two more

Sun at 7:45pm
i am drained. today has been a long one. i am waiting for 8pm when the yankee/red sox game is scheduled to start. john will watch the game, i will eat the ice cream that a dear friend is bringing me, and i will sleep next to john during the game. the hours until 8pm arrive have been long. but each day, ive had something scheduled for the evening to "look forward to". one minute, one day, at a time. i am trying to write back to everyone who writes to me now.. this averages about 20 people per day. you can imagine why i am drained. not to mention, we followed the funeral director with our pastor to the crematory today for the final step in the funeral process. i watched my father's casket 5 years ago be rolled into the crematory via conveyer belt. katie's is small enough for one adult man to carry by himself, and place into the crematory manually. that's not where we wanted to lay you, my baby girl. i reminded myself, it was only her body. her spirit is in heaven and with us. but i still carried that body inside me for its entire living existence. i physically restrained myself, every ounce of myself, from lifting her out of the casket in the funeral home before the wake. john told me later he could see this restraint and it worried him. i was meant to hold her in my arms and not just in my belly. it was hard not to.


so, i am drained. i expended a lot of energy and emotion writing to one friend this afternoon who shared a personal loss of hers that i wasnt aware of. i wrote to her from my heart as i have been each day to all of you. i feel a disservice to her by sharing what i wrote.. but when i expend all that emotion i want the support you've all so graciously given me in return. so i will share part of that private note to her. of course, im not revealing the parts that are private to her, only the parts i want public from me.
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i dont know if you ever heard, but it is possible that i lost katie's twin at 3 weeks. they dont know for sure, but i was bleeding (at first, thought it was my period). that could have been the implantation process, but i had an empty sac next to katie's healthy one, so an empty sac usually means a baby was once there. we didnt focus on that, but instead focused on the healthy baby with a healthy heartbeat. the threat of the empty sac made me higher risk though.. the sac could have grown with debris and blocked the bloodflow to the healthy baby, or be flushed away together. i was told, the first trimester is risky and fragile for every woman, no matter what. there is a 1 in 5 chance of all pregnancies ending in the first trimester, and for me, it was a bit higher, 1 in 4 instead of 1 in 5. how gravely though, we are reminded now, after losing her at 38 weeks and 6 days.. it is always risky and fragile.


i worried every second during this pregnancy.. i was also considered high risk after our 18 week ultrasound when they discovered my umbilical cord had only 2 blood vessels instead of the normal 3. we dont know if losing her is related to that or not. everyone told me that usually nothing comes of a 2 vessel cord, and i met a few people who had that too. our doctors said that losing a baby at this time is "extremely rare." i am also a worrier by nature. i dont know how i can be pregnant again without worrying every second again. i have a nurse friend though, who used to work L&D before she switched to peds.. she said "girl, if you think they watched you close this time, you just wati!" i asked if they'd let me call them every day, and she said yes.

it just isnt fair how many people desire children, who would treat them right, and how many people get them, who dont. i will never, ever be the same. i lost my dad way too early, i am still just a blink into grieving for him, but i would have lost him someday if it had been timely like it should have been, like my grandparents who have died in old age. but i dont know how im going to be, to live, to exist, to fully smile again, without my daughter. a piece of me is gone. it was a cruel joke to carry her for the full nine months and not get to bring her home into a babyproofed house with a beautiful pink, orange, and yellow nursery, with over 500 diapers, with sterilized pacifiers, bottles, a breast pump, laundered blankets, a closet and drawer full of a year's worth of clothes, strollers for every terrain, and firehouse approved carseats fastened into the cars. i just want her in my arms and i'd never let go. but i dont have a choice.. my dad will have to hold her for me until i get there.


john's blog
Sun at 7:16pm
it has taken me over a week to read what i know was written on the worst night of our lives. he is so very private about what he does for a living. but he writes more eloquently than me.. i only say my writing is eloquent because you, my readers, have told me so. i feel, like john, my thoughts are jumbled and unclear.. but apparently they are not. so i say again, i will continue to write in honor of my kathlyn.

reading johns blog though, i cried out in utter despair as my heart broke again for the billionth time in 10 days. he heard me crying from the other room and came right to me. my john, my wonderful john. everyone has been telling me they are sorry for my loss. i have said it to john. to my mother. "im so sorry, john."... "i am sorry mommy." i am sorry for their loss. and it was the first thing i said to kathlyn when the nurse brought her to me in the OR. "im sorry, my baby."