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  • Writer's pictureGabriela Horr

8.26.22 - 9.6.22

8.28.22


It’s been months of me postponing the journey to begin healing my body physically. To either update or catch you up, I am STILL struggling with epidural site pain and discomfort around my c-section site. I’ve been looking into how trauma is stored in the hips and lower back, maybe that’s my problem. Actually I really do think it is. I think that because I watched a 1 tik tok (lol’ing at myself) of a pelvic floor therapist demonstrating how to release trauma in the hips and I was immediately invested. She grabbed 2 tennis balls (me: ok easy peasy, I can get two of those) and then wrapped them together with tape (me: ok cool, doable, how do I use it?) But then she carried on in demonstrating how to release the trauma. She put the taped tennis balls on one side of her lower abdomen and laid stomach down on them on the floor…..Ok, but why was I sobbing as I simply watched this women on tik tok do this? I realized how sensitive I am of my lower abdomen. Not in a self conscious, insecure sensitive (though the mom pooch is very real), but in a traumatized, I’d rather die than put that kind of pressure on my lower abdomen kind of sensitive. I’d rather take a papercut to every finger than lay down on two taped tennis balls where my c-section site is. I’m teary eyed right now just thinking about it again….not normal right?

I’m not all lost and hopeless in my PTSD though. I acknowledged the abnormal reaction to that tik tok and realized I should really work on lower abdomen. Pelvic floor type stuff and really building those muscles again. I mean, it hurts to sit up in bed still, laugh too hard, and doing any sort of crunch is way more than a pull but a borderline strain to those muscles. So I’m currently on day 2 of a ab plan to help restore those deep inner muscles that were botched in my c-section and infection. That damn infection….

I’m trying to show myself grace. I’m also not trying to excuse my laziness and lack of motivation though. I WANT to physically get better….but every time I work on that ab plan and focus on my lower abdomen, I break down in tears. It’s a very emotional ab workout every single night and Kyle can barely stand it. I guess that’s the only good trade off in this is what he feels so bad for me sobbing while doing kegels and planks that he plays with my hair for 10 minutes afterwards as I compose myself.


Anyways….the leniency I gave myself this summer in not feeling like I should post as often has really given me the healing I needed in this mini season of grief. In the beginning of my grief, I relied on posting… was dependent on it almost. I NEEDED to get these hard emotions out. However now I don’t feel that. I don’t feel so heavy in my sorrows that I need to dump them out. I still feel sad, yes. I still feel so so sad but I’m getting stronger. They say the pain doesn’t get better, you just learn how to live with it better. I guess that’s slowly but surely me.



8.28.22


Working on this project is HARD AF. I spend hours sitting at my computer staring at my loss and the loss of others. I look through grief quotes, I find books about grief, I read the stories of other women who have also experienced loss. I feel it absorb into me and it then seeps out onto my family as I reach a state of unrepair for the day. I have never reread my blogs. I type and I post, never to go back through and proof read or delete something too personal. But this project has me atleast skimming through the heartache I’ve been writing down over the months as I organize where I want everything on this website to go. I’m happy and excited for it to be done. I know it wont ever be done.


However, lightly rereading a couple excerpts of my post has me in heartache for an old version of myself. Even now though, one tear will shed physically but my spirit is screaming and crying. I think that’s why I don’t allow myself to fully feel the full extent of my grief outside of my house. It’s like carrying a bomb inside of you at all times. If I trigger the bomb, I’m taking everyone out with me. The astronomical size of my grief won’t explode me and everyone within close vicinity. Yet while I’ve learned to quickly put myself back together after the bomb of grief explodes, I look at the aftermath of my outpour of hurt and others’ aren’t the same. It’s too deep, too painful and too intense even for the person who hasn’t experienced it but only listening or helping. I’m too mindful of other’s mental states to allow that bomb to go. So while many haven’t seen me cry over Alba, it’s for their own sake. I save it for the shower, the car rides alone, the silence in the night, the moment right before I sleep, the ab work outs…I try to only let my bomb of grief go off then. But in the spirit, I’m screaming, I’m throwing things, I’m pulling my hair out, I’m begging.


—maybe it’s the brink of fall that has me motivated to throw up all my emotions again. I’ve always been a person to enjoy change but also routine. I’m still drowning in wedding photography (in a very good way, business is great) and as I sit here at a bar after an engagement session, waiting for my takeout because I missed dinner with the kids, I feel pulled to just get back into the routine of writing again.



8.30.22


I’ve gone longer without Alba now than I spent growing her and meeting her. For having only experienced her for 9 months in my belly and 4 days earth side, it’s excruciating to think about the fact that only 9 months have left me in a state of missing her for the rest of my life


Death forces you to think about eternity. It forces you to think about what the bible says about our future. Is that really gunna happen? Do I really believe it? And there are some amazing things that we have to look forward to; the rapture, the bema seat of Christ, returning with Christ, millennial kingdom, eternal state. I mean it literally just gets better and better.


Alba’s death moved my faith substantially. In a way where I was like “ok, you say you believe these things, but do you really? Do you REALLY believe them?” And I did, thankfully. I definitely walk through anger and grief but I don’t question God, I know where Alba is, I know I’m going to see her again.





9.6.22


I’ve been noticing myself becoming more and more emotional and sensitive. While I focus on not allowing sorrow and grief get the best of me this month….that’s hard AF. Harder than I expected. Pregnancies in women are more emotional to me, not in an jealous way, it’s hard to explain. But in a way where I just wish no else had to experience infant loss ever again. No one is safe and that hurts my heart that other women endure what I’ve faced this year.

I also had a wedding this past weekend that was pretty laid back. I didn’t know the bride + groom personally but they welcomed me into their home with such openness and included me in the days events. I don’t usually do this for my clients but this specific bride booked me in 2019 and then rescheduled 3 times. THREE years later, we are finally having a wedding but a very small and intimate one. As everyone prepared to get ready, I was handed a 3 month old baby and as I rocked her to sleep (again, NOT my usual work day lmao), I realized the headache that was creeping up in me. The bride sat down next to me as she cut out cocktail menus and asked about my kids. Ugh. I could tell she didn’t know.


Professional settings make grief awkward and feel inappropriate.


I try not to lie…but sometimes I do. And I feel like I’m betraying Alba but also protecting her at the same time. Or…maybe I’m just protecting me.


Even before Alba, the #1 question asked when people hear my parenting “situation” (only foster babies and none of “my own” yet), is when/if we plan to have our own. I’m pretty immune to the question by now and I’m not a woman who takes offense to the question because I understand the genuine curiosity and interest. However, in a setting where I feel personally welcomed but also still clinging onto some sort of professionalism…I beat around the bush of my loss. The go-to question was asked and while my heart sank that she didn’t know, it was also relieved too that she didn’t. I avoided the question and simply went back to explaining the adoption process and how my 3 preemies managed.


Was that wrong? I don’t believe so. Is the workplace grief inclusive? Is it appropraite. Such innocent questions on each others’ families are now blurry and confusing to navigate when I’m in the work field. It was this bride’s wedding day, I chose to prioritize her mood and the days vibes than my explanation of how I lost my baby. Brutally explained but honest.


Either way, I’ve actually been pretty happy. The darkness of September had loomed into my life like a cloudy day promising rain.


Just like day 1, my kids have been a lifeline for me through the sadness. Kids force you to stick to the routine so even if I did want to stay in bed all day, I can’t. The emotional strength that being a mother has on me also gets me through. I care more about demonstrating a day of joy mixed with tears and explaining to the kids that it’s ok to have both. Alba’s birthday will always have both.


My mother in law is bringing a cake and we honestly haven’t thought more of what Sunday will look like. Then again, we don’t plan any of the kid’s birthday dinners with the fam until days before so at least we are consistent. We don’t show favorites, even with Alba (grief humor).



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