not ok

i got an email from someone the other day that said "i applaud you for doing as well as you seem to be doing. im not sure i'd be functioning at all."

functioning? im functioning? THIS is functioning? i wrote with amazement how i slept 17 hours the other day, and i am proud to announce that i broke the record once again.. i slept 20 hours straight. i kid you not. i was awake for about 30 minutes in the middle to eat a meal with john, beg him to start the adoption process (to no avail), and then went back to sleep. i will say that hours 9-14 were aided with a drug, which i took after getting the negative test. hours 14-20 were on the couch so that the "can we please adopt" conversation didnt turn into an all-out fight. and the first 9 were after working all night, which exhausted me, as i spent at least 2 hours of my shift either in tears or fighting them. uh-oh... until last night, i was able to say that i only cried once during working hours. but last night, i just couldnt stop. they kept coming. i can say for the first time that it affected my work. not that i put anyone in danger. a few things just got delayed getting done. this *cannot* become a common occurrance.

im also not "functioning" very well as a woman. i might as well be a man for all the good my body does at creating and birthing children. i have now failed more pregnancy tests than i failed tests in nursing school, and nursing school tests are really, really hard. passing pregnancy tests come easy for some people. not me. i passed one. but do you see any babies in my house? i dont. a lot of crying and screaming, sure. a lot of baby furniture, clothing, toys, and diapers, sure. but no babies. im not pregnant, and yet there is no period, and proably no ovulation in sight. i am later now than i was last month. ok, great. so it's getting worse. im getting less regular rather than more. im sure stress is playing a part. fan-fucking-tastic. i will never not be stressed. my baby died. stress is permanent. this is why i want to adopt. my husband doesnt see this. he's not the one who has to get pregnant, and then stay pregnant until a crying child exits. no, his body hasnt failed at all, his is working just fine. im the one who cant keep up my part of the bargain. sometimes i wonder if he wishes he'd married someone else. some woman who doesnt kill his children. someone who has no problem producing them at all. poor john, and poor kathlyn. paying the price for my shortcomings. it's no wonder i'm not pregnant. no sweet little infant soul wants to chose *me* as its future mother.

because im a glutton for punishment, i looked at the pictures from my work christmas party. i missed it, i was working, but i wouldnt have gone anyway. all those happy, smiling faces, having so much fun together outside of work, i would have been a total downer. i wouldnt have enjoyed myself anyway. my shadow baby was there, born the same week as kathlyn. i say, without any hostility at all (not being sarcastic, i mean it!), that her mother probably sighed relief to know she could bring her baby there knowing i wasnt going to be there because i was on the work schedule. it's better that way. it was probably the first time many of them met her baby. i wouldnt have been able to handle that. how cute they would have been.. both getting passed around.. pictures together on the couch, two babies due the same day and born 2 days apart. it's just not right. i wonder if the ones who held that baby that night thought of kathlyn. or if anyone spoke her name outloud. or if any of them realized that while they celebrated together, i was in our break room eating the cheesecake that our manager left us, because we were working during the party, and crying all the while. functioning? i guess. all the work got done by 0730. i still breathe and walk and type and eat. i have to lower my standards maybe for what "functioning" really means. i havent spent the last 4 and 1/2 months in bed slitting my wrists open. that's functioning for you. it's not enough for me. it'll never be enough. one of my children is dead. im not ok. i will never properly function again.