Just need to get through the next four days.

I always have a difficult time when the middle of the month comes along but this month is especially difficult.  I knew these days were coming up but even though I knew they were approaching... the next four days are going to be rough.

Tomorrow... Olivia would have been 8 months old.  I wonder what she would be doing.  She would probably crawling.  What about standing on her pudgy little legs?  Would she have liked the jumping horse my mom got her?  What about food?  Would she have liked peas and carrots?

Friday... 4 months since she died.  4 months and we still don't know what happened!  The coroner called this week just to let me know that they are waiting on a report from Children's Hospital.  I know that the doctors at Children's Hospital are busy but do they know how awfully heartbreaking it is to not know?  Please hurry up.  I pray everyday that we will find out soon.  I just want to know.

Saturday... the first day when Olivia will be gone longer then she was here... 4 months and 2 days since she died.  It is so weird to me that I only knew her for such a short time.  A very good friend of mine married someone that she had only known a few months and at the time I thought she was crazy... but I understand now.  It doesn't matter how long you know someone- if you love them- you love them.

And Sunday... Father's Day.  A very odd day.  Nick's first Father's Day... but we have no baby to take to the Brewer's Game.  No baby to take for a walk or to celebrate with.  I tried to pick out a card for him but there was nothing that said the right thing.  I suppose that someday I won't hate Mother's Day and Father's Day so much... but right now it seems like the stupidest holiday.  Why have a specific day to celebrate something that only brings pain for so many?

So that is what the next few days hold.  I know there will be lots of days like this... many "Olivia would have been x today."  Many more years of wondering what she would be doing now.  I do find some comfort in knowing that nothing can be as bad as it was.  Nothing can be worse then February 17th.  While others might wonder what life has in store for them, I no longer worry about it.  The only way I can get out of bed everyday is because I know I have lived though the worst day of my life.  And since it didn't kill me, that can only mean that now I am stronger.

I miss my husband.

This summer Nick is going to the police academy in Platville, WI- about 2.5 hours away.  He has an apartment there and only comes home on the weekends.  I am happy for him and while it is only Monday thru Friday- it sucks.  I miss him.  I do not like being alone.

Don't get me wrong... I am busy.  Work has been busy lately and it isn't easy keeping up with cutting the grass, "training" for a 5 k, going to Zumba and trying to keep the house clean.  It is just that as nice as everyone is, Nick is the only one who really knows.  He understands.  I miss that.  I miss being able to tell someone- I still miss her.  I miss being able to talk to him about her.  Everyone tries to understand and "put themselves in my shoes" but Nick is the only one who does understand.  He is the only person walking in the same shoes as me.

I know that we have been strong enough to make it though deployments before so I am sure that we make it through this.  It is just seems more difficult now.  Luckily, it is only a few weeks... the summer always goes fast and it will be Labor Day before I know it.

Mixed emotion

I have not been writing as much lately.  It is not because I don't have anything left to say... I have just been very busy at work lately and the thought of getting on the computer when I get home does not sound like fun.  So now there is so much to write about but today I want to just tell you why my feelings lately are so confusing and conflicting.  I feel that I am being pulled in two different directions.  Let me explain.

Last week my niece Ivy turned 4 months and 2 days old and a few days later share was 16 weeks 6 days old.  That is older then Olivia.  Olivia was 4 months 1 day or 16 weeks 5 days.  Ivy was not supposed to get older then Olivia.  In some ways that makes me so sad but at the same time I am happy.  I am happy to see Ivy grow up and am excited to see her laugh and smile- a task she just learned how to "on demand."   I am just sad that I will never see Olivia laugh again.  I miss her laugh so much.  How can one thing make you both so happy and yet sad at the same time?

Sometimes, I find myself so jealous of my sister and my friends.  Everyone else's baby's are gowning up... and mine never will.  It is so hard to not be jealous.  At other times, that doesn't always make sense to me either.  At times, I feel that being jealous of them is so selfish.  Some of my very good friends are struggling so hard to just get pregnant and others have had so many complications with pregnancies that they will never know the joy of having a baby.  I guess I should be grateful and most of the time I am.  Most of the time I really am... but other times I am not.  Other times I am just plain ... angry; just plain sad.  I feel like a kid that was given candy and then had ripped from their sticky hands.  I don't understand... why let me know the joy of motherhood and then take it away?  Which is worse- never knowing- or knowing what you lost?  Is it really better to have loved and lost then to never have loved at all?

I have read enough about grief that I know all these feelings are normal.  Grief is not linear and I will go back and fourth.  I know that eventually I won't have such a roller coaster of emotion.  Eventually, I will make it through a week without having that punched in the stomach.feeling.  One day, I will make it through a week without thinking "oh my God, this really happened."  Until then... I guess I will just have to keep writing because it really does help.  Thanks to all of you for reading.