Bitterness and regret

C'mon... You didn't think I'd get through this without some crazy thoughts of bitterness and regret, did you?

The good news is that I'm not a terribly angry person. It takes a lot to make me explode and when I do, I get over it fairly quickly. I believe they call people like me "a slow boil."

Well, I'm simmering a little bit right now.

I have a great life. I really do. Any I've meant every single word that I've said about how grateful I am for what I have--a wonderful husband, a caring, loving, and relatively healthy family, great friends, a good job, a roof over my head and two beautiful cats to love... But WHY OH WHY couldn't I have this one item too? Bad things happen to everyone, I understand that--but why couldn't it be my car breaking down, a job loss, or some other kind of shit luck? Why did it have to be my own flesh and blood taken from me? Dammit!

To be honest, I've never had a loss that was really close to me. I've watched and futily tried to help when friends have lost parents, grandparents, loved ones, best friends, etc--but me? The closest to me have been my sister's best friend, a priest at my church that I adored, and my great grandfather that I barely remember. So this grief thing is pretty new to me--and talk about trial by fire! I know it's nothing like losing someone you've loved for years and developed close knit bonds with, but it's a painful, painful loss nonetheless.

She never had a chance. She never got to breathe air or play in a garden or know what it's like to have her momma hold her close. I never got to see her smile, look in her eyes, and play with her.

And then there's the guilt. Thank you jeebus for 9 years of Catholic school that taught me so well how to agonize. You can tell me something's totally not my fault, but these ideas will still creep into my head, but I will say that I have been able to push them out fairly quickly. And luckily everything that I've read about Potters Syndrome helps to alleviate these things as well... but they still happen.

Was it a bad egg because I ovulated so late? Did all of those early ultrasounds affect development? Was it something I did? Did I not drink enough water, causing this spiral of low fluid early when it was desperately needed? Did I get enough calcium? Did I sleep on my back too much and cut off circulation when my baby needed better blood flow? Was it that one taste of alcohol that I had when I accidentally picked up someone else's drink (I'm still pissed that my water was moved without my knowledge)? What if one of these things happened on the day that those cells were supposed to be dividing, causing this awful chain reaction that couldn't be undone?

I know it's silly. I know it is. Medical studies prove otherwise. But they can't prevent these thoughts from creeping into my brain.

So I guess all I'm saying here is that I needed to put these thoughts in writing so that I could look at them, reassure myself that there's just no way they could have played a factor, and move on from them.

xoxo