I am NOT okay!

As the title states, I AM NOT OKAY! If you ask me, this is what I want to tell you. I want to tell you exactly how I feel, my guilt, my anger, my grief. I want to tell you how helpless I feel, how, looking back now, I feel even more helpless and nothing can change it now anyway.

I want to scream, I'm so tired of crying. I want to be pissed, I want to throw things. I just want to let it out.

But I don't. For several reasons.

First - I don't believe anyone REALLY wants to hear my honest answer. I understand that they are trying to be considerate, that many DO care, and ask because of it. But I don't think they will be comfortable to hear it, I don't think they're prepared to hear it.

I have friends who have gone through this, and I don't want to discuss with them because I don't want to take away from their loss.

Second - I don't want to upset my children more. They're already grieving themselves. In their way. Aurora is so concerned with how I am that it worries me. She's only 7. Joe is able to cry, and stays upset - he seems to be regressing somewhat in his behavior. I feel like he's already unstable, and I need to be helping him deal with the emotions without adding to his stress. Same with Ireland. She has a hard time recognizing the emotion still. I don't want to add to their confusion and upset.

Third - I don't want to hurt my husband more. He's been there for me since we found out, grieving in his own way. I know I can talk to him, but I don't because he feels helpless to make it better for me. He doesn't know what to say. I feel like he's uncomfortable with my being upset because of this, and because he's trying to deal with it differently.

I'M NOT OKAY!

David tells people I'm doing "okay, given the situation." I'm not. I don't want them to think I am. That implies that I am able to move on and be "normal" again. I can't.

Already people talk to him and not me. They whisper to him to ask how I am. How we are. No one addresses me directly. I have a couple of friends who have, and some family, but everyone else avoids me.

I have pictures of our son that I will not be able to share with others so that I don't offend or disturb them. He was early, he was tiny. I am afraid to share pictures from the funeral because of the same reason. THIS HURTS! I want to be able to share my child like everyone else, and I can't!

When he was born, when we held him, he was the most beautiful baby in the world to me. When I look back on his pictures, I see why others will never think so.

It took us 5 years to conceive. We finally managed to get pregnant...on our own, a miracle. And halfway through, when everything should have been alright, that dream is shattered.

The only place I have to see my son is at the cemetery. I should still be pregnant. This shouldn't be his first Easter already. Not until next year.

I don't want to hear that we can have another child. We'd already been told by so many that we "didn't need" any more children, so why would anyone think I'd believe them now? Do they understand how long it took to get pregnant?

Do they understand that losing him means I have now lost 10 children???

10. 8 of which I have never really spoken of until today. Having to face reality. That early miscarriages are still losses. That even though I lost two children BEFORE MY FIRST SON, in my teens, they were still my children and I still have the right to remember and grieve them. It's taken me this long to accept that.

That is too many for anyone.

So when people look at me and see that I have 3 of my own, that I have a stepson...that any more means we'll have 5 - they assume.

Assume that it's been easy. Joke that we don't know what causes it.  Jokingly (or not) tell us that we don't need anymore.

It's not that simple. I suffer from PCOS, and along with that, infertility.

Regardless of how many living children I have, it doesn't take away from the pain of not being able to become pregnant with my husband's child, nor the pain of not being able to carry the ones I lost.

So no, I'm not okay. Each time I lose more of myself. This time, I lost a hole in my heart. Even if we manage to have another, our family is forever broken.