Sunday, August 14, 2011

Same ole stuff I know...

I am feeling down the past few days.  Everyone is having babies around me...EVERYONE.  After my last miscarriage I decided I probably didn't want to have another baby, mostly because I didn't want to go through the agony of the "trying" process only to be let down again.  I decided to focus on Ricky and try to get myself back.  I couldn't really tell anyone that I didn't think I wanted anymore kids because everyone would give me the "oh are you sure?"  "maybe you will want to try again in a few months"  "don't make that decision now, give it time, you are still young".  I didn't want to hear any of that and I still don't.  I just don't know what is right for me, I don't know if want another one, I feel like I am expected to have another one, I feel guilty if I make Ricky an only child, I just know I am still sad.  Although to add humor to this story I suppose seeing the woman at the park the other day with an infant in a carrier on the front of her and her dragging a screaming/crying child across the parking lot from the park to the car kind of curbed my desire for a short time.

Anyway, I sit here and all I see are "I'm pregnant" or "We had our baby" posts and I try to hide my sadness.  Please don't get me wrong...I am happy and excited for every one of my pregnant friends and new moms....I am happy that they are bringing new life into this world.  I don't want or expect anyone to hold back from sharing news of this wonderful life event...hearing it actually helps me, if that makes sense.  Watching others through their pregnancies puts a smile in my heart and I want to hug and kiss each one of the new cute little babies that come into our lives! 

I have this feeling, like a foreshadowed guilt almost, that if we don't try again I will always wonder if that time would have been "the" time.  I lay in bed sometimes thinking about what it would have been like to feel another baby moving inside my tummy, to feel it tumbling around in there while I try to sleep, to touch my firm pregnant belly and know there is a little person in there.

So what's worse, trying again and losing another baby, one that you so desperately wanted, or never trying again and always wondering if it ever would have been..... 



Thursday, August 11, 2011

Moments in time

Has there ever been an event that has caused you to stop and look at moments in your life?  Something happens that makes you think of all the memories that are engrained in your head for all time.  That happened to me yesterday....


It's like a wave comes over me, I start to remember specific moments in time as if there is a picture book in my mind.  I flash back to sitting with my dad in our living room and just hanging out and talking.  I can see it so clearly, his cut off jean shorts and flip flops, the smell of the warm, humid summer air blowing through the front window, the tv on in the background, my sisters running around playing loudly, my mom cooking in the kitchen.  Memories of my childhood and my home are some of the best I have and I cherish them.  My dad's laugh when me, my sisters, and him would pull a prank on my mom and her smile when we did it.  The early morning sound of my parents talking in the dining room with quiet, tired voices and the sound of them making coffee while the three of us were still in bed.  The sound of the high school marching band and football team practicing across the street.  It's like all of this can be lumped into one big wonderful picture that I never want to forget.


First grade, the year I became forever shy.  I was talking to a person behind me in class and the teacher stopped and sternly asked me to be quiet or she would make me go into the hall.  After that, I barely spoke a word in class....ever.  Funny, it's not like it was out of line for her to say something but it affected me so much.  But I can see the teacher, and I can see myself in that moment.


Flash forward to high school, I can see the first time I met my best friend Kendra in 9th grade math class.  Her oversized plaid flannel shirt, her wariness at meeting me, a new person.  I have this mental picture of her and I sitting in Algebra at our desks talking for the first time :)

Then skip ahead to the very moment I realized I was in love with Richard.  Out with none other than my best friend Kendra at the bar, she decides to call Richard from my cell phone to see if he wants to come out.  I haven't spoken to him in months at this point.  He doesn't answer.  I can see Kendra and I sitting at the table with our beer feeling so grown up, I can see me answer the phone when Richard calls back and I ask him to come meet us there.  It is when he enters the bar that it hit me.  It was as if I had never seen him before in my life, as if I knew nothing about him, but I knew everything about him.  I can picture him as if it were yesterday.
I have a slideshow in my head, still shots of each moment from the day Ricky entered our lives.  Richard's face when I woke him up at 1:00 a.m. to tell him I had a strange feeling in my stomach.  :)  Richard sitting on the sofa next to my bed with such a concerned, worried look on his face.  Him pacing while I pushed.  The very moment that Ricky was born, when they took him away from me to the table, it's like a still photo, black and white because it was so dark in the room, I can see my baby still curled in the fetal position being whisked away.  Richard looking into my eyes while they were cleaning up our baby, holding my hand and asking me if I was okay.  It was all so surreal, the pictures in my head portray calmness, quietness, slow motion, when in reality it happened so fast.  But every moment is lumped into one big beautiful collage in my mind.

Of course there are many events that occured between these things that were just as memorable, I just chose to talk about these in particular.  It's nice that I have these memories so that when things happen that make me sad or feel alone, I have these to turn to, to show me that I have had a beautiful life, I have people that love me, and there is only more to come.  A moment lasts all of a second, but a memory lives on forever.....