Marked

I mentioned in the last entry that we have been waiting for Haven's headstone to be completed and installed (since May!). Well, a few days ago, we drove to the cemetery and there it was! Gone was the gray marker, and there was her beautiful stone. We had it inscribed with a flower and a little bird, along with "Haven Melody, beloved daughter of Brandi and Danny," then her date and the verse Matthew 10:29-31 (we chose this passage because it is about how God notices and loves all of us, even the smallest and seemingly insignificant).

Though it was hard to stand there and look at my baby girl's headstone, it was comforting to know that she was finally laid to rest in the way we wanted. It really is so unnatural to bury your child. Most people never have to experience it picking out a casket or funeral flowers or headstone for someone you expected to outlive you.

But now she is marked. She was here, and that stone will show it for generations to come. Maybe someday I will visit it with her brother or sister in tow.

As for me...

I still have dark days, when the flashbacks are bad, or the heavy weight on my chest will not lift, but things have been getting better gradually. The medication chased away the darkest thoughts almost immediately, and for that I am grateful. I am gradually weaning again now, and we have been trying this month. This time, I am really off the grid with trying to conceive. Just letting nature take its course.

Something that I have talked about on my other blog a bit is how I am learning to take better care of myself. Since I lost Haven, a part of me wanted to hurt myself by not eating well (or at all at one point). I think I had a lot of self-hatred in the early months, and as time has gone by, I have just made unhealthy choices in an effort to quiet the pain. But I know now that Haven would never want that for me. I am feeding peace and health and joy into my life again.

What a long, long road this is.

Square One

Recently, I made the decision to wean myself off of my medication and begin trying to conceive. Things were going well for a few weeks...and then I fell off an emotional cliff. All of the depression and crippling anxiety came flooding back, along with withdrawal symptoms I had heard about but thought were exaggerated (they're not). I hit a low point a few days ago and stayed there. A friend convinced me to go back on my antidepressants, so here I am. Here we are. No more baby after trying this month, and now no more baby until I can scrape myself together again.

I have never liked being in an unresolved or uncertain state, yet I have been living like that for almost seven months now, not living but not dead, a mother but not a mother. Where does one put all of these feelings? How do you live after you lose your child? Almost seven months later and I still can't answer these questions. I really thought that I would just immediately get pregnant and I would find zen feelings and float off into some fuzzy rainbow baby future where my hurts would be healed by the family we would grow. Yet, seven months later, I have tried for 3-4 cycles to get pregnant with no results, I am on antidepressants and now can't try again until I am weaned off in a healthy way, and I am still shredded emotionally.

But I wait. And I get up each morning. And I eat, and I drink, and I bathe myself. I work, I spend time with friends, and I go to church. But I do it all so mechanically; it's hard to remind myself of my "why" for living sometimes. Some stubborn part of me fights my fears, believing that it has to get better than this and that I will be happy again someday. I hope that part is right.

On the topic of "unresolved," we are still waiting on Haven's headstone, which we ordered about 3 months ago. We were assured it would be installed quickly, but every time we drive by, her place is still marked only by a gray, crudely nailed together marker, her name written on it in Sharpie. It is so ugly and hurts my mama's heart.

Ah, resolution. Where are you?