Hollow

I'm not sure why I'm typing this out.
Fairly certian that no one reads this blog anymore since I've done such an awful job with posting. I've got these thoughts, feelings that need to be out of me, but will they really go away?------------------------------------------------

It's been 7 days since they took you from my body. Seven days of sadness, grief, anger, torment, disgust. Seven days of pain pills, resting, constipation, weeping, eating. For seven days, I've been hollow. I can feel the difference now with you gone...can physically feel that the hope of you has left.

The hope of a family of four. The hope of a son or daughter that might be different from my first. The hope of a tiny baby to watch grow daily, change to a toddler, to a sweet little child. The hope of new beginnings. The hope of being able to do what God intended a woman's body to do, to grow a new person. I held onto that hope for nearly 11 weeks, until they made me hollow.

I was nervous the whole time I knew about you. The spotting caused that and my anxious mind made my body not able to grow you. I wanted you so bad. I ate right, exercised, gave up vices, took my temperature, annoyed my husband, and PRAYED more than I ever have before. I wanted you for nearly four years and was overjoyed and overwhelmed when I found out about you. I was going to be so different, was going to RELISH you growing inside of me, was going to be grateful daily and never nervous, was going to be confident that you and I could grow you. I WAS going to do all those things, but with the spotting came the fear.

The FEAR overtook me, the daily prayers, "God, PLEASE let this baby grow." became my mantra. But, it didn't work. You didn't grow. You stopped.

I overheard through my sobbing the doctor and ultrasound tech whisper...your size, the DAY you stopped growing. I've gone over that day a million times in the last seven days. What happened? Why did you stop growing on that day? I watched some little ones in the church nursery that day, did I pick up one that was too heavy? I decided to tell a close friend who had miscarried at 18 weeks that you were coming, did my anxiety and crying make my heart beat to fast for you? I had a massage that evening to help with the shoulder pain I had carried for 9 weeks, was I too long on my stomach? Did she push too hard? Was I too selfish, thinking of my own pain relief, rather than of how the massage might affect you?

I don't know. I don't know, I don't know, I don't know. That is the worst of it. I don't know what I did.

My initial reasoning is that I live too chaotic a life, was too stressed to allow you to grow properly. So, when I came out of the pain pill haze, I started making lists. Lists will fix me. Make me more organized, less stressed, cleaner. But, lists won't bring you back. Lists won't put you back inside of me. They've made me get out of the bed, though and that is good.

She has made me get up, too. Your big sister. I have to be her Momma, too. She deserved you as much as I did, more really. She would have been wonderful to you. She's smart and funny and fabulous and would have been more proud of you than any big sister ever could possibly be. You would have rocked her world, but it needed to be rocked and your Dad and I were so excited to see how things would change with your arrival.

But, you won't be arriving. You stopped growing and they took you out of me. And I'm making lists and organizing and crying every four hours now, instead of every 15 minutes.

I miss you. I'm sorry I couldn't help you grow.