Waves of grief

"Grief is like the ocean; it comes on waves ebbing and flowing. Sometimes the water is calm, and sometimes it is overwhelming. All we can do is learn to swim."  - Vicki Harrison

Sometimes I feel guilty for how well I'm handling things.  We lost our daughter less than two months ago yet I am able to laugh, smile, and look towards the future with excitement.  I should be a mess, right?  I'm a horrible person for not grieving her more obviously.  Then a wave of grief hits me, hard.  It knocks my feet out from under me and I struggle to breathe.  The tears are there, a stinging presence, ready to be unleashed at the most inopportune times.  In those moments I feel like a terrible wife, mom, daughter, friend, employee...I struggle to put a cap on the overwhelming emotions and squash them back under the surface.  To gain control again.

What conflicting ideas!  I feel like a terrible person for not more openly grieving, then when a strong wave hits I feel like a terrible person for feeling it so strongly.  I think to myself that I should be thankful for what I have: Two amazing, loving, bright boys who light up my world.  That's more than many of my friends have.  I should be satisfied with the blessings I have, right?  And yet I grieve.  

We should have a child turning one next month, a child turning four the month after, and I should be securely in second trimester right now.  Grieving them does not make me less thankful for our boys.  But I feel the judgment of a good portion of our society.  At the park a new friend asks if we will have another and I struggle with how to answer.  Do I answer openly and fight the taboo or do I lie?  It's a hard decision and I make it in the moment, I tell her we have been trying for two years with two additional losses.  Instantly I can feel the awkwardness in the air.  What had been an invitation for our children to play soon hastily turns in to them needing to get home.  Now.  I know most people, thankfully, haven't been through this journey.  They don't know what to say and are afraid of saying the wrong things.  So they shut down, they run away from the grief.  

Loss and infertility are isolating experiences.  I'm an awkward person anyways, these experiences have just amplified it.  I try so hard to relate to others but I can't and I know most others struggle to relate to me.  When I am having a good day, when the grief ocean is calm, I can smile and get along with anyone.  But these stormy days are tough.

Where will I be?

We're considering donor eggs.  It's a huge step and not one I am fully ready to even consider right now.  My grief is still fresh and I need time to heal mentally.  But no matter what we choose I know that I will never have another biological link to a child.  It's difficult to process.  Before we lost our girl we had given up on trying, but since we weren't protecting it was still a possibility.  Now I'm back on birth control pills.

My grief over a biological child and our girl is so linked, I don't know how to separate it.  I see a little girl playing outside and I wonder what it would have been like to raise our girl.  Cute girls clothing stands out to me at the store, I should be buying them.  Then I look at S and see the way his eyes squint when he grins, just like mine do.  I will never have another child that "gets that" from me.  J is so much like me in his determination.  It's complicated trying to wrap my brain around possibly having another child who doesn't get any of their genes from me.

I would love to adopt if it was a sure thing and not so complicated in it's own way.  I know I could love an adopted child just as much as I love J and S.  I also know that I would love any child that resulted from donor eggs just as much.  But there is still feelings of grief over the genetic link.  When I take the boys out I always get so many comments about how J looks like me and S must look like Andy.  It will be different if we have another.  Different isn't a bad thing, but I'm not ready to fully go there yet.  I'm not sure I ever will be.