Eight years

On November 16, 2002 I married My Beloved.
In October 2003 we lost our first child to miscarriage.
In March 2004 we lost our second child to miscarriage.
In March 2005 our beautiful boy was born and died 20 hours later.
In June 2006 we started fertility treatments.
In August 2007 we lost our twins to miscarriage.
In 2009 we decided to close this chapter of our lives and stop trying.

On November 16, 2010 we went to Niagara-on-the-Lake for the afternoon. We had a delicious lunch, and then window shopped our way up and down the town's main street until the rain got too heavy for proper strolling. We bought Christmas lights and an ornament for Thomas' wreath. We did a bit of Christmas shopping and bought some Irish tea (which we figured we'd need later once we were home and dry - and we did). We held hands. We laughed. We tried on hats. We marveled at the vast selection of jams Niagara-on-the-lake seems to produce - and bought some of that too. We talked. We drove home in the pouring rain to our quiet little house.

And then I took this:

And when I looked at it, I realized that no matter what has happened - no matter what unfathomable heartbreaks we've faced since we said "I do" eight years ago - I still always look happiest when I'm with my Sandy.

Some things never change.

oxox

Life

This post made me think of this montage, which I created for My Beloved on Father's Day the year after Thomas died.

Thanks, Loribeth, for the reminder. And happy 25th anniversary.

ox

Make an on-line slide show at www.OneTrueMedia.com

oxox

I was cleaning out my overflowing in tray this morning and found an old love note My Beloved wrote to me a week after our first date, a little more than 9 years ago. It's all raggedy and battered from the number of times I've read it and carried it around and held it to my chest and smiled.

His words have the lightness of feathers. He was so young and so completely unfettered by sorrow and tragedy. I can hear his joy. His hope. His love.

And what he wrote about me? The girl he saw through rose-coloured glasses? I sound like a completely different person too.

He once told me, long ago, that I was like a perfect doll that had somehow gotten thrown into a box of broken toys, ending up overlooked and unloved.

And I think about how battered and bruised and jaded I am and wonder if I'm now one of the broken toys too. I must be.

I am no longer the person he fell in love with. I'm not the girl he describes on that page.

I know that's how it goes. You fall in love with someone and together you grow old, facing everything life throws at you along the way; huddling close during storms and turning your faces to the sun when the skies clear. Things change you, both good and bad, and the bond deepens and strengthens - if you're lucky. And we are. We are.

But when I read the note I found myself missing those two people who were on the brink of a great romance, dizzy with the flush of new-found love. I miss their innocence and their optimism and the promise that they believed life held for them.

Luckily, with time and experience comes the ability to see the bigger picture.

Because even in the midst of our loss, we have somehow gained. Our love - older and wiser - is not less than it was simply because we're no longer those young, undamaged people we once were. It's actually very much the opposite. It's bigger and deeper than it has ever been because in many ways we have become one, united against our grief and in our mutual determination to find happiness. Together.

We are warriors now. Fighting for survival, sanity and peace.

I miss the man he was. But I love the man he is.

And when I need to, I have a silly love letter to remember once upon a time while I'm walking towards happily every after.

Birthday wishes to My Beloved

I can't believe I'm married to someone who just turned 38. It's impossible that we're this old, and yet somehow it's true.

It's also true that this 38-year old is the person I want to continue growing old with and the person I want to celebrate all my birthdays with. He's the person who helps me make sense of the nonsensical, and keeps me sane when life slams its way through the front door and forces us to be grown-ups in a world that hasn't always been particularly kind to us. He's the one who holds onto hope when mine is gone. He's the one who always seems to know exactly what to say. He's the one who continues to surprise me and who makes life infinitely more interesting just by being alive.

I love you Sandy, and I hope you have a very, very happy birthday.

OXOX

For My Beloved...

This is my favourite picture of you and Thomas. Your big finger, his tiny little hand. Both the boys I love so much touching for one precious moment a lifetime ago. It's beautiful and sweet and sad, and it makes me love you both so much I think I might die.

You are truly one of the greatest fathers I have ever known and I am blessed beyond measure to be a witness to it all.

I love you. Happy Father's Day Sandy.

Reason # 4,365,241 why I love My Beloved

When he saw the pizza I made for dinner last night (which was covered in bits and pieces of leftovers from the fridge - random cheeses, steamed broccoli, black olives and a handful of cherry tomatoes) he said "Wow - that looks good! We should take a picture of that one!"

And for the 4,365,241st time, my heart melted.

Great minds

I was whipped up into a pretty fantastic frenzy by about mid-day yesterday. Anyone who has ever suffered from anxiety attacks will understand the shaky, light-headed, slightly out-of-body feeling that clung to me most of the day like some sort of horrendously putrified stink.

I reeked of fear.

But the thing is, it wasn't so much about the lap itself as it was (as it is) the fear of being a patient in a hospital again. I've thought long and hard about this - about why this fills me with such dread - and aside from the obvious reminders of Thomas' birth and death that will be all around me in sight, sound and smell, I will be powerless. I will have no control over what happens to me once I sign the consent form and lay down on the operating table. Things will be done to me, just like they were two years ago, and I can't control any of it. I will be voluntarily giving up all control - and control over myself and my body is something I've spent two years fiercely protecting. And reveling in.

The moment I shuffled through the doors of the hospital 5 days after Thomas' died, I reclaimed my independence and have not relinquish that control to anyone for more than the briefest of moments since.

Yes, I've been poked and prodded and tested and medicated through the fertility clinic on and off for the last 9 months, but I go there voluntarily and I am still in control 99.9% of the time. And when I'm not, it's for just a moment - long enough for them to inject sperm into my uterus or get a read on a growing follicle or draw a vial of blood. All very manageable lengths of time.

But Thursday I will be at the mercy of my OB and his team in a way I haven't been since I was in the hospital with Thomas.

I remember one awful night laying splayed out on my hospital bed with nurses working both arms trying to find a vein that wasn't collapsed in order to reinsert my IV, while a miserable little shit of an OB put in an extra staple to close a leak in my C-section incision (which, to My Beloved's horror, had been oozing blood for close to two days).

I was utterly powerless and completely vulnerable both mentally and physically. And all I could do was lay there and cry.

I know this is a different situation altogether. I know this surgery won't be like the last one. It's quick, relatively painless and, as I said before, there isn't a dead baby involved here. Not before and not after.

But I still have to give myself over to the kind of people who played a such a key role in the horror show that was Thomas' birth.

Being reminded of that day - and the days that followed - in such an assaulting way is going to be hard. Impossibly hard. And adding the notion of complete and necessary submission to the mix makes it very, very frightening for me.

It's not the pain. It's not the fear of dying. It's the fear of remembering too much too vividly.

It was My Beloved who was finally able to talk me down. He and DinoD (who left a comment here yesterday) both had the very same suggestion.

Why not look at this as a trial run for the next hospital visit (which we hope will be a successful, healthy, happy-ending C-section). Exposure therapy, DinoD called it. Better to face my fears now when it's just simple day surgery, and be that much stronger if and when the time comes to return to the hospital for the birth of another child.

It made so much sense when My Beloved made the suggestion. I felt my shoulders ease and my breaths deepen. I felt my body unclench and my mind clear, just a little bit.

It gave the fear purpose. It gave meaning to my light-headed terror, and in doing so made so much of it go away.

Today I am afraid. But I'm stronger too.

Already I'm stronger.