Sunday, July 26, 2009

In my dreams

A few nights ago, something I've been waiting for finally happened. Sydney visited me in my dreams. It wasn't like I thought it might be, but she was there, alive and whole.

In the dream, I was pregnant. At first, I didn't realize that I was pregnant with Sydney. My dream self remembered all that had happened, it seemed. I thought, I'm pregnant, I'm going to have a baby soon, I'm 39 weeks pregnant, how have I managed to stay pregnant when I was 4 cm dilated at 20 weeks? It was then that I realized the baby was Sydney. I went out to go shopping to prepare for her arrival. In the car, I realized I hadn't felt her move. I started talking to her, moving my belly, trying to get her to respond. I thought, please don't let her be stillborn after all of this. Then she moved. She kicked and squirmed and my whole huge pregnant belly shook. It was so real, so vivid. I talked to her for so long, telling her how happy I was that she was there and how much I love her. When I woke up, I was so sad. I wanted to go back and live in that dream. I wanted to dream of going into labor and having her, to see her beautiful little face. I hope she comes to me again, in a way that I can see her and hold her.

I am not in a good place right now. Sadness and anger have taken over and I feel justified in both so I don't fight it. I am so angry with everybody around me. I feel abandoned and forgotten. Work is really hard because I am surrounded by other people now and have to try to keep it together. It is times like these that I miss working by myself. If I needed to break down, I could. A few days ago, we were all eating lunch and the TV was on. It was on Ellen and it was a repeat of her Mother's Day baby shower show. I ate as quickly as I could and went back to my desk. I was trying really hard to not cry and hold myself together. My boss came by and talked to me and then realized something was wrong. She kept asking me, what's wrong and I kept saying nothing, I'm just busy. She went to her office then called me in a few minutes later. I finally told her what was bothering me and started crying. At least she was sensitive to it and let me talk about it.

Nobody calls to check on me. Even when I do talk to friends or family members, they don't ask how I'm doing. They completely ignore the topic of Sydney. My grandmother (the dog funeral grandmother) calls every few weeks. She will ask me to send pictures. I haven't sent any since Christmas. She has never asked to see pictures of Sydney, so IMO she shouldn't get to see my other two kids or my nephew. I don't bring up Sydney with unwilling parties because they get obviously uncomfortable and that upsets me. I don't want her to be a bad memory. I want her to be what she is--my baby, a member of our family, a part of our lives. Apparently, according to some people, I'm not supposed to expect that out of others. Well I won't. If Sydney isn't acknowledged, they shouldn't expect us to want to be around them. I need my baby to be acknowledged and treated as a member of the family just as the other kids are. Why are the feelings of others more important than MY feelings? I'm tired of everybody thinking more about themselves than us. We are the ones who have lost our child. We are the ones who live with this pain while they pretend she never existed.

I wish I could crawl into bed and stay there. I need a break from life.

2 comments:

Emmy said...

I can't imagine what this process will be like 6 months. I was just FB'ing about how tired I am of whining on and on about my pain. If you even need to talk, we're here. My email is celestialpetunia@gmail.com.

Praying for you, sister. I know it doesn't feel like much, but I love you and I'm praying.

Bree said...

How nice to have a dream of your sweet baby. That is so neat. I haven't had any, yet.

I hated that Ellen episode when it originally aired before Mother's Day and it ticked me off again when the re-aired it the other day. Hey, Ellen how about doing a show for all of us mom's who didn't get to bring our babies home? Sorry, still in my anger phase.