Regrouping... again

Or at least attempting to. I feel like that is what my life has become, setback after setback requiring us to regroup based on the universe's rules. Well you know what. I am pretty tired of it really. The utter irony of learning this week that my tubes are shot to crap as a direct result of a c-section that I had to bring a dying baby into the world. Oh, that's just hilarious universe isn't it? You really got me on that one.

If Peyton had been born healthy, if she was here, a laughing fifteen month old, of course I would feel this was all worth it. But she isn't is she? She was born to suffer through chemo, procedures, and surgeries that would make a grown man cry, and for what? For an infection to take hold of her after one month!

This latest development has me thinking alot about Peyton's birth. Alot about why the c-section was proposed, and if it would have been kinder to let her pass in childbirth. That would have been kinder to her, no doubt. She wouldn't have had to learn just how cruel life can be for a baby born with cancer. I am so glad to have held my baby girl, to have loved her and nursed her and known her. But at the end of the day she is gone. Just as she would have been had I birthed her. The only difference is, I wouldn't have known all that I am missing. I wouldn't have known how much I need to see her smiley face again, or how beautiful an experience it is to breastfeed her. In that way, perhaps it would have been kinder to me, too.

The truly crappy thing is that they had no idea about Peyton's cancer, so the recommendation to have the c-section, that was based on something else. What exactly? I couldn't tell you. They wait until you are in the throws of labor and then say, "it's time to get that baby out, she is in distress." What does distress mean? Her heart was healthy, her lungs. What distress brought on this surgery? A surgery that birthed a dying baby, and then wrecked my tubes through infection, and my chances at other children? I will never lay down with the man I love, and make a baby again. This is a devastating reality for me. DEVASTATING.

I am sure there are those who will read this post and judge my thoughts. I am sure there are others who will think I am callous or cruel. I can't apologize. I am not sorry that I feel this way. I am 29 years old and feel like my book is closed, like I am the punchline to some ridiculous universal joke. I married the right man. We had a safe, secure home to welcome a child into. Where did I go so wrong?

This time it is different because I recognize the stages that I am going through, I have been through them before. They have been unwelcome companions on this fifteen month ride through grief.

Shock & Denial.
Pain & Guilt.
Anger & Bargaining.
Depression.

These four have become like second nature to me, it's the last three that I have never quite been able to master.

The Upward Turn (I thought I was getting here, really I did. When we decided we were ready to try again.)
Reconstruction and Working Through.
Acceptance & Hope.

Where is the hope in something like this? How can I accept this irony? It is too cruel.

I hear Shakespeare's words, "I am fortune's fool!" ringing over and over in my mind, and believe they were written for me.

These last two days have been like those early after losing Peyton. Eyes swollen with tears. Head pounding. Not answering the phone. Not getting dressed. Not going out into the world. I have not even been able to bring myself to go see Peyton's grave. My sweet little girl who I love so much. I feel awful for this. For feeling the way I am feeling. It hurts to look at your child's grave under any circumstances, these make it especially difficult.

Most people get pregnant and know that changes are going to come. They are supposed to be happy changes... not this. Pregnancy, child loss, infertility. Where does the shit storm end?

I wrote the title of this post, "regrouping... again" with every intention to write something that says, "Listen up world, I will get through this, I will overcome this." The problem is, I don't believe it. And if I don't believe it, I can't write it.