Bitterness

Sometimes the bitterness creeps in and wraps its clammy fingers around my thoughts. You see, my husband and I have never had an easy time of anything. It's like we somehow found each other, the perfect mates, and then everything else went to shit in our lives. From the financial issues that have plagued us, to death and sickness and turmoil and pain in our families, to car accidents and therapy and multiple cars dying in freak ways, to being abused in the workplace and losing jobs, to owning houses that fall apart, to endless days of stress and anxiety... it's been one thing after another for 7 years.

And then we are blessed with the ultimate surprise. Without even trying, we suddenly had a beautiful baby girl on the way. I finally let down my guard and began to believe life really could be beautiful. But she is yanked away from me after a perfect, healthy pregnancy. No warning, and our baby is stolen from us. It is like a sick joke. And then that wasn't enough to throw at us, so just three weeks after The Worst Day, my husband's mother and step-father were in a terrible accident (thankfully, they will recover), husband comes down with a case of gout, then gets in a minor car accident, all in 36 hours.

We just feel bitter sometimes.

And so my mind wanders, as it does when you are home alone for hours and days on end...

Why did my baby have to die? She wasn't sick, so why her? Why us? After everything else? Those living newborns whose photos crop up in the minefield of my facebook newsfeed, why not them? (Not that I would ever wish this on any of those precious babies). But WHY? Did I do something wrong in my life that I deserve this? But she didn't do anything wrong...she'll never have the chance to do anything wrong. Did she die to fill some kind of dead baby quota and she was just the unlucky lotto winner? Is the universe trying to teach me something in the most perverse way possible? Why my spunky little girl and not the baby of a drug addict who didn't even try to take care of her baby?

Those cat-poster facebook memes tell us that everything happens for a reason...I don't think I believe that. I believe we can take the painful things handed to us and decide to turn them into good things in our lives, but I don't think that those good results are the reason we suffered. Sometimes, there are just no answers. No answers to the burning question "why?!" The answer is that there are no answers. For Haven, it was probably a cord accident, based on our recollection of events that week. Pressure on her cord. An awkward position, restricted blood flow, and death. All with no obvious sign until we put together the pieces in the following weeks.

A friend nearly lost her son just three weeks before we lost Haven, and she told me about the signs and the "bad feeling" that lead her to go to the hospital, where an emergency C-section saved her son's life. That's a part of what eats at me and why I feel so damned culpable. Because if there was a sign, we missed it. The only thing that might have been a sign were accelerated movements the night before, but they happened during her usual busy time, so I didn't think it was odd. She had been increasingly active for about two weeks, so this wasn't a red flag. We laughed, thought it was cute. Thought, "she is getting so strong, she must be almost ready to come!" Now I just have a sick feeling in my stomach when I think about that last night, because the last time I for sure remember her moving, she was probably dying. She was dying, and we were laughing.

Anyway. I know none of this will bring her back, and it's torture to think this way. I know it's a part of grieving when this kind of thing happens and that someday I will no longer unjustly blame myself, but punishing myself makes me feel a little satisfaction because there is no one else to punish. No one to blame. Accidents happen, and terrible things happen to good people. The end.

I just wish it all could have been different.