Zig zag

I'm kind of all over the place today. Here are a few things I'm thinking about.

My husband just told me he has started a blog. He also takes refuge in writing and creative things. But he laments the lack of the masculine perspective, the men who have lost children and grieve. He has no community in this part of his life as he begins to really feel the intensity of the loss. I don't know what to tell him. He only has one post up, but I think it eloquently begins to describe his experience of this horrendous chapter in our lives. Not that I'm biased or anything, but I was touched by is first entry.

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I hate those days when you walk around with your eyes puffy or still red from a mid-night crying jag, and you catch people looking at you with concern and/or pity.

I am struggling with the idea of writing about what happened. Where do I start? The day I spent in Labor and Delivery? Christmas day, when the crisis began? The first time I spotted in pregnancy? The first very positive hpt?

The other night I had what was not quite a flashback. I found myself in the same posture I held the day I labored with the boys, reclining, but not quite. My right arm raised so that my right hand was behind my head, propping it up. Visions or memories of being in that hospital bed. There was a lot of waiting that day. Spent a lot of time like that head up, legs mostly numb and splayed. I'm starting to ovulate now, for the second time since delivering, so there are all kinds of twinges and sensations. I felt like I wanted to... well, like pushing, or not pushing, clenching. I don't know. Closing my legs, trying to feel control. Feel something besides the loss and emptiness. I don't have a lot of memory from that night, when things really got started. Don't know if it was from the drugs or my brain taking pity on my psyche. Or a little of both. This flashback of sorts preceded the 2am sobbing.

I'm kind of afraid of writing all of it down. I don't know if that's because I'm afraid of reliving it, remembering things I don't want to remember, realizing there is so much I don't remember or won't because my brain is trying to protect me. But I don't want to forget the scraps of memory I do have. Perhaps I need to sit quietly with it a little longer before I write.

Of course, last night when I was busy not being able to sleep, I looked up info on pt.sd online. I don't think I have it, but I certainly feel traumatized (as we all do, I'm sure) -- a few symptoms of it are certainly there. There is one word that kept popping up in describing the conditions of the traumatic event involved a feeling of intense fear and/or horror. It must be from the DSM, because all the sites I found used that word; it was hard tho, for me to put my finger on it: what does horror mean? We all just know, I guess. I looked it up in dictionaries, to see if I could find something concrete. Not much luck. It's such an evocative word, though. Perfect.

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I didn't get to spend time with the boys after they were born, for a number of reasons I intend to write about. The hospital has sent an envelope of pictures they took -- not just the first pictures from our little "memento" package. They are sitting in the mailer downstairs in the living room because I'm afraid to look at them alone, my husband is not ready to see them yet. I have a dear friend who has offered to be there, be my support when I look at them, but she is about 18 weeks pregnant (with their second) and I don't know if I want to do that to her. I have a therapist and a grief counselor, but no one seems quite right. I vacillate about wanting to see them now at all (taking comfort in the fact that they exist and we have them) and sometimes I'm tempted to just rip open the envelope and let the pain festival begin. Rip. There's a word for you. Just got the image of a wound, like a c-section scar being ripped open. Or ripping my guts out. Or my heart. Of course.