Solitary in Sanity

This post wasn’t quite finished – but I felt any further explanation would have just rambled on. I planned on coming back to it the next day, but then it finally happened. I fell in love with my Lu. It was as if coming to the realization that my miscarriage was the reason I wasn’t connecting with my new puppy allowed it to happen. I talked it out with Jim, typed it all up, slept with the issue on my mind and woke up to finally accept this little cutie as my own.

Just because my baby died doesn’t mean everything else around me will (including Jim when he drives in the rain. I seriously kept him from going out one day because it was pouring and I had a bad feeling). Lucy is here, she’s adorable and sweet, and she’s mine. Just as JJ is my handsome little boy, she’s my pretty little girl. I love her and I know that she isn’t going to leave us for a very long time.

—–

Yesterday Jim asked me if I realized how different our lives would if I was still pregnant. Well, duh. He went on to explain that if I we hadn’t lost Lemon, he wouldn’t be starting grad school and we wouldn’t have Lucy. I asked him if he’d trade those things to have Lemon back.

“Of course I would, but these are two great things we have and one day soon, when we have our baby, we won’t be singing the same tune.”

I know that he’s right. Just hurry up, one day soon.

A Necklace for Lemon, that was written for inclusion in the Pregnancy Loss Week Blog Carnival, is now up at Fertility Flower. During the week of August 23-27, 2010 the site will be featuring articles, posts and artwork about pregnancy loss.

Reading all of the stories shared so far, and coming across the blogs of women who have experienced losses of all shapes and sizes has been wonderful.

I am so grateful to Kimberly for putting it all together.

Thanks Kimberly. You rock.

Moments ago, I realized what the hell it is between Lucy and I. Before I begin: yes I know she’s a dog. I treat my dogs like children. If you have a problem with this and you have dogs, I feel sorry for them.

The moment I laid eyes on JJ, I cried. I was immediately attached to him. I fell in love instantly. When I met Lucy, this didn’t happen. My heart didn’t melt, the tears of joy didn’t flow. I told myself it was because of the different circumstances. I met her and her sister at her foster mother’s home. We had to decide which of them we would take home and we were sort of being interviewed. Days passed…well at this point 9 days have passed and I just don’t feel completely in love or totally connected.

She jumped off the couch last week (so brave!) and cried a little bit. Her eyes were closing and I was so, so scared. I thought she could have gotten a concussion. I put her tiny face up to the air vents and I kept her awake by talking to her. It was just before we were headed to bed, so after I put her in her crate, I went and woke her up three times over the course of the next hour. I Googled and Googled information about puppy head injuries. The thought of losing her shook me up. I thought to myself, this is love. I finally fell in love with Lucy.

Though still, nothing,

A few days ago, she jumped out of my lap and hit the floor again (I swear I’m a good puppy mom, she’s just a hell of a lot braver than JJ ever was). Once again, I freaked out. She was fine.

Nothing.

More than a few times, I’ve caught myself thinking about her dying. The groomer told me her ears were dirty and that she’s scratching at them too much. I made a vet appointment. Google “can dogs die from an ear infection.”

It just hit me.

I’m not connecting with her. I frequently have thoughts about her dying. Lemon. Duh, Lemon.

I don’t have children yet. I have dogs. So for my first Writers Workshop c/o Mama Kat, (via ComaGirl) I am responding to the prompt:

Dear Mommy and/or Daddy…(write a letter to yourself from one of your children)

The following is a letter written to me by new puppy, Lucy.

—-

Dear Mommy,

I understand we are just getting to know one another, but I would like to point out a few things. Please read carefully:

I appreciate all of your housebreaking efforts and peeing outdoors is cool, but I much prefer to poop on your floors. You could stop wasting your time saying “potty outside” because all I hear is “blah, blah, blah. hard wood floors.”

It seems that you and other dog like to go for long walks. That’s nice, but I think you can continue to carry me like the princess that I am. It’s really the least you can do considering how many “Awwws” I am contributing to your days.

Speaking of other dog…biting his tail is a whole lot of fun. Would it kill you to slather it in peanut butter? It would make the whole experience that much more enjoyable.

Regarding the tall bald man: is he deaf? Because you seem to be the only one that hears my cries in the morning. You should really have his hearing checked, at least for the sake of those bags under your eyes.

Whew, I am glad I got all of that out. Now that you’re better informed as to how I prefer things to go down, the rest of this puppy period should go well.

Love,

Lucy (aka Lazy Lu)

P.S. My purple polka dot leash and collar are awesome. You have great style and I want to thank you in advance for never putting me in a tutu or a t-shirt featuring a (not so) clever saying that prompts people to laugh at me.

Turns out, we didn’t have to compete for our newest pup. The other woman had already adopted a dog (translation: she wanted no part of that fiasco). After much debate and going back and forth and calling her several different names, we settled on Lucy. I get the “Lu” I always wanted and Jim doesn’t have to feel lame saying LuLu. Plus, JJ & LuLu is a little cheesy.

Lucy is a little sweetheart, who just so happens to love biting on her big brother’s tail. Each day JJ inches closer and closer to her when they’re lounging around. If you ask him outright, he’ll tell you he’s not really into her. Though when nobody is looking and she’s been in her crate for a while, I’ll see him sniffing around trying to wake her up.

Being a family of four/mother of two isn’t double the work…it definitely feels like more than double. Keeping them both happy, housebreaking her and adding in another personality to our daily routine has been exhausting. But, so far, she’s totally worth it.

More on Lucy later.

Stephanie over at So-So Stephanie recently wrote:

“We are all learning to live with this comfortable sadness that is now a part of our days.”

The situation she’s referring to is far worse than anything I’ve been through, but these words resonated with me. No matter how hard I try to remain positive, for as long as it takes to have a baby, I will carry this sadness with me.

——-

Moving on to stories you cannot make up….

About a month ago, I put in an application with a rescue group for 3 soon-to-be-available maltipoo puppies. I have been in contact with their foster mom for 2 weeks. She told me she would be setting up a meeting when the puppies turned 8 weeks old. We set a date for Saturday and then just a few moments ago I received the following email addressed to myself and “Susan.”

“…I will have two puppies for you to look at.  Only one is available for adoption so only one of you will go home with a puppy.  The person I select to take a puppy can then pick the one they want.  I’m sorry to do it this way, but I want to select the person/situation that I think best fits the puppy.”

Um, Babs, I do have a question. Did I inadvertently sign up for a reality TV show? Just how do you plan on wording your final decision? “Sorry Brooke, you have to go home. Susan, will you accept this rose?”

This could be a devastating situation for me.

If these puppies are 8 weeks old, they were born the week of June 15th. I can’t help but make the connection. I don’t know if we should make the 3 hour drive with JJ, just to be sent home with my heart in my stomach.

Some days I swear the universe is pushing me closer and closer towards a mental institution.

For now, I am adhering to these words. I haven’t uttered a single statement that even hints at “only five more days” or “I cannot wait until ____.” I have been enjoying each day as it comes and have not been staring at a calendar, slowly crossing off the days. Even now, in my 2WW (look it up, if you must), I’m not sweating next week. What happened or didn’t happened already happened and biology works in such a way that I cannot find out if that thing happened for several days. So there.

Of course, with this I am teasing my readers because I won’t tell you if it did happen, but I’m sure you’ll know it didn’t happen when I am back here. What I’m saying is, you can basically track my cycles by my blog posts. How very modern/TMI of me.

My one and only meeting with a therapist included a discussion regarding alcoholism in my family. When I told him that my sister did not have a problem with drinking he replied, “So you’re the lucky one.” I laughed because I thought he was being sarcastic. Then he said “One day you’ll realize that.” Even though I had no idea what he meant, it intrigued me. Why was I lucky for having inherited the disease?

Today, when writing to a friend about our struggles with trying to conceive, I thought about what that therapist said. Writing, “Perhaps we are the lucky ones after all.”

Reflecting on this has been what’s getting me through today. Hopefully I can hold onto this…this realization of just how amazing my relationship will be with our eventual baby. Not a single day, a messy-faced kiss or even a poopie diaper will be taken for granted. I imagine cuddly moments wherein I tell my little one how they were a long awaited dream come true.

I dreamt about being a mommy my whole life.  When I met Daddy we learned that we shared the very same dream. Then one day, our little dream came true. That dream was you.

because my midday emails express just what i’m feeling, just when i’m feeling it, i’ve pasted one from Tuesday below. today, i got a hair cut, left the house for a meeting with clients and things were much,much better.

Each day things get worse, not better. Like with death they say time heals you…but with this, the longer I go without being pregnant, the worse it gets. I cry at the sight of babies, baby things, pregnant women. I know I will have a baby one day, but that doesn’t help my philosophy of getting through today. It hurts today, I don’t care about tomorrow or 10 months from now.

I’ve been crying every night since Thursday. I comforted myself by saying it was only at night, I just need to keep busy with work, dinner and reading during the day/evening. Well I started crying before and my heart was pounding so much I was afraid of a panic attack. So I laid down and fell asleep.

I’m waking up early, exercising, eating right, keeping busy with work, trying to stay positive. Nothing is helping to ease the sadness.

I’ve run out of tools in the toolbox.

—

I need to get back here.

This post was written for inclusion in the Pregnancy Loss Week Blog Carnival. Please join us at Fertility Flower for the week of August 23-27, 2010 where we will be featuring articles, posts and artwork about pregnancy loss.

What actions did you take to memorialize the lost child/children?

We nicknamed our first baby “Lemon” before we even knew we were pregnant. I wrote Lemon, come to us! on the chalkboard wall in our kitchen. Jim drew a lemon and added eyes and a mouth. We were absolutely ecstatic to find out that Lemon did indeed come to us that month. I discovered we were pregnant on April 24, 2010. As soon as I saw that blue cross appear, I started laughing out loud. I was giddy with joy. As for later on, the truth is, I spent much of my pregnancy totally worried that something would go wrong. At 11 weeks, 1 day, we found out that something had gone terribly wrong for Lemon. He or she just wasn’t prepared for this journey with us.

We allowed ourselves two days to grieve and all in all, recovered from the loss rather quickly. We knew that in order to move on and start trying to conceive again, we would have to adopt a postive outlook and regain hope that we would become parents soon. Though I knew this did not mean that I wouldn’t think about the life we created every day. Moving on and forgetting are not one in the same.

I searched Etsy for something special to commemorate our first baby. I chose a delicate little necklace with a yellow, lemon-shaped crystal. I fell in love with the lemon necklace because it’s such a simple piece – that for me – carries significant meaning. Its top comes to a point and I often find myself shoving my finger down onto it. This hurts for a moment and it sort of pulls me up out of any momentary slump I’m in; mostly because it reminds me of the real pain felt when I looked at an ultrasound screen on June 15th and read “heartrate __”

For a short time, our hearts beat together in the same body. That honor was taken away from me all too quickly. Now this lemon sits just inches away from my heart and helps comfort the aches caused by the longing for an opportunity to nurture a life once again.