The Depths of Sadness. The Breadth of Happiness.

I was driving home from work today, crying like I typically do.  I’ve come to realize over the – what’s about to be – five months that before Sam died, I really had no concept of the possible depths of my sadness.  My greatest hope then, is that I really have no sense of the possible breadth of my happiness.

One of my sweet Mama sisters recently welcomed her rainbow girl into the world.  They are all kinds of beautiful, Mama and baby.  I have found myself looking again and again at her pictures of sweet rainbow’s birth.  I stare with hope that one day, I will be laying on the operating table, with a perfectly healthy baby experiencing skin to skin together.  It’s strange that her newborn pictures, and the belly photos of two other Mama sisters who are currently pregnant, seem to be the only ones I can truly rejoice in.  It’s heart-wrenching that the rest seem so painful.  I want my rainbow one day.  That must be the ultimate breadth of happiness.  Life.  New life.

In the meantime, here I am.  Broken.  Ted and I met with a genetic counselor yesterday who gently fed the possibilities of life with another child and more insight into the death of Sam.  It was maybe one of the hardest meetings yet.  To know so many precautions will be taken if we ever decide to become pregnant again and to know that there’s nothing I can do to go back and make Sam live again.

I want to bottle up all their knowledge and live May 24th over.  I want to save Sam.

One of my Mama sisters shared with me that there’s a difference in wanting to be pregnant and wanting to be pregnant still.  I waiver, moment by moment, somewhere in between.  I live in such a fragile state I didn’t even know existed.

My pain is deeper.  My love is stronger.  My heart is heavier.  My life is fuller.  Acknowledging it all is exhausting.  Giving grief the time it deserves; acknowledging it’s presence in my life can be so – so hard.  But Sam deserves it all.  If I’m not able to give him life, I feel as though I should be able to live for him.  I should allow myself to feel all of these things and so I do.

I’m admittedly empty.  The specialist OB told Ted I will never feel “safe” until I hold our rainbow baby in my arms.  I can see it when I close my eyes.  I can hear a newborn baby cry.  I can see Ted falling in love all over again.  I can feel our rainbow on my chest.  But I can only imagine.

I’m somewhere in between.  I want a rainbow.  I want Sam.  I want both.  I have neither.  I’m just learning to feel the depths of my sadness.