Still here. Still waiting.

14 months was a couple of days ago.  I don't think I cried the day of, but I had a hard day yesterday.  I wish I understood grieving.  I know it's never going to end, but I wish I could prepare myself for the slaps.

I'm 23 weeks with Tuppy this week.  Still not a ton of kicking, but it took a long while with Olivia too.  Still a long way to go.

I'm having a difficult time reconciling everything.  I don't feel like I'm really giving Tuppy the same attention and excitement that I gave Olivia.  That makes me feel guilty.  But then I start thinking more about him, and then I feel guilty for not thinking about Olivia as much.  How does this work?  How do I continue to honor her memory and keep her a vibrant part of our lives but still "move on" with my life?

As I'm starting to show more/talking about the pregnancy more with strangers, I always get asked the inevitable, "Is this your first pregnancy?"  It makes me wince inwardly every time, but I always say sort of, and then I explain about Olivia.  I'm able to do that now without losing it and without invoking too much detail and, if anything, then people leave me alone.  You know, stay away from the tainted woman with the dead baby.  Or whatever.

One of my best friends is two weeks behind me in this pregnancy.  She had a miscarriage almost 5 years ago now, and they have a three-year-old daughter, who is so excited for her little brother.  That kills me a bit, too.  I am so happy for them - and god knows they've dealt with loss too - but it still kills me a bit.

I keep saying to people that I won't fully exhale until Tuppy is crying in my arms.  But then what happens?

Is that what I think it is?

This is the blog entry that never ends; I've started and stopped a billion entries.  So here's one really long one.

12/17
We had a ultrasound at a maternal fetal specialist on Tuesday - our regular doc just wanted to be safe and have us check in with someone else to see if they had any other ideas of what precautions we should be taking.

So, the tech was doing all of the measurements, and J. asked her if we could "see any junk."  Lawd.  So she tried to look, and we got a big ol' shot of a penis.

So, yes, it's a boy.  And we're very excited.

But.

I've been crying a lot the last few days.  I sort of expected this.

I'm excited for him.  But I don't miss her any less.

12/25

Lost it at church this morning.  At Olivia's memorial service, we played Angels we have heard on high, and they sang it today.  I'd already been a little emotional, but thought I could keep it together.  And then that started and I was done.  DONE.

I've been up and down a whole bunch.  I keep asking J if this is more than normal, if I should be worried, if I need to get into therapy.  But he keeps reassuring me - and he's right - that I was like this with Olivia too.  I was a wreck off and on until I could feel her kicking.  Of course, everything has different weight, different reasons, different sources this time, but the timing is about the same.

The holidays are hard.  I keep thinking about how she'd be, seeing little girls around her age and having to turn away.

1/1

It's a new year.

I'm still out of town for the holidays, but am thinking more and more about having to go through the nursery and all of Olivia's things.  It's going to suck.  A LOT.  I'm going to need at least a day for that - the actual sorting and the aftermath.

I wish I knew how to do this.

It's 1/1/11, and, according to my sad little counter, it's been 1 year, 1 week, 1 month and 1 day since we lost her.  Huh.