We keep searching for that moment where all is... normal. I keep waiting for something on a plate to look appealing. I wait for the nausea to be gone. I keep trying to find something *positive* to put my thoughts on. I keep looking for my brain to slow down so maybe the rest of my body can sleep without (doctor approved) help. I keep looking for a new normal.
There are, for sure, moments that I want to curl up and just.... be. But I have two little boys, a husband, and a business. I don't get that option. I don't get down time. So I keep looking for a way to find a *real* smile. A *real* laugh. I've looked in lots of places.
I thought maybe if I began to imagine what Everett would be like, I'd find comfort in that. I started thinking that he'd be a mixture of our two boys. He'd have the loving, demonstrative side of Kipton and the confident, intelligent, independent nature of Aiden. Everett would have reddish brown hair, a combination of his mama and his daddy. He'd love tractors, trains, and balls just as much as his brothers. And he'd love something new, like dinosaurs. ...But I found quickly, that the thoughts of his life that would never be only made me sad. Only made my arms ache to hold him forever.
I thought maybe if I just acted like nothing was wrong, I'd make it through the day better. There are so many things to keep me going-- the boys, Keith, the office. I'm good doing that way for about 30 minutes... then he kicks. He rolls. The nausea returns. The dizziness returns. The maternity pants fall down and the shirts roll up. And it's impossible not to remember. It's impossible not to think about it. It's impossible to act like nothing's wrong. Like all is well. Like I'm not waiting on a miscarriage.
I thought if I just pretended to be normal, normal would come. But we must find a new normal. We must figure out how to live with the constant reminders of how life has changed. We have to shift our thoughts of painting Everett's room to thoughts of planning his funeral. We shift our thoughts from budgeting for diapers and daycare to budgeting for medical expenses and the burial of our unborn son. We turn our focus from growing and building the office/bringing in a new doctor to cover and add services, to searching for someone who will, in essence, build the office for him/herself while I take a more managerial role and continue seeing my current patients. Because I don't think I can take explaining to every new patient (2 or more a week) about the life of Everett and my impending leave of absence. But the 'show' must go on.
We have to find a way to not only continue working on our marriage, but now we must protect it from the grief and withdrawal that comes in losing a child. We must figure out how to make it all work like normal, even though there's no such thing as normal anymore. We must figure out how to deal with the loss of a child. Twice. We grieve now as we find out that his little life cannot exist outside my womb, then we will again grieve as we give birth and bury his tiny body. We do our best to be normal in the midst of this mental and emotional chaos. There's no such thing as normal when this is your new life.
And yet we're making it. We're plugging along. We're tired, but breathing. We're sad, but taking it day by day. We talk about it when we can and avoid it most of the time. We make lists of things to do. We talk in brief segments of the things we need to do. We don't talk about how we feel. We don't talk about what we're thinking. We're likely too exhausted. But most of all, I think we're just trying to find normal. We're just trying to keep things steady for the boys. We're just trying to keep things steady for us. We're making a new normal. As normal as it gets.
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