4 Months

4 months ago tonight, we were in the NICU, talking with the neonatologist on duty about what our "code preferences" were...meaning, if we wanted them to use life support, cpr, etc. were Otis to code. We were pretty sure that he was not going to live, and that the results of his brain testing the following day would be catastrophic news.

4 months, and not a single person mentioned it to me today. How quickly they forget, how quickly the promises of marking the dates with me fade, how quickly everyone moves back to their own lives, complaining about their own children...having the nerve to try to speak to me about the "hassles of cold season with two kids under five."

I am feeling so very sorry for myself.

I wailed like a two year old throwing a tantrum today, kicked, screamed, and shook.

E held me, tight, while I wailed, and kicked, and hit, and sobbed.

E and I had a few very scary days this week, where I feared we had lost our connection, where everything seemed to be crumbling all over again, where I was so physically terrified of losing him or our marriage disintegrating that my whole body trembled...

My grandmother seems to be making a recovery. Her heart has stabilized. Her pneumonia is fading. One week ago they told us to say our goodbyes, that they didn't think she'd be with us for another 24 hours. Today she was transfered from the hospital to a nursing facility, her progress has been that good. But she is not lucid a lot of the time. And she is violent and angry that she is in the hospital. This woman is unfamiliar to me - she is in the body of my granny, but Granny's spirit seems to have left. She often doesn't really recognize me, or does, and then doesn't. And she never speaks of Otis, or of my pregnancy - I don't think she remembers that he existed. It is so hard to be with her, for so many reasons.

I don't understand a world where a 97 year old woman who so desperately wants to die makes a recovery, and leaves the hospital, and a baby who we so desperately want to live dies, and only leaves the hospital as a lifeless body on its way to the mortuary.

I miss him so much. I looked at his ultrasound photos today, that little boy, lying there on his back, hands behind his head, kicking back as if he were watching clouds float by from a grassy meadow or hanging out in a hammock waiting for a cold drink...I wish I had gotten tapes of the ultrasounds. I wish I had done the 4D ultrasound, I always thought they looked so creepy, but now, god, I'd give anything to be able to replay the tape, and watch him move, with life, around inside of me.

I miss him so much.

Today was one of those "I don't know how I can go on living" days. They haven't all been this painful, but today most certainly was. It hurts so badly. Physically, emotionally, spiritually. In every single cell of my body, in every thread of my being, it hurts. I don't understand why I should ever want to feel hopeful about anything ever again in times like this. I don't understand how people manage to go about with their lives, in the midst of such inconsolable suffering. The darkest thoughts seep into my mind and get stuck on repeat: I don't want to live without my baby. I don't want to live without my boy. I don't want to live.

I know it will pass. And again, I will say this for my readers' sake: I am not in danger of hurting myself. And many days I do want to live, and many moments I do feel hopeful.

But today, it is dark.

I miss you, so much, baby boy.