holiday gifts

As the year winds down to a close, I have been finding it difficult to post.  I've spent these last few months focused on trying to heal, to be a less broken soul.  The holidays whizzed by in our house, and the silence concerning my last loss was deafening.  I truly understand that it is not out of cruelty that so many of my loved ones can't utter any words when it concerns my lost baby (girl). For some reason we mere humans are not equipped with the vocabulary to discuss these things.

A quick trip to NYC with Niblet to see my parents a few days ago produced the opposite results in some respect.  While they lack the words, it was clear that this most traumatizing loss was front and center in their interactions with me. And while they were being equally kind, they too sort of stumbled around the topic, treating me (unintentionally) like a soul to be pitied.  I suppose I am.  But that inadvertent acknowledgement of loss was nearly as painful as the deafening silence.

Don't even get me started on when Niblet handed me a book to read in front of my mother about a little boy anxiously awaiting his baby brother.   Or when my dad played baby videos of her on his ipad, and it became so stark, the realization that these could be the only and last baby videos ever captured for our little family.  Niblet is in kindergarten now, and my days of mothering an infant are over.  That's a heavy weight.

I spent a grateful hour in therapy a few days before Christmas, voicing what no one around me will - or can - voice.  Between these sessions (not covered by insurance unfortunately, so a gift to myself) and a gift of my husband (a certificate to my favorite consignment shop, where I can while away the hours looking for vintage cashmere, my weakness) I am shooting for some sanity.

I have diligently been trying to follow the instructions of Dr. K, imagining my life with only Niblet.  While it's a bittersweet way to live, it is probably a healthier way to live.  We are "NTNP" in the justonemore household - "Not trying not preventing" when it comes to procreation (though I am sort of mindful when I ovulate).  Some mornings I wake up utterly petrified at the thought of pregnancy.  Other mornings I wake up sad that this chapter of my life may come to such a brutal close.

But enough of my maudlin ramblings.  To my readers who have had a similarly rough year, it is coming to an end.  I offer no resolutions, no forced cheer.  What I have learned is that the morning of January 1st will be a new dawn like any other, and in that respect, a gift. I offer only the most sincere wishes for Peace and the hopes for gentler days ahead.