Ordinary World

~ Duran Duran, "Ordinary World"

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I wrote last week about encountering our new "normal" around here.  A normal in which the 2nd trimester doesn't mean you're safe from harm and children are born with developmental challenges.  In a way, it makes me want to just scream out..."Why can't I carry a healthy, typically-developing child to term?"  It's not that I don't love the children God has gifted me - both Jack and our angel - but I almost feel like my body is failing at doing it's job...bringing healthy children into this world.  As a mother - as a woman - it's frustrating.

I'm also angry.  I see or read about or hear people talk about how they are pregnant yet again, or how they're having yet another "accident", or how they have more children than they know what to do with, and in this moment of temporary (hopefully) vulnerability, I am angry.  I am angry because pregnancy isn't something that happens by accident for me.  It's something that has to be planned out.  It's not easy.  I haven't been able to have scores of children.  While I don't want a whole flock of kids necessarily, I always saw myself as the mother of two.  I still do.  I know I would be a good mother to a second child.  Hell, I think I have passed the ultimate parenting test with Jack, right?  For the most part, I have faced Jack's challenges head-on, and while we haven't conquered them all, we certainly have made it through each and every day with grace.

I say this so infrequently, but I'm going to indulge in a bit of self-loathing today.  This just seems so unfair.  

And I hate feeling this way.  Truly, I do.  I know that life will never be the same again, but I'm ready to work towards that new normal.  I'm ready for this to simply become a part of ordinary life.  Autism did; I have no reason to believe that Maggie's loss will be any different.

Except that it is different.  With Jack's autism diagnosis, we were able to take those initial blows in smaller chunks.  There was the realization that he had delays.  There was the BCW assessment where we learned he had severe delays.  There was the initial appointment with Dr. DP in which we learned that our baby boy had autism.  With the glacial pace that the diagnostic process operates under for our children, we had weeks and weeks to digest each component of the quickly unraveling puzzle.  Then, once he had a diagnosis, there was still hope to be had.  We would start therapy and progress would come.  It wasn't an end; it was a beginning.

This time...not so much.  I went from knowing that I would have 2 children in a few short months to learning my baby had passed away in a matter of minutes.  It was like being hit by a train.  There was no hope to be had, no progress to be made, and no weeks worth of time to slowly process what I was learning.  This was it; there was no more.

I'm ready to reach that ordinary world.  I don't want to have it continue to take my breath away at random moments each day.  I'm ready to not feel the weight of this loss so heavy on my back each day.  I want to remember her without feeling like my heart is breaking each time I do.

I want to wake up one day - carrying her in my heart - knowing that this is not the end of the road.