Stop this ride, I wanna get off!

So last week I blogged just about every day. This week...not so much. This is due, in large part, to the incredible roller coaster that this week has been, full of extreme highs and lows.

Here is a recap of some of its ups and downs.

On Monday we got a call that an opening for NEXT WEEK came up in the injections class. The woman told me if we couldn't make that one, we would have quite a wait ahead of us. I guess someone either dropped out, or got pregnant on their own. Needless to say, we jumped right on it. We go on Thursday, and if all goes well and my meds arrive on time (our insurance requires that we use a mail order service) than we might cycle as early as next month.-That was an UP!

As some of you know, there is a journalist, Joel Meares, who has been interviewing me on and off for the last six or so months for a story he is writing for Columbia University about online grieving. That story hasn't actually come out yet, but he wrote an opinion piece for the Australian website "The Punch" this week, in which he defended online memorial sites (there has been some controversy over them in Australia, and rightfully so) and mentioned my blog. Being the nothing special girl that I am, I found it to be pretty darn exciting, even though it didn't seem to sway many minds on the topic. You can read that here if you'd like. -Another UP!

This week, like every week, I am missing Peyton. Waves of grief, like those from her early days Why me? Why her? Why us? Why is cancer our cross to bear? Why can't I be normal and make healthy babies? etc. etc. come crashing down sporadically and with little warning. I usually visit Peyton's grave for comfort when those questions come calling, and this week, doing so did not bring healing. It brought the discovery that someone had allowed their dogs, again, to desecrate her grave. This was pretty hard to take. - This was a Down!

That being said, I met with Officer B yesterday and she promised to take more runs through that area in the hopes of catching whoever is doing this, whether it be the same man, or someone else. Officer B also lost her only daughter, so she understands how hard seeing Peyton's grave disrespected is for me. She understands that it is just another example of my inability to protect my child.

During our meeting over coffee yesterday morning, Officer B also mentioned a grieving mothers group that she was going to, and invited me to come. I did, and in the process met some wonderful women. Our situations were different, it was not a baby loss group, but I made some great connections nonetheless. -Up!

Just when I finally felt the earth moving again, and started feeling hopeful about trying for a rainbow baby, I was met with some devastating news that left me rocked to the core. This news left me questioning everything.

I came across the story of a woman who lost not one, but two of her precious babies to the same type of extremely rare Leukemia that Peyton had. She is the only known case of having more than one child be diagnosed, without the siblings being identical twins, and I know that I should find some comfort in that, but she doesn't know how or why her two babies developed this Leukemia, so there is no reassurance in having heard her story.

Seeing how she, like me, lost her first child to this devastating disease, was hard enough. Hearing her tell how she spent a year of healing before building up the the nerve to try again, only to have Leukemia steal another child from her, well, it was too much to take. The tears and deep sense of fear were unstoppable.

Here hubs and I were celebrating our good fortune in having the chance to try IVF, and then, out of left field, this story came along leaving us to question everything.


Should we try? 
Do we have the right to try? 
Is it selfish to try when this risk may still be out there?

This story spit in the face of my sense of hope. I felt myself spinning, lost, unable to navigate back to a place where my confidence in my right to, belief in, or ability that I can have healthy children would return. The burden of having lost my child inexplicably to cancer buys me membership to a club that I want no part of, a club that forces me to worry that other kids could be affected too.  This was a Down! Down! Down!

I know life is unfair, but why? Why does it have to be? Why can't I scream "Hey universe, I have already had my share of shitty days, its my turn to shine. Back off!"

These questions were weighing really heavily on my mind, and then I heard this. It is something from my meeting last night that I'd like to share with you all.

A woman, ten years out from the death of her son, said she hated when people told her "Time heals." She said, "Time doesn't heal, it reveals."

I meditated on this quite a bit, and it brought me back to a post that I read some months ago by Carly.  In it, Carly shared a present day picture of herself with her children. In the post, Carly said that she wished the old her, the grief stricken mother dealing with the death of her child, could have seen the picture of her future, back then. She said that if she had, if she had known that such blessings still awaited her, she would have felt more hope through her suffering.

That, I guess, is what the woman at the meeting meant by "Time Reveals." 

I hope to one day be so fortunate as to have healing reveal itself to me with time. I pray for the day when I hold my rainbow baby(s) in a picture representing my new norm. A norm full of promise. I pray that I can discover who I am in this baby lost world. Who the "new me," is. The one who can never go back to who she was before, but can still feel that her life has been truly blessed despite all of the pain of losing Peyton.

Until then, until I see that snapshot of a better life, a life that came through this storm changed but okay, I will just have to wait. Wait and pray that time for me, too, will reveal healing.