12.16.21
I catch myself being caught up in the excitement, the thrill of a new journey, a new chapter….a new baby. Everything and everyone is moving so fast around me as I stand in excitement for what’s to come but I get hit with remembrance and I slam on the brakes of this rollercoaster. “HOLD ON, I still want you” I scream to myself as I think of my Alba. I would give anything to have her. To have her instead? No, to but to have them BOTH. Hold on….. everything, everyone just please stop. My grief is still here, my aching for my baby is still felt and dealt with. I’m not cheating out grief but think I am actually entering into a new level of grief. A type of grief that has me hurting more than I’ve ever felt while I picture welcoming in a baby that isn’t Alba. Guilt towards both Alba and new baby, guilt that I’m taking in a new baby so fresh after losing her and guilt towards baby boy for feeling torn like this. I do already love him so much. I can’t wait to meet him but it includes every other emotion too. This new level of grief is more twisted and suffocating. It doesn’t allow me to feel one emotion at a time or even 2 similar emotions at a time. Every feeling is coming from opposites side of the scale. Complete joy and debilitating grief are working together to destroy me or heal me, but I can’t tell.
12.17.21
Grief is sobbing uncontrollably in the car of the hospital parking lot over what you’ve lost before going inside to snuggle what you’ve gained.
12.20.21
I don’t feel like typing out my feelings. But I sit here in moments of big feelings and I know I need to share them because that is what the Holy Spirit keeps telling me to do. But I don’t want to. I really wish to just move on from each moment each hard moment and not experience it again.
I’m currently sobbing to the kids show Bluey while my children are sleeping it’s 10:45 PM and I’m eating my feelings and leftover tacos and cookie dough dip from the fridge. I can tell that I’ve been off of my antidepressant for a week now as I’ve been a lot more prone to crying, on the verge of crying at all times, and faster to crying at any given moment. But I will say that it’s almost a relief, I was feeling a shell of myself on the medication. And not in a way that made me feel worse because I did in fact feel better, but that’s the thing, I wouldn’t cry. I wouldn’t really feel anything. Now that I’m off of the medication and I’m definitely feeling these harder emotions more physically than I was while on the medication it is still a sense of relief because I know what I’m experiencing and what I’m feeling and that I should be feeling this way. I want to feel this way. I know that feeling this way gets me through the grief and gets me past the darkness and propels me back into the light. I went off my medication maybe out of pure laziness of not wanting to refill it from my short staffed neighborhood pharmacy at Kroger. But I think more so I really wanted to know how I would feel genuinely, with a mix of my new baby, this new level of grief, and just baseline without anything, without any medication to know how I was doing in comparison to the beginning.
12.21.21
I don’t feel like crying. But here I am in a nicu, holding my new son and silently letting tears fall. If I don’t look up or look around, I convince myself that no one notices me.
Today I am stressed. I physically feel the spiritual warfare over my mindset, my reality. I’m frustrated, I’m sad, I’m excited, im tired. Sofi needs a GI specialist stat. I need better pediatricians but im out of control of that with their foster care insurance. I tried making dinner for 3 hours tonight but was pulled everywhere else and while my lasagna cooked on the oven, we all ate PB+J’s. I had the 2 butts of the loaf because I’m the mom. To be fair, Kyle tried to switch me right away but I dug my feet into the victim role and ate the sandwich. I looked forward to physical therapy only to have an exam done and skipped the cupping and dry needling that have been the only thing to give me relief from my continued physical pain. I drove late to the nicu and just sat in my mentality that I was the victim.
But God works.
I finally received a message back from an amazing ministry I had reached out a little bit ago. Something so small, but it kicked me back into a warrior mindset. I was reminded that what I’m currently dealing with is spiritual warfare. You see, I’m about to bring life back into my home after months of mourning over death. I’m saving a life while mourning the loss of another’s. Satan is angry to see redemption come and come so soon. Let him be angry, but I refuse to be angry. I refuse to be a victim. I refuse to be anything but blessed by God’s glory in this hard circumstance. I’m made in the image of my creator. The Bible says no weapon formed against me shall prosper (Isaiah 54:17). If God is for me who can be against me?(Romans 8:31). The devil roams around like a lion looking to kill, steal, destroy (1 Peter 5:8), resist the devil and he will flee from you (James 4:7). <<< all great verses I like to remind myself about when it comes to the gritty days of spiritual warfare like today.
Let’s instead go through what went great today. This morning grief had me hyper focused on buying groceries and cooking up an entire dairy free lasagna. This involved bringing 2 kids (thx Gma for watching cam to give me a break), and heading to 2 different stores. I had a blast and the kids were seriously amazing. I shared a glimpse of my testimony with a new friend that joined us at our second store, who brought my baby boy clothes and then bought me Starbucks. It was amazing. We came home and baby boy’s rug for his new nursery was on the porch waiting for me. Nani was phenomenal at her quiet time so I could begin dinner. Kyle came home in the thick of chaos, tears, frustration (all by me) and took over. Bless him. I’m ending my day holding my sweet baby who is so close to joining me at home and beginning our lives together as mama and baby.
God still shines in my everyday even with the hard moments that Satan throws at me in an attempt to ruin me.
I’m hoping baby boy comes home Thursday or Friday (it’s Tuesday). I’d really like him home for Christmas.