#emptyarms

Today marks three weeks since I lost my daughter, Kaia, and today, had she survived pregnancy, she would have been a week old. I should be gloriously exhausted, disheveled from lack of sleep, from waking up every other hour to feed her, but instead I’m sitting at home with my mom and my husband (not that there is anything wrong with this), childless and everything around me reminds me day in and day out that my baby did not come home with me. 

Wake up, eat, sleep, repeat. Wake up, eat, sleep, repeat. Wake up, eat, sleep, repeat. 

There isn’t much I can say that I’m sure hasn’t already been said by grieving mothers everywhere, but it truly feels as though everything has stopped. I’m at a standstill while the world continues to spin on its axis and people go on living their lives. I’m standing on the outskirts of my own life watching as everything unfolds around me and I am powerless to do anything about any of it.  And do you want to know what the messed up part is? I don’t want to do anything about it. At least not right now. 

In the last three weeks, I have been tethered to a roller coaster of emotions. One moment I’m at the top of the world, feeling like I can conquer anything, and then in the next moment, I’m falling, my eyes to the ground and indifferent to the feeling that I could hit the bottom at any moment. This is grief. These are the after effects of having lost someone so precious to me, someone I loved more than my own life and still love, and I am doing my best to navigate this path I’ve been led to follow. 

One day, maybe not anytime soon, but one day, there will come a time when I look back at this particular season in my life and smile. And maybe even look back at it with thankfulness that at one point in my life I knew what it felt like to feel a love so unconditional and selfless, to have hope, and to be able to dream of a life my heart so fiercely desired. Someday...but not today. 

Today, I will grieve and cry and maybe laugh and give a little smile. Today, I hope my words will reach the heart of another grieving mother, another woman who has to walk down a similar path, or another family trying to mend the broken and shattered pieces of their now forever changed lives, and let them know that they are not alone. 

It's so weird to talk to others about miscarrying. For some reason, especially loved ones. Not everyone understands.

Our son is only 6 months old now but when he was 4 months, we went ahead and tried conceiving again. We had success but it was short lived. We found out we were pregnant again for sure on October 05th, 2013. We were totally elated but a bit nervous.

Anyways.. I had a weird empty feeling a good part of the time. I felt awful. I have constant headaches from the epidural and spinal I had to have when I had our son. I just felt BAD. When I started bleeding a bit on November 03rd.. I just knew. I had a bad feeling. I broke down and just bawled. It happened right before we were about to leave for church so it made it that much worse.

When I went to the doctor the next day, we discovered it was to be twins but no longer.

My doctor didn't even mention a D&C, saying I seemed to be miscarrying well naturally. It's been AWFUL. It's made the emotional toll that much worse.

My heart died a little that day. Two lives that didn't get to be. The twins I had always wanted. It wasn't fair and I still don't understand and my heart still hurts. I don't know when it's going to stop. I just keep reminding myself that I need to focus on my two other little babies (4 years old and 6 months).

Even though I was only 10 weeks pregnant, my clothes were starting to not fit. I couldn't sleep on my stomach. My stomach was hardening. Going on almost two weeks now.. and my clothes feel loose again. I'm empty.

I've been robbed.

I feel empty.

If you've been through a miscarriage. You don't have to act like it's okay. Like everything is peachy. It's okay to grieve. It's okay to cry. I believe that's really how healing starts.