social anxiety but it has become so bad since my losses. It's hard for me to relate to people or really have the desire to converse. It's not too bad if someone pulls me into a conversation but I don't go out of my way to start one. I did try to have fun but it was difficult. I was basically ignoring Halloween in all other aspects because I really wasn't in the Halloween spirit. Why should I be?

Luckily, we didn't have any trick-or-treaters on Sunday. Small children don't bother me as much as babies but seeing them dressed up would still have been a little difficult. When I went to the Halloween store last week and saw all the cute little costumes they had for infants and toddlers, it stung a little. So, Andrew and I ended up eating candy while playing videogames and watching terrible scary movies on Netflix. We have almost eaten our entire six bags of chocolate candy over the course of the last three weeks. Let's say my digestive tract isn't exactly happy about that...neither is my weight! Still, it was nice.

I think I've decided that unless I have a baby next Halloween, I don't think I'm going out. Even if I do, I might opt to stay in and just be in awe of what will be an adorable infant since at this point, the earliest due date I'm looking at is July. I hope all the other BLMs had a gentle Halloween, especially those with due dates or angelversaries in October. We all made it past the first holiday in the string of holiday events that are to come in the next couple of months. We can do it!