That's usually the thing I do best when I have problems. Right now, I'm running away from my sadness by going to work, exercising like there's no tomorrow and planning trips I can't afford. I know that this year should get better because I pretty much hit rock bottom. I'm just climbing my way out. It's just that everything I have to look forward to is at the end of this year or the beginning of next year. My house, the trip I can't afford and hopefully, a new baby. All the months between then and now are scaring me. It's only June! The days are crawling by and I have to wait 6 months, 6 months for everything to happen. I can't.
I'm planning a trip to Japan just so I have something to look forward to. I really don't think I can afford it. We spent so much on everything that happened. I don't know if we have enough time to recover from that and the car and the house.
I wish I could. I can try but I know that the reason I haven't budgeted the trip yet is because I don't want to face the fact that I can't go. If I can't go I won't have a concrete reason why I shouldn't be pregnant yet and I'll just be depressed... The cycle goes on.
I'm running away very unsuccessfully.
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Sunday, June 14, 2009
Knowing is half the battle
Sometimes I wonder if I'd like to know the real reason behind baby Nathan's congenital defects. A part of me wants to know so that I can make sure that it doesn't happen again on my next pregnancy. Somehow, the doctor's assurance that my next baby will be normal is not so assuring. Considering she can't give an exact reason as to why everything happened.
Another part of me is scared to know what happened. If I did know the real reason, if there is a real definite reason for everything, can I ever forgive myself? The reason will most probably be related to me. It could be something I drank, my sickness during my first trimester or even if it is just pollutants in the air or what I ate, I will still be blaming myself. I would still be stuck in the past regretting what I had done, what I could have done... all those What Ifs...
It'll probably drive me crazy...
So far I have been living without regret even after everything that has happened. I don't want to change that. I'm already hung up on my future.. I want to fast forward to next year so I can try again, I don't want to be hung up in my past as well. I won't have any more time for the present.
Another part of me is scared to know what happened. If I did know the real reason, if there is a real definite reason for everything, can I ever forgive myself? The reason will most probably be related to me. It could be something I drank, my sickness during my first trimester or even if it is just pollutants in the air or what I ate, I will still be blaming myself. I would still be stuck in the past regretting what I had done, what I could have done... all those What Ifs...
It'll probably drive me crazy...
So far I have been living without regret even after everything that has happened. I don't want to change that. I'm already hung up on my future.. I want to fast forward to next year so I can try again, I don't want to be hung up in my past as well. I won't have any more time for the present.
Back to work
I'm finally back to work. Grief has one simple solution: go back to normal. You can't spend time figuring out why things happen or what will happen next. The best thing is to get back to work and normal things as soon as possible. This is something I wish I can do. However since I didn't exactly spread the news about what happened to baby Nathan and a lot of people knew I was pregnant, I am now faced with the awkwardness of explaining. I lie a lot. If I can pass off that I was pregnant and no one asks about my baby, I'd rather they assume that my baby is healthy and alive. People usually assume the best anyway. Unfortunately I have to be able to tell people what happened if it gets to that.
Last APE I had, I told them I gave birth but I didn't tell the doctor any details. I got away with it.
Last Saturday I met my ninong Jun (godfather at my wedding) and he asked about baby Nathan. I was shocked to know that he didn't hear the news from Dawn so I explained it to him. I was close to tears but I couldn't break down since I was in a hospital corridor full of people I didn't know. I had my check up and the doctor was asking specific questions regarding my pregnancy and if I was still breastfeeding. We pretty much answered all of them without any hint that something was wrong until the doctor asked me how much my baby weighed now. Then we had to go through the awkward explanation again. I hate that. I really do. I don't like telling people about what happened, getting the generic responses of: "It'll be alright", "God has a plan", "You now have an angel in heaven" or "You're still young, you'll still have more kids..."
Neal says people will approach you and just suddenly pout or show a sad face and it never really helps.
Today, I talked to one of my officemates and I realized that since she wasn't in my team, she knows nothing. She just asked me what gender my baby was and she was happy to find out it was a boy. I couldn't tell her. I didn't want to cry.
How do you deal with that? Especially the higher ups? This is just so awkward. I don't know what to do anymore. I'll just have to face it one day at a time and hope that the people I don't tell the news to don't feel bad for not knowing.
Last APE I had, I told them I gave birth but I didn't tell the doctor any details. I got away with it.
Last Saturday I met my ninong Jun (godfather at my wedding) and he asked about baby Nathan. I was shocked to know that he didn't hear the news from Dawn so I explained it to him. I was close to tears but I couldn't break down since I was in a hospital corridor full of people I didn't know. I had my check up and the doctor was asking specific questions regarding my pregnancy and if I was still breastfeeding. We pretty much answered all of them without any hint that something was wrong until the doctor asked me how much my baby weighed now. Then we had to go through the awkward explanation again. I hate that. I really do. I don't like telling people about what happened, getting the generic responses of: "It'll be alright", "God has a plan", "You now have an angel in heaven" or "You're still young, you'll still have more kids..."
Neal says people will approach you and just suddenly pout or show a sad face and it never really helps.
Today, I talked to one of my officemates and I realized that since she wasn't in my team, she knows nothing. She just asked me what gender my baby was and she was happy to find out it was a boy. I couldn't tell her. I didn't want to cry.
How do you deal with that? Especially the higher ups? This is just so awkward. I don't know what to do anymore. I'll just have to face it one day at a time and hope that the people I don't tell the news to don't feel bad for not knowing.
Thursday, June 4, 2009
faith
I've been wondering why I haven't lost faith in God. When people get affected by tragedy I believe they can go in one of two ways: your faith in God is strengthened or you lose it completely. I was never a very devout Catholic. If I can stop going to Church I will. Before I got pregnant I don't even remember when I last prayed at night so constantly. I believed in God as in the Catholic Church but I'm not ignorant of how man can easily manipulate religion. When I was in High School I actually wanted to switch to Buddhism, and I even became a kind of atheist for a time until I found out that I had too much faith in me to be a true atheist. Plus, I couldn't live with the uncertainty.
Faith is a person's lifeline. The one thing that gives you hope. Hope that everything will eventually be better, hope that all your dreams will come true and most especially, hope that when you die, it's not the end.
Now I know why I didn't lose my faith. Why I don't blame God for anything. I don't understand what happened but I didn't lose faith.
Every time I go to church or pray, I cry. Especially when there are songs and lines that tell you God can do anything and He can give you what you need. I can't handle it. I don't understand the effect it has on me. Whether it's good or not. If I feel sad because for me God has failed me or because it's giving me hope that God will give me what I need.
All I know right now is that I believe in God and Heaven and everything because if I don't then I have to believe that I will never see my son again. That he spent one day here with me and I will never see him again. I can't accept that. I believe in God because that gives me hope that one day... someday... I will be able to go to heaven and I can be with my son again. Right now, that's all I'm clinging on.
It's been almost two months and I still cry. I still can't let go.
I only wish I'm not going insane yet.
Faith is a person's lifeline. The one thing that gives you hope. Hope that everything will eventually be better, hope that all your dreams will come true and most especially, hope that when you die, it's not the end.
Now I know why I didn't lose my faith. Why I don't blame God for anything. I don't understand what happened but I didn't lose faith.
Every time I go to church or pray, I cry. Especially when there are songs and lines that tell you God can do anything and He can give you what you need. I can't handle it. I don't understand the effect it has on me. Whether it's good or not. If I feel sad because for me God has failed me or because it's giving me hope that God will give me what I need.
All I know right now is that I believe in God and Heaven and everything because if I don't then I have to believe that I will never see my son again. That he spent one day here with me and I will never see him again. I can't accept that. I believe in God because that gives me hope that one day... someday... I will be able to go to heaven and I can be with my son again. Right now, that's all I'm clinging on.
It's been almost two months and I still cry. I still can't let go.
I only wish I'm not going insane yet.
dreams and prophecies
There was a time in my life when I could predict death. I could predict someone's death within days. I just didn't know exactly who will die but there were different signs. If I cried in my sleep, someone in my father's side will die. If I heard a whistle blown beside my ear, someone in my mother's side will die. If I felt strangely frightened at night that I couldn't sleep with the lights off, a friend or someone I knew will die. For three or four years that was my life.
When I got pregnant though I stopped seeing things, stopped feeling invisible things and I thought it was the pregnancy. During my first trimester, around my third month, I had a horrible dream. I dreamt that my baby had been born incomplete, he was born too early and I was panicking but I couldn't do anything. All I wanted to do was to get him back inside me and I couldn't do anything. I never knew that I should have listened to that dream. Maybe I could have prepared myself more. Neal says the timing could be perfect since it was during my third month and Nathan's problems most probably occurred during that time. If I can trust my dreams, which I dare not to, I also dreamt of three kids. Two boys and one girl in three separate dreams. The boys were around 6 years old and the girl was around 3. I knew none of the boys were Nathan and I should have trusted that as well.
Do I dare hope? I guess I do. I wish I have twins, twin boys preferably. Sometimes I find myself counting months. Months before I can actually conceive again and I'm so scared. I'm hoping it stops when I start working. I can only hope.
When I got pregnant though I stopped seeing things, stopped feeling invisible things and I thought it was the pregnancy. During my first trimester, around my third month, I had a horrible dream. I dreamt that my baby had been born incomplete, he was born too early and I was panicking but I couldn't do anything. All I wanted to do was to get him back inside me and I couldn't do anything. I never knew that I should have listened to that dream. Maybe I could have prepared myself more. Neal says the timing could be perfect since it was during my third month and Nathan's problems most probably occurred during that time. If I can trust my dreams, which I dare not to, I also dreamt of three kids. Two boys and one girl in three separate dreams. The boys were around 6 years old and the girl was around 3. I knew none of the boys were Nathan and I should have trusted that as well.
Do I dare hope? I guess I do. I wish I have twins, twin boys preferably. Sometimes I find myself counting months. Months before I can actually conceive again and I'm so scared. I'm hoping it stops when I start working. I can only hope.
somewhere i have never travelled
somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond
any experience,your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near
your slightest look will easily unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully,mysteriously)her first rose
or if your wish be to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully ,suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;
nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility:whose texture
compels me with the color of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing
(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens;only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody,not even the rain,has such small hands
-- ee cummings
any experience,your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near
your slightest look will easily unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully,mysteriously)her first rose
or if your wish be to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully ,suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;
nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility:whose texture
compels me with the color of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing
(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens;only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody,not even the rain,has such small hands
-- ee cummings
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
sadness and a lot of other emotions
Emotions have different movements. I realized it today when I woke up and I felt sadness and grief hovering less than 3 feet from my bed. I was all alone because everyone had gone to work and that scares me, being alone in a dark and silent house allows sadness to creep up to you without notice. This is why I spend my days in front of the computer waiting for people to talk to me. Why I sit in front of a blazing tv even when there's nothing good to watch. Sadness can only creep up to you when it's silent. I feel it hovering around me and I make myself busy. I'm really looking forward to going back to work because work keeps you from thinking about the past and worrying about the future. Plus the fact that you're surrounded by active humans all the time.
Sadness creeps, Joy comes and goes without warning, Anger traps you and Pain just grabs you. Jealousy, an emotion I've become very familiar with over the last couple of months usually stabs you in the heart and despair twist that knife around.
I'm being melodramatic now...
I went to the doctor yesterday. She wants me to continue my pills for four to six months. So that's half a year where I can't be pregnant. It depresses me but I refused to think about it yesterday.
Neal and I got a text from our interior designer who we are meeting this Saturday. In the middle of planning for a house we always think about how we are going to extend the Master's bedroom to the nursery. There are times I don't want to. Have you ever heard of "not counting your chicks before they hatch"? I am a firm believer in that. When I got pregnant, even when I didn't know anything was wrong, even when I thought everything was normal, I didn't buy anything baby related till I was 6 months pregnant. Even though I was sooo excited the moment I found out and I planned for everything I wanted to buy during the first trimester, I still didn't buy anything and everything still happened. I still don't have my baby. I'm scared that building the nursery will be too optimistic. I'm still scared about the future. I'm still scared that I might not conceive anymore or something else will happen. It's illogical to be scared over nothing. Even my doctor believes I can conceive easily that she's decided to put me on birth control pills so that I don't get pregnant before my body fully recovers.
I'm currently reading the Dune series and Frank Herbert describes Fear perfectly. "Fear is the mind killer"
Sadness creeps, Joy comes and goes without warning, Anger traps you and Pain just grabs you. Jealousy, an emotion I've become very familiar with over the last couple of months usually stabs you in the heart and despair twist that knife around.
I'm being melodramatic now...
I went to the doctor yesterday. She wants me to continue my pills for four to six months. So that's half a year where I can't be pregnant. It depresses me but I refused to think about it yesterday.
Neal and I got a text from our interior designer who we are meeting this Saturday. In the middle of planning for a house we always think about how we are going to extend the Master's bedroom to the nursery. There are times I don't want to. Have you ever heard of "not counting your chicks before they hatch"? I am a firm believer in that. When I got pregnant, even when I didn't know anything was wrong, even when I thought everything was normal, I didn't buy anything baby related till I was 6 months pregnant. Even though I was sooo excited the moment I found out and I planned for everything I wanted to buy during the first trimester, I still didn't buy anything and everything still happened. I still don't have my baby. I'm scared that building the nursery will be too optimistic. I'm still scared about the future. I'm still scared that I might not conceive anymore or something else will happen. It's illogical to be scared over nothing. Even my doctor believes I can conceive easily that she's decided to put me on birth control pills so that I don't get pregnant before my body fully recovers.
I'm currently reading the Dune series and Frank Herbert describes Fear perfectly. "Fear is the mind killer"
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