Simple questions

Norah and I decided to go get pedicures together today. It sounded like a harmless way to take our minds off things and get out of the house for a few minutes. 

Shortly after I sat down in the chair, though, the nail tech asked a question I've heard a thousand times before, one I usually answer without even giving it a second thought. 

"How many children do you have?"

I froze. I stared at her, open-mouthed, for what felt like an eternity. I realized that I had no idea how to answer that. 

After stammering for a moment, I settled on the easy answer.

"Four."

It's a lie. It tastes bitter on my lips. It hangs heavy in the air like a bad smell. It makes me sick. 

I don't have four children. I have five children. Five.

She probably thinks I'm crazy now. Who doesn't know how many children they have?

Me apparently.

I still can't sleep.

But this rain is nice. 

I wonder how long before I stop being afraid to go to sleep. And afraid to wake up. How long until I stop waking up in the middle of the night in a cold terror, shaking Norah and Shiloh gently from sleep just to make sure they are still breathing. How long until I can lay in this room where Riley's soul left his body without my stomach sinking down so low it feels like my chest will cave in from the pressure. 

I find myself stepping over or around the spot on the carpet where we did CPR, as if the fact that I can see him laying there helplessly with such clarity means that he is actually still there. 

How long will his pale face, with his purple lips and shaded fingernails, that I only saw briefly, overshadow all the time I spent staring at his eyes while they fluttered, dreaming in his sleep, while his cheeks were still rosy and the only thing marring his lips was the little nursing blister I was so proud of. He smiled constantly in his sleep, sometimes even laughed out loud.

Sleeping babies used to be my favorite thing. Now they are the visions of my nightmares. This is my nightmare.

I just want to wake up.

So how am I supposed to sleep?

Milk

I just realized that I haven't pumped at all today. Not because I was avoiding it (although I wanted to avoid it for the first couple of days, because the thought of it and the memories of all those hours pumping over the last couple of months weighed so heavy on my chest), but because I didn't need to. 6 days ago, on Monday, I was making between 6 and 8 ounces of milk every 3 hours. Like clockwork. If Riley ate so much as 15 minutes late, my breasts turned into boulders on my chest. Every time he ate, no matter how heartily, I had to pump afterwards to reach anything resembling comfort. I assumed we would have plenty of time to correct this imbalance. I was wrong.

Instead, I went from having milk running out my ears (or more accurately, out my freezer... We had to buy a deep freeze to accommodate the excess) to no milk at all. I was so full at the hospital after we let him go. The nurses brought me a pump in the chapel so that I could get some relief. And I sat there in that stained-glass room my pajamas, knowing that the coroner was examining my lifeless baby boy at that very moment. I pumped, staring vacantly into space as tears streamed freely down my face, falling into hot, wet blotches in my lap. The soft whoosh of the pump carried on in its normal rhythm as if nothing had happened. But everything had happened. In the span of an hour and a half (he ate around 3 and we found him at 4:30), my whole world caved in. I went from the happiest I had ever been to sadder and more empty than I ever dreamed possible. Oh, how far we fell.

I pumped probably 3 times that Tuesday. Maybe twice on Wednesday. Twice on Thursday. Once yesterday, the day of Riley's funeral, before bed. My breasts felt full and heavy and sad. My heart felt empty and heavy and sad.

But today, they are soft. Empty.

Like me.

Part of this is probably because right now I have trouble eating. I didn't eat at all on Tuesday. I've eaten sporadically since then, although somehow eating makes me feel bizarrely guilty. I think part of the dramatic decrease in production must be psychological. I think so much of what caused me to overflow with milk was my happiness. My desire to help Riley, to nourish him, to give him life and make him grow. To give him chubby cheeks and roly poly arms like my other babies grew at my breast.

I would think of him and fill up. I would walk into the NICU and let down before I even laid eyes on him. When we started "non-nutritive" feeds, we quickly realized that there was no such thing... As soon as that precious boy got anywhere near me, my breasts would fill with milk again, no matter how completely I had pumped to empty them. But now, there is no joy. I am every bit as empty inside as I was filled with happiness before. It feels like someone has completely carved me out like a jack-o-lantern. Or maybe they carved me on Tuesday morning at 4:30 am, and now I wilt more and more by the day, caving in on myself a little more each hour, until soon I will just be a sad puddle of rotten pumpkin on the porch, no good to anyone.

I think my breasts have comprehended this loss much more quickly than I have.

It just makes no sense.

Ugh

People keep telling me how strong I am. I'm not strong. I'm not even close to strong. It feels like my knees forget to work half the time. I just don't understand how I'm supposed to breathe.

Love this girl!!

Yay for Saturday!!

Good morning, friends!! How are you on this beautiful Saturday?

I, for one, am in the mood to get outside, so I think I'm going to bundle all these kids up and make them come on a ride with me!!

Last night I watched "Aftershock." It's a Chinese film with subtitles, and depending on the quality of the movie and the mood I'm in, sometimes subtitles can seriously get on my nerves, but this one was so good that I stopped even noticing them about 5 minutes in. It was kind of like a foreign "Sophie's Choice" with a twist, and I really quite enjoyed it!

Also caught part of "Pretty Woman." As I'm sure most of you already know that it's pretty much a federal law that all women of childbearing age are REQUIRED to absolutely love that movie (and also "Dirty Dancing!"), but in case you had somehow missed that memo, now you know! That movie makes me happy every single time I watch it!

There are very few movies that entertain me enough to watch over and over... Shawshank Redemption is another... Every single time I run across that one, no matter where I come in along the story arc, I just can't seem to stop myself from dropping whatever else I'm doing and watching the rest. It's up there with my favorite movies ever, for sure. The novella is also excellent, and I have found that Stephen King novellas, specifically, seem to be the rare exception to that whole "the book is always better than the movie" thing. Most of his other works translate pitifully onto the big screen, but Shawshank is another matter altogether!

Okay, enough of that, now on to force all these short people in my house to pull on some layers and get their video-game-playing, best-friend-texting butts outside for some sunshine!!

Happy Saturday everybody!!

Sent from my iPhone

Random Comments

Okay! So... we've been a little busy! Guess that's nothing new. SO... anyway, here is a list of random thoughts/happenings that come to mind at this very moment!

1. I had my body fat percentage checked today... They used that little electronic machine at FAC to check it, and it came in at 15.1% Well, for a woman, that's really low, so I decided to drop by Your Total Fitness Shop on the way home to have them double-check! Their machine said the same thing, and then I had them do a 7-point caliper measurement analysis, and it came up with 13.43%! Holy Workout, Batman, I am definitely done with all that baby weight nonsense! Woo too!!! : )

2. Currently reading "Lady Chatterley's Lover." I bought it to gather inspiration for a writing project I am working on that may or may not involve a love scene. I'd always heard of how steamy the book is, so I figured it would be a good bet for what I was needing, but I have to tell you... This book is simultaneously quite overrated and quite underrated. The steam level is way over-rated... It barely even registers by today's standards. But the quality of the writing by DH Lawrence is just incredible... Very inspiring. His prose moves me, and his subtle observations are witty without trying to be so. I completely adore the book, which means that even though I only picked it up yesterday, I'm already over halfway done. *sigh. Such is the double-edged sword of reading a book that is truly wonderful.

3. WE PAID OFF THE PILOT!!! This means no more car payments for us... EVER! We will just drive our current cars until the wheels fall off, and when that happens, we will buy whatever car we can afford to buy with cash. It is incredibly liberating. I'm seriously pumped. THANK YOU DAVE RAMSEY!!

4. We went to the Cotton Bowl - had lots of fun, and some day when I grow up and stop being a horrible blogger, maybe I will get around to posting pictures of it! Remains to be seen...

5. This is related to #2... I have started writing again. This makes me happy. : ) In honor of this, I am now typing this blog post from my new MacBook Air. I acquired it so that I have a fantastically portable way to work on my project from wherever I might be. I must say, I have admired these things from afar for years, but I had no idea how much I would love actually owning one until I had one... It is absolutely tiny and fits in my purse, but it has a very comfortable full-sized, backlit keyboard. <3

6. The kids are great... Autumn's cheer squad won 1st out of 10 teams in their last competition, and out of three competitions so far this year, they have brought home three first-place trophies! Wow! Bear is loving the New School,and loving 3rd grade. It is exactly where he needed to be. Norah Claire is just as feisty and hysterical as ever, and Shiloh is like her little shadow... He follows her around everywhere, trying to do everything that she does. Yesterday, when she got put in time out, he even went and sat right by her and cried along with her. I tried to explain to him that he was not in time out, Norah was, but he would have nothing of it! So precious!

7. I guess it's 2012 now, and the only resolution I made is a secret one, but I just want to say how very thankful I am for all the blessings in my life!

Okay, now back to the real world! Happy Wednesday everyone! : )