Maybe not a rainbow ... but definitely my sunshine.

Clouds stormed on my day.

And my sunshine shown down on me, brightening my day. I thank God for my miracle. I pray he continues to protect her. I pray for guidance and serenity for me. I pray for her father, for clarity and guidance.

And I thank Him. I get it. Maybe rainbow isn't the right term for me....

But sunshine is almost too mild for how much she lights up my life and heals my heart!

My Pain is My Own

I'm going to be okay.

I cannot control other people. I cannot fault them for doing the best they know how, however little that is.

I can control me. I learned a valuable lesson. Or reminder?

My pain is my own. Only I can heal it. Only I can move through it. I don't need anyone else. And I should be discerning with who to trust. Who are friends. Who are not.

I made horrible mistakes. I have forgiven myself.

I love Colton. I love Delaney. I will defend them, protect them, and love them before, beyond, and greater than anything else.

I will love ME. I will protect me.

Sometimes our moments of weakness make us stronger.

I am better than I was yesterday, I will be better tomorrow. And slowly I will continue to heal.

My pain is my own. And so is my healing.

Betrayal

Today I was punched in the gut. Knocked flat on my ass. All the progress I made dissolved in an instant.  I lost my shit and acted like I swore I never would again... When you are shattered again though how do you maintain control?

This past week I have obviously been having a hard time. I reached out and thanked people that helped me immediately after his loss. I reached out to his dad.  He was never a support but he's his dad. And the only connection to Colton. I made myself vulnerable WHICH I HATE. And will not do again.

I went to drop off my daughter this morning and Brian had someone there. Long story short its one of my old friends, Jenelle.  One of the people who came to the rescue when I lost Colton. Someone I trusted.

I had sent her a message the other day to thank her again for her support when I lost Colton. I never heard back, which hurt and I didn't understand. Now I do. She's supportting Brian. They're dating ... in love .... happily ever after...

I feel so betrayed. I can not even completely pinpoint why. I opened up to both of them and they've been sharing my feelings together. I feel like a fool. Like a mockery. I feel betrayed. I feel like Colton's loss destroyed our relationship and now has been exploited to develop theirs. She contacted him. After three years?? Why? Why him? They would never know each other had I not lost Colton...

I just feel sick. I feel like.... I don't even know.

Betrayed. Like Colton has been used, exploited. Like I've been lied to. And I am supposed to trust them with my daughter?

Sad. So sad today.

I will not lose control again. I will not trust him. I will not make myself vulnerable. I will not be betrayed again.

The Rainbow After the Storm

My little Delaney. My sweet little Delaney ... I have hesitated so much to vocalize these feelings because of fear of how it would be interpreted. I love my daughter more than words can even begin to explain. I treasure her and appreciate her presence in my life. I am grateful she was given to me.  She is my joy. She's also my sadness...

~~~~~~~~~

There is beauty in the storm, with the rainbow representing the end of the storm and brighter days.

So I have my rainbow baby. And, according to so many, her light shining on me should make my days all better. I read all about having the rainbow baby and heard from my friends how healing she would be.

But no one really talks about the flip side.

No one talks about looking at your rainbow and celebrating the shine but seeing reflected in it the shadow of what was lost. The darkness of the storm. The only reason the rainbow is referred to in such a way is because of the storm. They'd just be another child in the family. But they are the rainbow, the promise, blah blah blah.

My pregnancy was filled with dread. When would I stop feeling her? When would she die?

She failed her bio-physical profile ultrasound. I kept asking "but her heart is beating right?".  She wasn't moving, she wasn't responding to stimulation. Something was wrong. And I just knew she was on her way to meet Colton too.

We induced immediately. When I delivered her she was blue, no cries. The cord was double wrapped around her neck. Very quickly my OB unwrapped the cord and she cried. I think. Maybe? I don't even remember. I do remember feeling guarded. Feeling a wall. A protective barrier. She was perfect, and beautiful, and ... alive.

But Colton was still dead.

See, the rainbow was there but she was shining through the cloud in the room. The thundering, deafening, pouring rain cloud. And this little rainbow, this little shining beacon in that cloud. Everyone else was celebrating, happy, and I was .... detached. Feeling the ache of the storm, the darkness, the memory of what was lost before. Seeing her held up and pink and alive in the doctors hands. And seeing the dark room, the lifeless body, the silence of when he held Colton just the same. Two wrinkles in time, paralleling in that moment. Torturing me and blessing me all at once.

Every milestone is so bittersweet. Would Colton have crawled at the same age? Would he have had a tooth sooner than Delaney's perpetual teething-with-no-results? Would he be so close to walking?

More painfully ... would he have her beautiful golden brown locks? Her piercing blue eyes? Would his laugh sound the same? What about that smile? Would he have a dimple too? Would his eyes dance with excitement and joy? Would he be as curious and adventurous and outspoken? Would he love making music and dancing at the slightest sound of a tune? Would he ......................

I rock Delaney in Colton's rocking chair every night. It's still Colton's rocking chair in my mind and heart. She's borrowing the space. She sleeps in his crib.

And the guilt I feel for this? Immense. Overwhelming. Crushing.

She is worth her own identity. She's worth her own life. She's worth being celebrated and loved without the comparison. Without the longing for knowledge of who her brother would have been.

And yet she's Colton's rainbow. She's a promise. Right? A promise of what though?

The pain isn't gone. It's not lessened..  Sometimes it's even magnified.

And the guilt for feeling this way. A punch into the gut. A feeling of failing another child, just in a different way. Failing to be able to give her untainted love. To give her an individual assessment and appreciation.

I love her so much, so I hate feeling this way. I hate feeling like she's a reminder of all I lost. I want to just love her. Just enjoy her. I don't want to cry when I rock her in the middle of the night, longing to know who Colton would be, longing to have held him and rocked him in his chair.

I want to be her rainbow. I want to heal so that she never feels like a shadow. So she knows she's Delaney. And she's wanted and loved and treasured.

Not as the rainbow baby, but as my baby.

I Came in Like a Wrecking Ball

Grief is like a wrecking ball.  It swings through, destroying everything it touches.  The quake subsides and you think it's past when it rivets back on the pendulum and slams into you again.

Through time the span widens, the time between impact broader.

If you know anything about physics or the laws of gravity, though, you can guess what that extra time does to the momentum and point of impact.

*SLAM*
*CRASH*
*CRUMBLE*

Where the hell did that come from? How long has the grief been suspended in space, so that when it hit it debilitated me?

Two days ago I found myself gasping for air. The thought of Colton slammed into me, knocking me from my precarious perch of sanity and mobility through life. I spiraled down a dark, all too familiar path of despair.

Last night I lay there, at the bottom of that pit. I laid there, my arms wrapped tightly around a stuffed monkey that protects the sound of my sons heartbeat, and covered in the only blanket to ever touch and protect my sons skin.  Desperately begging it to protect and comfort me.

I sobbed myself to sleep. Engrossed and devoured by the horrific reality ... my son died.

Some days it doesn't seem real. It feels like a story someone told me.  Something make believe from someone else's book of life. A bad dream. A fallacy of my memories.

When the memories crash into me I sucomb and drown in the pain of the reality.  Acknowledging I didn't feel him, no heartbeat on the dopler, no movement on the ultrasound, no waves of boom-boom, boom-boom....

Silence.

Yet that wail...? That primal deep wail of excrutiating pain and overwhelming grief....

Holy shit, that's me...

Shhhhhhhh .... No one can hear! What if you scare someone else? Make them uncomfortable?

Silence came with a price. I silenced my screams in that moment to spare everyone around me. Not realizing that was the first time of many. Not realizing silence meant death for me, too.

I lie to everyone daily, including myself. I walk around like a whole person, with a whole life, with a whole heart. I am a shell. I am what was left after that primal scream ended and the silence began.  Just like the ultrasound, just like my sons heart. Silent and dead.

Mother's Day

Tomorrow is Mother's Day.  After losing a child, Mother's Day is never the same.  The bittersweet taste burns in your soul as you celebrate the children you do have and mourn the one you don't. 

I love my boys so much and people have said I should be appreciative for what I do have.  Even implicate that my being sad is a disgrace to them, asking "aren't they good enough?". 

Missing a child you've lost, feeling like part of you is missing too, cannot be filled by any other children.  It's not that I don't love my living children with all my heart.  Doesn't mean that I'm not happy to spend the day with them.  It means that I also love my child I don't have and that part of me being a mother, part of my legacy, is gone.  I want ALL my boys with me.  I want him to be here, too. I want him to eat lunch with us and play with us and wait to meet his sister.  I want him, too. 

Those aren't feeling just reserved for Mother's Day.  Those feelings never leave the heart and mind of a mother who's lost a child.  in the every day living there are moments when you think of the child NOT with you and how different it would be if they were. 

Tomorrow I'll get up and make breakfast for my boys.  I'll Skype with my surrogate family.  I'll make cupcakes and then dinner for my mom and my brother.  And somewhere in between all that I'll go to the cemetery and be with my son, since he cannot be with me.

Mother's Day will never be the same.  There will always be someone missing.  Just like every other day, just a little more bittersweet.

Freaking the Hell Out

No sugar coating this. I'm a wreck.  I stayed home from work today. I didn't sleep at all last night and I had a migraine today and it's just getting worse. 

Today is the equivalent of the last day I felt Colton's life inside me.

So, yea, irrational, but I totally expect to wake up tomorrow and live the nightmare again.  I totally am prepared and anticipating her to die too. 

Friends keep saying "she'll be fine".  Um, Colton was supposed to be fine too.  Instead he's buried down the road. 

Doesn't help that this week is also my birthday and also Mother's Day.  Days I miss Colton even more.  Days I want him here with me. Days my heart already aches to not have him with me.  So this year it's a triple threat ... these special days + being pregnant + the same week I lost Colton = one freaked out me.

I'm just a nervous freaking mess. 

I keep thinking "If I just make it through this next week".  But ... she won't be here yet.  I still have six weeks until induction.  Anything could happen at anytime.

Yea, I know ... don't stress it... can't change it... everything will be fine... yada yada.  Everything was supposed to be fine with Colton.

I know the added stress isn't good for me.  I just don't know how to escape it.  I feel like I'm drowning in it. 

Lordamercy, please just let her make it here safe.  I cannot lose her too....