11.24.2021
Yesterday was Danielle’s birthday and while the date was remembered, of course, I was unphased. Not in an insensitive way but just a healed way. Her life had exponential value and she was and still is so so loved. But I’m relieved to no longer be hurt by the thought of Danielle but at peace. Although different, I hope to one day have a similar feeling about Alba.
Today was a normal day.
11.25.2021
Anyone who texts me Happy thanksgiving is getting blocked lmaoo I read that on someone’s instagram story and laughed because I couldn’t relate more. The holiday this year just seems stupid. Kyle is making a turkey and were watching Christmas movies. I’m whatever.
11.30.2021
Why do parents need to continue losing their children? Why do we live in such a fallen world? Why is there so much hate? Why are there still horrific circumstances?
My heart hurts for the school shooting in the next community over from me. I don’t like thinking about others’ dealing with trauma and loss right now. It hurts me to imagine other people hurt.
On a lighter note, I love my church. Oakland church has been an amazing blessing in my life. I’m thankful to have found a spirit filled church to pour into right now.
I’m having weird dreams. I’m writing them down.
12.1.2021
I struggle with over sharing. Maybe as a trauma response or just a weird type of extrovert, I tend to over share my life, thoughts and emotions. I mean...OBVIOUSLY from this blog post. I actually have been slower to want to type these things. But the Holy Spirit continues to check me and remind me to write. Whyyyyyy? Is what i continue to ask the Lord because I don’t really get it. I’m not sure how reading about my random days and thoughts would help anyone.
So weird fact, my best friend since childhood also lost her newborn baby just 2 years prior. We spoke for a long time today as i found myself in a silent car for over a hour and we just hashed out our emotions. It’s relieving to have such a close person in my life fully understand the harsh feelings and grief. I can talk to anyone about it but its a different type of therapy when expressing your thoughts to someone who has lived the exact trauma. The ability to share stories without crying but in complete understanding of one another’s tragedy is amazingly in sync yet horribly sad. “Isn’t it crazy that you both went through this same thing?!” Are what we continue to hear from others and I can’t help but be happy for them that they never have gone through a trauma that they would think that a question like that was appropriate. As if both losing a child is some sort of badge of honor that made us even more of best friends than if we never had experienced loss at all. As if both losing a child was on the same level as having both somehow bought the same blouse without the other knowing. I sit between bitterness and grace towards the ignorant because again, how amazing that they have never experienced such loss. However, we shared the hard stories with each other that anyone else would be wrecked from, stories that I haven’t shared with many because its traumatizing to even hear it. Yet to say it to someone who has also lost a child is only selfishly comforting knowing that they too understand how you feel.
I believe everyone experiences trauma in their own way. And no trauma is worse than the other. I continue to hear that losing a child is known to be the worst thing someone could possibly go through and hearing that I’m astonished that I’m going through the worst thing I could ever go through. How am I surviving? Even I don’t know. But I say all that to still say that I can point out people who have had the luxury to not experience trauma in a way I have. And maybe this post will come off as bitter, but please allow the process of grief to take its natural course. I’m not always bitter, but sometimes its nice to be. Based on how people interact with me, i can tell if they have gone through a trauma in their life, a trauma like mine i should say. The questioning of how Kyle and I choose to grieve or exclude ourselves from certain events. We’ve been pressured to keep normalcy for our kids (as if they will realize if its even Christmas or not at the ages of 1,2,3), that its good for our kids to go and we should prioritize them first in this holiday season as if we haven’t been prioritizing them by getting out of the bed everyday and parenting them through this loss. In the end it is only a selfish and feeble attempt to ask us to put aside our grief for their own desire to keep normalcy for themselves or to see our kids. There is a lot of willpower to be had to stop me from asking people what they did when they lost their newborn baby,....oh you didn’t lose your baby? Then shut up. For the other mamas who know what’s its like, you understand what I’m saying. While I’m in a headspace of venting, I also struggle with friends and family who continue to push to support me if I have already said no. I struggle with this because if we have said no to the holidays this year, it should be fully understood, but sometimes it isn’t. But i think we forget to think about the reality of Kyle and I coming to places we don’t want to come to. Kyle doesn’t want to be approached about Alba, he doesn’t want it brought up and if you do, then he is angry and devastated will call you out. He also wont bounce back easily or fast. Me on the other hand, am the complete opposite. If you want to support us so badly, then be prepared to bring it up or I will be angry. But also be prepared to get deep and heavy with it. Be ready to hear about how i struggle with how Alba looked when we took her off the ventilator. How I bled through my pants and sat in severe pain due to a csection infection as I said goodbye to my baby in a small hospital room made specifically for saying goodbye to babies. How I was in so much pain the night before i got re-admitted that i literally had an open vision of angels telling me that Jesus was coming to take my pain away. How we sit in our closet and sob and hold onto the baggy of hair that we cut off our daughter on the really tough days. Only few people can support me right now and I still wreck them in my path of grief by sharing what I’m truly going through. I don’t like making others hurt by sharing my hurt, making others uncomfortable through my need to share hard thoughts. My true emotions WILL leave you wrecked, I don’t want that. This is not a season for me to “power through” “suck up for the kids or for your family”, this is a season that allows me to say no for YOUR sake and mine. I don’t want to emotionally dump on you and leave you in a puddle of uncomfort and hard emotions while I move on quickly because that’s what grief is.
Like i said, sometimes its good to dump the bitterness out on this blog and then move on with my day. I don’t want to carry the weight of it and I know the effects bitterness can have on the body and healing journey. It’s good for me to get it out. I promise I don’t always feel this way.
12.2.2021
Today my kids have made me laugh and shake my head. The trouble they get into, the frustration they cause is nothing compared to how I could be feeling alone in my bedroom refusing to leave my head if I didn’t have kids to be a mother to. They are my purpose. I type this as they all 3 cry about having to clean up their toys after already getting caught turning the toilet into a splash pad. Kids….oy.
After speaking with many different woman of God and analyzing my thoughts and what I’m going through with them, Ive began to realize the calling of motherhood on my life. Satan likes to target your calling as a means to slow down advancement of the kingdom as well as your own purpose in this life. Pay attention to what is attacked most in your life, it could very well be your God given assignment on your life. Mine has heavily been motherhood. Since day 1 really. I became a mom and got hit with childhood trauma that I needed to be delivered from. The angst and insecurity I carried as a mother before God healed me was so blatant. Kyle couldn’t even fully correct me on something simple without me agreeing with the enemy that I was a horrible and incompetent mom to my kids. Thank you God for delivering me in September 2020. Ive been completely changed since then and I can’t imagine how much worse off I would be in September 2021 to now if I hadn’t brought my hurt to the cross and given it to Jesus. But the attack on my motherhood didn’t stop there. Because I chose to foster, I’m consistently met with questioning, examining and doubting my caseworkers. Ive been questioned if I’m too overwhelmed and if i need to consider a different placement for my babies. Ive been accused of trying too hard to keep siblings together by a supervisor and that I should focus on the babies in my home as if I can’t be a mom and make phone calls to check on a sibling that is about to be in my home. It’s fucked honestly. I’m done writing today.
12.5.21
Sometimes I sit here and wonder if I was ever pregnant at all. The year began with me finding out I was pregnant and this entire year has been me experiencing an amazing journey in pregnancy and growing Alba, meeting Alba and then saying goodbye to Alba. As the dust settles from losing one of the biggest blessings of my life. As life moves on without me having my newborn baby, I sit here in this sense of confusion and sorrow that I didn’t really experience growing her or having her at all. That crushes me. Alba’s life had value and meaning. She was mine and I lost her and now life goes on and I cling to my grief as long as I possibly can because that’s all that I really have to give me a sense she was actually here.