6 Months and Counting: An Update.

I can't even believe that it has been six months since The Worst Day. Well, technically, today was the middle of the three worst days. I was in the middle of my long induction, hopped up on morphine, and my thoughts and emotions were scattered.

I thought I was okay yesterday, which was six months since the day we first heard the terrible news. I was at work doing my thing when it just hit me. Thankfully, my boss is very supportive and didn't question it when I asked if I could have the next day off. She sent me home right then, in fact. I am so grateful.

Six months.

My depression has ebbed, though the past two weeks have been hard. I supervise summer camps as a part of my job, and this particular camp was full of little girls. A friend and a coworker had babies on the same day. Six months happened yesterday.

I have been sleeping most nights, which is a true blessing. The four months of not sleeping is what really sent me spiraling, I believe. Being back to work has lifted my mood and reminded me that there is still life outside the walls of my home. That I am good at things, and useful, and that someday I will have joy again.

I held a newborn baby yesterday for the first time since I held Haven. It was so hard, and my heart was heavy all evening afterward, but I think it was a good thing. He was just a beautiful little guy, sleeping so deeply as Danny and I passed him back and forth. His mom had a placental abruption and had to have an emergency induction. Though the situation was so different than what we experienced, I could tell that it had shaken them, made them think of us, made them so grateful for a good outcome when it could have been so different.

On that note, I am weaning from my antidepressants and hope to start trying again this month or next. I am so grateful now that I did not get pregnant when we were trying a few months ago. I was not anywhere near ready, and I was half out of my mind with grief and mental, physical, and emotional exhaustion. Now I feel like I can start this again with a fresh head, with a new strength.

And I am strong. It has taken me all of this time to realize that people were right when they said that I was strong as I put one foot in front of the other in the days after Haven was born. I was strong when we buried her. When I sunk to the bottom of the pit. When I crawled back out. When I faced the world again. When I learned how to smile again.

Joy comes from weird places, I find. Instagram, for instance. I didn't know what it was for months, until my boss explained (I might be the oldest 29-year-old ever). And now I am hooked. It actually brings me a lot of joy to take pictures and publish them. Cooking has been another joy. I love cooking, but when I was depressed I just couldn't. Crafts bring me joy. I have been making tutus and painting picture frames with friends, and it is lovely. Exercising. Well, I am working on that one, ha ha! I have also started another blog. Where this one has been a depository for my pain, the new blog will be a place where I track my redemption, my new beginning. I will post the link when it is ready to share, if you are interested in following. I will continue to need this space to put the pain, but I am now in a place where I need to sort out other feelings too.

Let's be clear: I have not arrived. I am not "all better." I never will be. I still cried on my way home yesterday thinking about my daughter's tiny body resting in my arms. No, I am not okay yet. But I will be. This is not where my story ends. It's just where it begins.

Pierced

Today marks one month since I brought Haven into the world. As she slid out into the nurse's waiting arms at exactly 7:30am, the room was filled with my anguished sobs. It was the most heartbreaking and beautiful moment of my life. One of the nurses said, "she is so perfect, Brandi." I was out of my mind with grief, and my husband was holding me and crying with me. It should have been her little squawking cries filling the room. She should have been hurried onto my chest for skin on skin time. I should have been trying to nurse her. Instead, she was out, and forever parted from my body, the only home she ever knew.

So many moments from that weekend are etched into my mind forever.

Today, I had a single lobe piercing done in Haven's honour. When it heals, I am going to get an amethyst stud for it; Haven's birthstone.

I like the idea of having a visible reminder of her with me at all times. Most people will never see my beautiful stretch marks! It's something pretty for my pretty girl.

Oh, Haven. Mama misses you so much, sweetheart. I'll never, EVER forget you.

One Month Ago

One month ago today, Valentine's Day, my daughter died. It might as well be ten years, or one hundred. I feel like I was a different person then, before I found out that my baby was gone. I wish I could go back and relive a day when she was still here, just so I could feel her kick again, and to feel the innocent joy and trust that everything would be okay. Sometimes I get phantom kicks and forget for just a millisecond that she has gone away from me.

I thought to myself today that, if I could go back and not become pregnant with Haven just to avoid the pain of losing her, I wouldn't. Honestly, the almost-year that she was growing in me was the absolute happiest my husband and I had ever been. The joy she brought me bubbled up and spilled all over the place. And, you know, I wouldn't trade that messy joy for anything. My little girl was surrounded by love from the beginning of her life to the end...and beyond. Until my heart stops beating, I will love her with every fibre of my being.

We visited Haven's burial plot today. It hurt. Her plot is like an angry gash in the earth right now, just a patch of dirt scarring the cold ground above her tiny casket, a single dead rose laying before her grave marker. She is in the "baby" section of the graveyard; I cried for my dear one and for the other babies as we walked by their stones. I thought to myself that it just isn't right to have to bury your child. She should have grown old and buried us when the time came. Oh, my heavy heart.

The wind blew wild and cold today, just like it did from the time she died until we got home from delivering her. I can't hear or feel the wind without thinking of her anymore.

I love you, beautiful one.