Three

Today marks three months since Nelle was born.  Outside it is foggy, which is a symbolic reflection of how I feel; like I am in a fog.  I came to the realization that I cannot say “three months since we lost our baby” because I do not know exactly what day her heart stopped beating.  Sometime between the ultrasound on August 24th when we first learned that something was wrong, and September 3rd when my OBGYN found no heartbeat at my prenatal appointment.  Sometime in those two weeks, she stopped moving and somehow I did not realize it, or was fooling myself that other twitches were movements, when they weren’t.

I have been in a fog for the past few weeks.  On Thanksgiving, I was numb.  Grateful that hosting provided me with an opportunity to be distracted, but I felt very hollow.  So devoid of feeling in fact, that the day after, I went back and read some of my blog posts from early September, in an effort to feel something.  That made it too real, however – I began reliving the experience and it became incredibly painful, so I stopped.  Better to feel numb than to experience that much pain.

Yesterday, I changed my cover photo on Facebook, from a photo of the tree where we scattered Nelle’s ashes, to a photo of our home, surrounded by snow.  It was unintentional that it was the day that marked three months since we realized she was gone, and two months since she scattered her ashes.  Once I made that connection, it made me cringe a bit.

Today, I’m not numb.  I’m more sad than I have been for awhile.  I had a few weeks of reprieve from the constant weight of sorrow, but it gets harder as I approach my due date in January, thinking about how I would be in the home stretch at this point.