November

November is over.
November was a difficult month.

Looking back now, I should have known. I should have known that the first of November, All Saint's Day, was going to be the start of a difficult period.
All Saint's was hard. I knew it would be. I did not realize that the rest of the month and the month(s) afterwards would also be this hard.

L's birthday caught me off guard. I had no idea I would find it so hard for him to have his 6th birthday. It made me realize that he is not my baby anymore. And worse, I do not have the baby here as I was supposed to....

My colleague's pregnancy made the month even harder. Logically, I still want to be happy for her. Logically, I know that she has gone through several failed IUI's and deserves this pregnancy, this baby. Emotionally, it's much more difficult for me to be happy for her... Emotionally, I find myself thinking that maybe things will go wrong and she won't be pregnant any more one of these days. I am a horrible, horrible person for thinking those thoughts, and it's taken me a while to even dare to write them, but I need to get the thought out of my head. So on the blog it is.
(A side note: she is about 8 weeks now and has already told lots of people at work, even posted about her pregnancy on facebook and she's made christmas cards announcing the pregnancy. It bothers me. I keep wanting to ask her if she hasn't learned that things can go wrong. That maybe she shouldn't tell everyone yet. She's so confident that nothing could happen. Some days, I'm so annoyed I barely talk to her....)

Today is the first of December.
Not much better than November.
December means Christmas and New Year's and family holidays.
Other years I look forward to Christmas, I love Christmas. But not this year. This year I want to skip the holidays. I don't want to celebrate. I don't feel like decorating the house or setting up the tree or go gift shopping.

Last year I told everyone I was pregnant in November. By the end of the month I was showing and unable to hide my growing belly.
Last year we made Christmas cards with pictures of the boys and my pregnant belly.
Last year we celebrated Christmas believing we would have a baby 6 months later. There were even some small presents for the baby.
New Year's was wonderful because it meant the new year had started. The new year in which we would have another baby. The new year in which X and L would become big brothers (again).

None of that happened.

Instead, we had to bury a child. A baby who never got a chance. A brother for my boys whom they never got to know.

Most days have some reminder of last year. Of my growing belly last year, of our plans and our beautiful future....
I know there will still be many difficult moments in the coming weeks and months. January will not be a better month. Probably worse even.
I wish I could just go to bed and not wake up until some time in February. I don't know if it would make me feel any better, but it would mean not having to get through the next weeks .....

We are approaching January 31st. That day will be here before I know it.
It's a day I am dreading. It's the day we lost Dylan.
I will be taking the day off (work is the last place I want to be then) but I don't know yet what I'll do. Spend the day at the cemetery? Maybe. Spend the day at home crying? Maybe. Wishing the day will just magically disappear from the calendar? yes please.

How do you get through the holidays after losing a child? I don't know how to do it. I can't figure it out. I want to be here for the boys, but at the same time I want nothing to do with all of it.

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I almost forgot.
Thank you everyone for your lovely comments on my last post!
xx

Jinxed?

I jinxed it.
I should not have posted about being late today.

I got my period this afternoon.
I have cramps from hell right now and I'm pissed off!!!

FUCK

Late

2 days to be exact.

Lots of emotions have been going through my head the past couple of days. The most prominent one panic. Oh yes, happy and excited are there too. But panic and nervousness are the main ones.

I've had a different post in my head which I wanted to write, and I'll probably still write it tonight or this weekend, but being late is on my mind right now.

I haven't tested. Yet.
I've been pregnant 4 times and I always waited at least a week to test. Lets see if I can wait that long this time....
My cycles aren't always regular. I've had 25 day cycles and I've had over 30 day cycles.
So maybe this is just one of those really long cycles. I don't want to have the disappointment of a negative test....

I'm also not sure if I have symptoms. Maybe I do, but maybe they're just in my head.
I pee a lot. But I'm also drinking a lot of water and (decaf) coffee.
I'm tired. But I'm usually tired. Not sure if I'm more tired right now...
My boob (yes, only one of them) is fuller and a bit tender. Not sure if the other boob is fuller. I think not. Sometimes I'm not sure....

I had an ectopic 3 years ago and did not have full-blown symptoms then. That's one of my worries. Having the ectopic was horrible and painful. The surgery was scary and the recovery painful.... The months after were filled with being scared of my own body...

I'm at work right now freaking out. Sitting behind my computer not being able to concentrate on anything.
Peeing every hour or so, not so much because I have to (well, not every time I go), but because I'm checking wether or not I'm bleeding.
Waiting for 4 pm so I can go home and be around my kids. Hoping they'll be able to calm me down a bit....

Mixed feelings

I have mixed feelings about lots of things at the moment.
This time last year I was pregnant. This time last year, I was starting to tell people I was pregnant.
As of now (well, the past few weeks also but it's really hit home now) I will be reminded of that quite often.

L had his 6th birthday on Thursday. It was a bit of a sad day because it really reminded of the fact that we should have had three kids in our lives on his birthday, not 2 and our little angel......

Today was his birthday party. I told some friends I was pregnant at L's birthday party last year.

Christmas is coming up. I was pregnant last year at Christmas.

I'm dreading most of these moments. I have too many reminders of what should have been, of what was last year, of what isn't now.

Part of me wants to skip all the holidays this year. But we can't do that. X and L deserve for us to celebrate this year. They don't deserve to have to skip Christmas and New Year's because I'm sad and angry.....

Colleague

My colleague is pregnant.
I am happy for her, I really am, but this news was harder to hear than I thought it would be.
She had to go through 4 IUI's to get pregnant, so she really deserves for this to work out for her.

I feel like a horrible person for feeling this way. I am jealous. There, I admitted it. Maybe now I can be happy for her...

All Saint's Day

I had a catholic upbringing. When I say catholic, I mean traditional, not so much religious.
Belgium is a catholic country. We have all the catholic holidays and traditions. My grandparents were catholic, religious. My parents were also catholic, not so much religious but a lot more traditional.

I have taken the traditions and am teaching them to my children.

X and L were baptized as babies. X has done his communion. All of these were celebrated in church. But the most important aspect of all was tradition for me.

I think separating them is hard. I probably could have gotten the boys baptized without going to church, but it never ever crossed my mind. I grew up going to church with my grandmother, with my parents at times and we still go to church for funerals, baptisms and weddings.

Dylan's funeral service was not in a church. I honestly do not know why. We never thought about it, talked about it. We decided to have Dylan cremated and we had a service at the crematorium.
I do not regret that decision. I would not have chosen a church for religious reasons even if we would have had a funeral there, and the service at the crematorium was beautiful, more beautiful than I would have ever thought it could be.

Dylan's ashes were buried at the cemetery in our town.
I have never been someone to go to the cemetery all the time. 15 years ago, my brother and I decided to have our dad cremated and scatter his ashes because neither of us felt that we would go to the cemetery .... I don't regret that decision because I know we did what our dad would have wanted. He died in Switzerland, a country he loved and didn't want to leave. And his ashes were scattered in Switzerland, where he wanted to be.

But with Dylan, things have changed. I go to the cemetery almost every week. Usually I go by myself and I don't stay very long. But I have this need to go see my angel. I change the flowers and plants, clean the stone..... Just some time for me and my son.

Yesterday was All Saint's Day. This is one of those catholic holidays here in Belgium.
Out of all the catholic holidays, this is one of the most important ones to me. Not so much for the religious aspect of it, but more for the tradition we have.

Every year, we all drive to a cemetery where a large part of my family is buried. Most of us drive over an hour to go. We all meet there and go greet my grandfather, grandmother, great grandmother, great grandfather and an aunt. Then we all go to my uncle's house and have an early dinner and spend the rest of the day together.
So tradition, not religion.

This year, I was dreading the 1st of November. Really dreading it.
I can't explain it, but going to see Dylan yesterday was very hard. Very very hard. I cried. I haven't cried over Dylan in a long while. Yesterday, I stood at his grave and cried. I cried for a long time, my boys and T hugging and holding me.
I put beautiful white orchids and roses on his grave and told him how much he is missed.

In the afternoon, we all gathered at the other cemetery and went about greeting everyone we have lost. Afterwards we went to my uncle's house and had a wonderful rest of the day together. It was a wonderful afternoon, if the reason we all come together is not a happy one, the fact that we all see each other and spend this day together is a great thing.
Being with our loved ones on this day is a blessing. And we were all comforted knowing that we have each other. Even as we mourn our child, mother, father, grandmother, grandfather.....

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Late last night I had another reminder that we are not alone.

I received a beautiful text message from a dear friend. She sent us a message to let us know that she was thinking of us on this difficult day. To tell us that she hoped we had found a way to get through the day and remember Dylan. She even told me there was a beautiful, bright star out. Our angel, our star.....

Her message brought a tear, but also a smile.
Knowing she was thinking of us, thinking of Dylan.

The reason I'm posting about it here is because she is the only one who acknowledged yesterday.

Rationally I know I should not expect that everyone realizes what day the 1st of November is. I know that most of my friends have not lost as many people as I have. I get that most of my friends just think of the 1st of November as a day off work.
But still. Part of me would have liked for this day to have been acknowledged.

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Next year will be another All Saint's Day. But it won't be the first one anymore. 

I will always find it a special holiday and hope that I can spend this holiday together with the ones I love.....

All Saint's Day