Knocked Up, Knocked Down

I should have had a 4 month old yesterday. I often wonder when I'll stop counting. 
My normal is not normal. My normal is heavy. It's exhausting. It hurts. 
I don't fit in where I used to. 
I'm angry. How does everything manage to go on, when my son does not? 
How come there is no book like What to Expect When You Didn't Get What You Were Expecting? Where are the instructions for people that don't know how to just be? 
When does it hurt the most? Finally, a question with an easy answer. In the car, all alone. Music makes me think. Silence makes me think more. When I see babies, especially boys. When I see the For Sale sign in my yard, and realize I will have to take his name off of the nursery wall... and it won't be put back up. When people ask "What's wrong?" or "How are you?" and I answer with "nothing" or "fine". The short answer: always.
It drives me crazy that people don't know or care that he existed. The little boy that is the biggest part of my life, to others means nothing. I see him as my son, others see him as a painful trigger. 
My mind is tormented, every day brings a different thought on what to do next. Even if I could have another baby, can you imagine that pregnancy? I don't see how I would make it through. The constant anxiety and fear that something could be going terribly wrong... 
All innocence in that sense has totally been lost. 

"Don't let anyone stop you from being exactly who and how you need to be.  Do not stop.  Do not stop.  Get up, stand up, throw those fucking hands up.  Push out the night.  Hide from the daylight.  Embrace your endless, enraging tears for your child, your daughter, your son, your big sticky stinky shitting fucking life.

It's true, it really does suck this much, and it always will.  Always always always.  It will always suck exactly this much that you and me and my wife and your grandparents and our siblings lost a life that was going to be amazing." - glow in the woods

Gavin. It means Little Hawk. Or Battle Hawk, in the Welsh meaning. I didn't look this up until after his life, but it fits. His main NICU nurse told me that before he died she thought he looked like he was ready to fly away, and fly away my little hawk did. 

Most of the time when I'm bored at work, I find myself surfing the internet. I'm usually reading about one of two topics. EMS or baby loss. While sometimes it is totally depressing to make myself think about things, other times it is also therapeutic. I don't think I know anybody in my personal life that truly understands where I'm at right now. The fact that I really have nobody that "gets it" leads to a lot of small meltdowns. But on the internet... I fit in. I'm sadly welcomed in. There are stories similar to mine and some far more heartbreaking. But they know my words. They speak them even before I do. It's a horrible bond, but a comforting one. I know some of them read here, and I read there, and I'm so very thankful for them.

One site, faces of loss, shows such normal women and shares their stories. Some are so incredibly close to mine. Another shares stories just through words. I found words tonight from an unnamed mother that are so incredibly dead-on for me that I need to post it here so I don't lose it. I don't see it as profound or sentimental as some seem to be, this one is just real. These are the words I can't find to explain to people. These are almost the exact words I said to my Gavin the night before he died, when I had to tell him that everything would be okay and I accepted why he needed to leave me. 

I told her how sorry I was and that I loved her and did not want her to suffer. I would rather suffer every day for the rest of my life than to allow her to suffer one moment in her life.
~Mom of an Angel

I'll take pain and suffering a million times over when it means that he doesn't have to. 

~K

Sadly?!

Somebody posted on facebook this morning, "Sadly had to watch my son turn 1 this week".
I realize life is not all about me, and people generally don't care about what I think but seriously?! Could you not find a different way to phrase that? If you're reading here, let me teach you something I learned from being a mother for just 12 days. Your child's birthday is not sad. Sad is watching your son die. Sad is knowing your son will never turn 1. Or any other number for that matter.
I realize the poster just worded it poorly and I hope was not actually sad about it, but I generally think before I post on facebook, and wonder if my post is going to hurt anyone or offend someone when I didn't mean for that to happen. If you're going to post stupid shit like that, just remove me from your friends list. I work pretty hard at being normal and when I fail it's usually my own fault, so I don't really need anybody else causing the bad moments for me.

Truth.

"If you know someone who has lost a child, and you're afraid to mention them because you think you might make them sad by reminding them that they died -- you're not reminding them. They didn't forget they died. What you're reminding them of is that you remembered that they lived, and that is a great gift."
--Elizabeth Edwards