Spring break. Yay?

I just wanted to tell those babylostmamas who may stumble across this blog that I am sorry, but I am not ready to share my story here yet. At least not with the same detail I've read in others' blogs. I can't share my son's "birth story". Maybe someday. I don't really know.
What I will say is that I have suffered a missed miscarriage in July 2009, followed by three very dark months of depression. The next three months I felt I was starting to "heal" somewhat, although I felt completely defective and questioned whether I would ever actually carry my own child to term. I literally had panic attacks over it, although at the time I didn't know what was causing them. When we started TTC again for our "rainbow baby" (will post definition later for those unfamiliar with the term), it took us six months. That doesn't sound long, and I know in the big scheme of things it's really not, but to me it felt like a lifetime. I had already put off starting a family in order to focus on my career and education, and to wait any longer for something I wanted so badly was just agonizing. I was about to pick up the phone and talk to my doctor about fertility testing, etc. when suddenly my home pregnancy test that cycle came out positive. I had convinced myself this one would be a missed miscarriage as well (defense mechanism, I guess), and I refused to get too excited or "count my chickens". So imagine my surprise during my first ultrasound, when I refused to look at the screen, and my doctor says, "Well there's the heartbeat. And there's the other one! You've got two in there!"

The fact that it was twins was a COMPLETE and total surprise. I was thrilled beyond belief. Terrified, yes, but incredibly excited. I felt like God was smiling down on me from the heavens and saying, "I love you. It's your time now for happiness and blessings from above. Enough pain for you." No, I didn't actually hear the voice of God. I didn't see his image in my grilled cheese sandwich or any other such nonsense people sometimes claim. Rather, it was just a *vibe* I felt from Him. I never felt closer to God in all my life. I was blessed with boy girl twins (I came to find out at my 19 week anatomy scan). Both babies grew wonderfully and were healthy and thriving. I couldn't have asked for anything more.

Well, except for both of them to actually live past birth.

So when I found out my son had suddenly passed away at a routine 37 week ultrasound in December 2010, after maybe 14 or so ultrasounds where both babies had strong heartbeats and had grown beautifully, I was just completely gutted. Just three days prior to that horrible day, he was deemed healthy after a biophysical profile and contraction stress test.

My heart was torn into a million pieces. I had mistakenly believed that God was watching out for my family.

So here I am, four months later, feeling utterly abandoned, betrayed, and brokenhearted. I also feel stupid, naive, and ashamed. I don't know where all these feelings come from exactly, but I have a myriad of emotions - so many that they keep tripping over each other, and I don't know what to do with them. Perhaps spilling them here will help calm them down a notch, even just for a moment in time.

So it's spring break this week, and I am home for the week full time with my precious daughter who is now four months old. I have been excited about spending time with her just the two of us and thought it would be relaxing compared to being at work full-time. But now that I'm home in this house with just her, I realize again how naive I was being about this. I am thrust back in time to those early weeks after our loss, when maternity leave officially started. What I now realize is that work has provided a distraction, a level of busy-ness, a welcome respite from the sheer exhaustion of grief. Let's face it, GRIEF is WORK.

Being home means I am again faced with that horrible reality that I am supposed to be raising TWINS. There are supposed to be TWO BABIES here, NOT ONE. Every moment of silence is deafening, because I sit and think about how much busier I should be, how much louder the house should be, how many more toys there should be, how we should still have the second crib set up instead of sitting in a closet, dismantled and useless. How I shouldn't have had to return the double stroller to Babies R Us, my tail between my legs, utterly defeated. How I should have been able to bring my long-awaited, much loved, much anticipated son home from the hospital sleeping soundly in his carrier.

How instead, I brought home a blue gift bag, full of pamphlets and other momentos that I couldn't even bear to look at.

As we approach Easter Sunday, I just don't know how to feel. I know I don't want to sing hymns about Jesus rising from the dead. I don't think I can handle it.

I know I feel broken, and depressed, and angry, and guilty, and I don't feel at all celebratory this season. I know I feel like a part of some big cosmic joke, a pawn in some sick twisted game, and I worry my Faith has been forever broken along with my shattered heart.