Monday, October 18, 2010

Me

I feel silly.


When I started blogging, there were only a few of us. We did it because it was a way to log our journeys and to share our lives with people who were interested. Now it seems as though literally everyone has a blog. So what's my point? What can I add? Where do I fit in or why do I matter?

Short answer: I don't. There's no reason to read this over anyone else's thoughts. We're living in a narcissistic society that believes that everyone wants to read about all of our thoughts and movements throughout each day we live. I don't think that. In fact, I'm pretty sure my life is insignificant enough that few would be interested in such minutiae. But I am sure that I have experienced some of life's gifts and that I'm not alone. I'm not alone, I'm not significant, but at the same time, I'm as alone and as lost as anyone who experiences any of this.

I've thought for a while about whether or not to even start this - to even open this can of worms. I've decided that this isn't for you - this is for me. If you find me and you follow me and you want to be involved, thank you. I love you for it. But you aren't my audience. I don't even know if I'm my audience. Is God my audience? Is it my babies? I'm not sure. I just know that there is no such thing as permanence, but I'm going to try.

In the past year, I've had at least two miscarriages and one ectopic pregnancy. I do have one living child that I adore more than life itself. I've decided that I don't want to go into the details right now. Each of those stories deserves its own space and its own time. Now is not the time. What it is the time for is grief and life. How do you grieve for a life that never was? I don't have a body or a grave or a monument that I can visit or that I can point to. There is no where that I can visit that will grant me any sense of peace or serenity. In fact, once I stop telling my story, there will be nothing other than a piece of paper in a medical record that will ever acknowledge that these babies ever existed.

Perhaps that's what pains me more than any other aspect of this experience. When I die, there will be something. A memorial - a gravestone - scattered ashes - memories - something. There is no one to remember my children. No one who held them or loved them like I did. There is no one who will ever know what was lost or what I felt when they were gone. They were medical waste - a procedure. Something that had to be completed and then done.

What else is there to say? I don't know...not today. Perhaps not tomorrow. But they will live on - I'm going to ensure that.

5 comments:

  1. Hi Nikki, I enjoyed reading your blog posting. I am with you - sometimes the blogs function less as a way of communicating with others than as a way of communicating with ourselves. I find that I enjoy typing my ideas and daily events on a blog versus writing in a journal anymore. It's just easier, faster, and in a strange way, liberating.

    I also feel your pain about your lost babies. You are right in so many ways - our culture doesn't always recognize those living beings that were here and yet not here at the same time. Personally, I think miscarriages and such fall under the category of "we don't know what to say, so let's just pretend it didn't happen." It's good for you to talk about them, to think this through, and most important, to let others know what you have experienced so they can be there with you ... even if they live as far away as say...oh...Iowa. :-)

    Peace, Marcy

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  2. I love you too! I meant to tell you too that I was so happy we had a chance to get together at TYCA this year. I really enjoyed our time together catching up and wish we could have had more time. Let's make a plan to get together again soon! I'm always willing to drive to Normal, and you and the fam are always welcome to come out here. If Brian doesn't want to come, you and Katie can have a mini-vacation here! :-)

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  3. It seems like you have the kidney version of my never ending sinus infection--I hope that this round of antibiotics takes care of it. I'm thinking about you!!

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  4. Thank you so much! All thoughts are appreciated :)

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