11/6/15

Last night I finally had time to sit and talk with Brad about how things went with Grace this week. As we talked about the grief process I brought up the baby. I told Brad how I was thinking about him just the other day and everything that went on with Jen. It wasn't until I went through the paper Grace gave me on grief that I realized how I went through the whole process of grieving his loss without even realizing it. I told Brad that just shows me that I am capable of going through this whole grief process.

As Brad and I talked I realized that we haven't talked about the baby pretty much since it happened. It's also interesting that &nbsp;over the past 4 years if I ever think about him, or miss him I <u>let</u> myself feel sad and miss him. I never push down those feelings or ignore them or feeling guilty for have them. I let them come and I let myself feel them and I move on. This is where I need to go to with my mom's death. I've been fighting the whole grieving process for so long, way too long. If those feelings come up, I shove them back down. I have felt like if they come up it is too painful to deal with so I try to ignore them.

I still can not think of anything to do each year though. I'm at a complete loss of ideas.

I do feel like we did take a step, possibly the final step, in grieving the loss of the baby. Before now we have always referred to it/ him as "the baby". We always planned on using the name Payson for a future son. Now that we are done and are not going to be having any more children I suggested we officially make him "Payson". Brad liked that. It still seems so weird to me sometime to completely grasp the fact that he never existed. As Brad put it last night it's the idea of him, the thought of having him. In my head he still seems so real and that is okay. I'm allowed to be sad and miss him. I have noticed though that the whole event is no longer painful. It hasn't been for a long time and it only happened 4 1/2 years ago. Yet, my mom's death still is. I still have so many emotions to work through. That's the important part, working through them instead of trying my hardest not to face them out of fear of pain.

I haven't been able to sleep tonight. By 3:30 I figured maybe a bath would relax me. Instead it seems to wake me up more! I've still been trying to think of what I want to do. It seems so hard when just thinking about my mom most of the time is painful. One of the ideas I do have that doesn't seem that hard to simply bake cookies with my kids. It's one thing I remember doing with her.

After I told Grace the details of my mom's death she asked me some questions. One of them was if I felt loved by my mom. That's been one of the hardest part of losing her was going from feelings loved and wanted to feeling like my grandparents possession. I don't know why, but they (mainly Grandpa) constantly told me that they "saved" me from being a homeless orphan. That doesn't make you feel very loved or wanted now does it? The worst part about that is it is not even true! I can go on and on about that, but I will move on.

Another question was if I feared losing my mom/ knew that it was possible she could die. I simply said yes, actually I just shock my head yes. I didn't go into the painful fact that one of the last things I ever said to my mom the night before she died was, "Are you going to die?". It was as if I knew. Somehow deep down I knew she was going to die that night.