Space

I recently uploaded pictures of my baby Elijah on Facebook. Something I thought I would never do for fear someone would have something horrible to say. I had pictures from our 3D/4D ultrasounds up there for quite some time, but not his birth photos. I took me awhile thinking about it; not sure if I could stomach sifting through them trying to choose which ones to pick and which ones not to pick.

Nevertheless, there are some up and posted. I have many favorites. Every single one is special to me and stands out. There is one particular one I love; Elijah with his three aunties. Well, technically, they are not his aunts. More so long ago high school friends, but better this way because they choose to be my friend instead of forced to due to family ties. After all my crazy antics and embarrassing, maybe even annoying, times, they love me them same. I love them too.

As I opened up that little vanilla colored folder tucked into the corner of my laptop's screen, titled funeral memorial, I bit my bottom lip hoping not to cry. I tried to brace myself for the worst, but then I remembered that the worst that could happen has already happened.

After skimming the ultrasound pictures, I came upon the one where I was holding Elijah literally two seconds after he was born; he was sucking his thumb. I remember the doctors and nurses wiping him down and slipping on a little tiny hat. The hat looked homemade and was tied off at the top with a simple black string of yarn. I had such a horrible look on my face; I wish I would have looked more happy to see him but I was so focused on his death rather than his birth. I hate myself for that. I still can't get over but to blame myself for not trying harder to save him.

Save him...
I wonder what that is even supposed to mean...

In my house sits my son in a box. A box inside a glass case next to other physical items like his pajamas, hat, sea shells that held the holy water for his baptism, and more. This stuff, just plain stuff, takes up space. Yet when I wrap my arms around myself to squeeze empty space, I feel just that... space.

I want to feel my son. I see his pictures, and they remind me that he is real. He happened. He lived, breathed air, cooed soft coos, and even looked right into my eyes like I had begged God for with all my life. Yet no baby...

I find myself sitting alone throughout the day, thinking I have two babies. But I don't. When that realization hits me, I just want to scream. It feels like I am losing him all over again. I start to panic, hyperventilate, and just become detached from what is happening right in front of me. This cycle happens pretty much every hour... I feel like I am stuck in a nightmare of a maze and can't my way out.

My husband called me one day from work. His voice soft and quiet. He just said two simple words with a child-like tone, "I sad". I knew why. There was nothing I could do for him. We were both at work and had no where to go. Stuck...

I wish the pictures could at least help sooth over the empty space that Elijah has left us, make it numb for an hour or two, but they can't.

I was just thinking tonight what I remembered from my son Paighton when he was a baby. It is hard to imagine him now and him then was the same person. I remember how he felt; his tiny just-days-old body against mine while I snuggled against him all day. It upsets me because I struggle to remember Elijah's. I don't want to forget how it felt holding him. I remember... it's just drifting away, something I wasn't prepared for. Then again, I was prepared for anything that has happened.

I am upset that this space exists and feel that I need to play the blame game in order to get rid of it. But who am I to blame? God? Science? Myself? None of them makes sense, well, maybe myself a little, but where do I even begin to start?

Missing Elijah so much just makes my craving for a newborn baby intensify. I think about, if ever, in the future I were to have another baby. My first fears begin to tug on me as I try to prepare myself for the death of that baby. The baby doesn't even exist, yet I am planning its funeral. Secondly, fear sets in about me losing my own life. My husband and son to fend for themselves without a wife, and no mommy. I tears me apart when my mind begins to play mental images of my husband sitting my son down at age 10 and explaining that mommy died. Then I see my son at age 17 with his high school friends and someone cracks a joke about the death of someone's mom. Paighton responds, "well, my mom died, but it doesn't bother me, it's not like I even knew her or remember her, so whatever". I want my children to love me, I fear they won't. After my mind and tears are so exhausted from fretting over those fears, then I begin to fear about not loving the baby because I am so distraught over Elijah still. I fear I will resent the new baby, thinking I should have Elijah and not him/her. I fear I won't have any emotional attachment whatsoever with the new baby.

What am I talking about anyways? I am not even pregnant and I am driving myself crazy. Like mentioned previously, the "What If" Queen.

I'd like to think, what if Elijah was born? Would I have lived? When I think of that, tied into Paighton growing up without a mommy, I thank God for taking care of my ill child and leaving me behind to stay with my family. God spared my husband and son from the pain of losing me, and saved Elijah from pains of having to live a life of surgeries.

I just hurt, so bad, that we all had to go our separate ways so soon.