The One Week Mark

Today is the one week mark. I've been dreading this day. The way I am, I relive every moment, I stare at the clock and remember what happened at that time. I didn't want to do that. Reliving that day is so painful.

I was right, I do relive it. In little bits. But I'm blessed to have my husband here with me today. Every time I get upset, every time I start to feel like I'm going to lose it, he calms me down. He holds me and reminds me that our angel is still here, that we haven't lost her, and that we'll be okay.

Yesterday went so well. I hurt, but I was alright. I got through the day acting more normal than I have in two weeks. Then at night, everything fell apart. I lost my wedding and engagement rings first. They fell out of my pocket, where I put them so Katie wouldn't grab them while I crocheted. I just forgot they were in there, and then they disappeared. With a toddler that likes to put everything in her mouth and three dogs that'll consume anything on the floor, I was terrified. Bill and I searched the whole house, taking things apart and crawling along. It escalated to where I began to panic. Bill kept trying to make me sit down and let him look, but I couldn't sit still. I felt like i couldn't breathe. I kept saying I had to find them RIGHT NOW. While we searched, Katie was having fun. Just a few feet away from us, she suddenly decided that my phone should go for a swim. She dunked it in my large, filled up cup, and I found it there a bit later. Rushing it into the bathroom, still panicked about my rings and feeling very irrationally, over the top upset, I broke down. Big gushing sobs, where I cried not about my phone or my rings, but everything. The bathroom is still a sore spot for me, the memories most fresh in there. Bill promised he'd fix it, told me to lay down and he'll keep looking for the rings, but eventually I found them. Once they were back on my finger and my phone was out drying, I started to cry again. I told him that I couldn't bear to lose anything else, I couldn't have anything else taken from me. It didn't matter that these things could be replaced, what mattered was I couldn't keep having things change.

Since Bill had to take our whole bed apart to find the rings, he figured it was a good time to rotate our mattress. Again, I had a problem with that. I have no idea why, even now, why I flipped out about the mattress turning, but it felt so wrong. I couldn't lay on it, I hated the feeling of it suddenly. I couldn't get comfortable and I was angry. I can't handle change right now. I can't handle anything more than I'm already going through. Even small things, I'm already at my limit. While I felt so much better yesterday, where I was patting myself on the back for coping better, the pain and rawness is still right under the surface. Last night reminded me that while I'm slowly taking tiny steps to get better, it's still going to be a very long process, and grief will show up in different ways. Even though I tried to skip it, I suppose I'm going through my angry stage of grief. I sometimes get angry that it happened, I get a short temper, I get angry at anyone for anything. Bill went through this as well but seems further along and getting out of that stage. It's why he couldn't go to work lately, because he would snap about things that never bothered him before and he couldn't be around his difficult employees. I'm just going into it, and trying to work through it. I hope it doesn't last long.

I had a dream about Elizabeth last night. Bill says he prays every night for her to visit us in our dreams, and that came true for me. I had a dream that I had kept her little body, but instead of passing, she grew. She kept growing until she was a full term baby. I couldn't understand it in my dream, kept saying it couldn't be happening, but I played with my little chubby baby, who would giggle and was so happy. I got to hold her in my arms and cuddle her, I got to see her beautiful eyes, I got to tell her how much I loved her. That dream was a godsend. I went to bed hurting and upset, even with Bill holding me and trying his best to make me feel better, but I woke up this morning feeling... indescribable. Perhaps peaceful, or almost happy. That hole in my heart throbbed with love for my child. She made it just a little easier for me to handle today, the day I've been so dreading. Even though I had to let her go so I could wake into reality where she'll never be in my arms, I still had a glow about getting to hold her and see how much of a happy baby she was.

It feels impossible to say that this is the one week mark. How could one week ever feel so long? It honestly feels like it's been weeks or months. I can't fathom it only being a week when one week used to go by so fast. These days continue to draw out. I have noticed that each day does go by a little faster, but it's far from the normal pace. I wonder when normal will begin. It hasn't yet, but I see parts of it slowly creeping in once in a while.