15 weeks

It's been 15 weeks since Kayla.  Since my life changed.  And honestly, I had to look at my calendar and count the weeks.  Was it 13, 14?  Nope.  15.  I guess I've started counting in months now.  I just happened to realize it was Thursday.  Not every Thursday seems doom-and-gloom to me these days.  But every day still carries a large weight of grief--sometimes it looks like sadness, sometimes anger, sometimes exhaustion.  But it's still there. 

I had lunch with one of my pregnant friends.  She's 28 weeks.  She is one of the 3 friends I have really been able to open up with about Kayla and I'm trying not to let her pregnancy get in the way of our deep friendship.  But it's getting more and more awkward the farther along she gets.  I get kind of nervous and fake-sounding when talking about her pregnancy.  Today I was able to give her the small baby gift I bought when she found out she was having a boy, and I included my copy of "Birthing From Within."  It was just an ordinary moment, but it was just another little way for me to let go of Kayla.  I had started reading it when I was probably about 31 weeks pregnant and really starting to look ahead to labor and how I wanted my birth experience to be.  I was really liking and connecting to the book.  And then Kayla died.  And I never finished it.  I think she appreciated how special it was for me to pass the book on to her, because she is that kind of friend.  So it was a good moment, but it still really hurt for me to let it go. 

After work I was at Whole Foods and I bought some prenatal vitamins.  I have continued taking my vitamins because it's good for me and I was already in the routine.  The last time I bought vitamins was the weekend before Kayla died--that bottle is gone now--and the lady checking me out had been excited about me being pregnant, asking me all the normal stuff like how far along I was, etc.  It was a really good memory for me because I never had a lot of strangers asking me if I was pregnant--I have always had a little pregnant potbelly so it wasn't OBVIOUS that I was pregnant until I was at least 7 months.  Anyways so tonight I needed to buy vitamins but I was unsure if I should get prenatals or not.  I decided that I should, my body is used to them already.  I bought the 90-day bottle, hoping that I will actually be pregnant in the next 90 days.  But even if I'm not, at least I'll be healthy!  I purposefully picked a male cashier, hoping that he wouldn't make a comment about them, like ask if I'm pregnant or not.  He didn't. 

My life is pretty stable right now.  And that's what sometimes makes me choke back tears..at this time last year we decided to actively "try" to have a baby (which really just meant learning about when I might ovulate).  Sometimes I can just blur out the whole last year, because I'm right back where I started.  There is some comfort in the familiarity, the routine of going back to school.  But I would never want to forget the last year of my life, it was some of my happiest moments, being pregnant and anticipating how our lives were going to change.  It just didn't work out the way we had planned.