I'm exhausted- physically, mentally, emotionally exhausted.

The visit with my parents was wonderful. It kept me very busy, which was a nice distraction from all of the pain and grief that I have been feeling. They left on Monday afternoon and it was a difficult good-bye. I love living here, and I love my life here for the most part, but lately I've been hearing my "home" far away calling me back. I guess since losing Rieky (MIL) and since losing Ricky I am just missing that comfortably familiar feeling of 'family.' If it were not for the financial implications I think we would pack up and move right away. I think my husband even feels it. Now that both of his parents have passed on there is just not really a reason to stay here anymore. Of course with the financial aspect of it all it's just not possible to pick up our lives and move to a different country at the moment. Maybe in the future, who knows?

The house just felt so empty again yesterday. Part of me was relieved about it because I finally had a moment alone again, a moment to sit and weep, a moment to cry and scream and ask that question with no answer.... WHY? After the moment was over it just felt empty again though, and that is a feeling that I am just so uncomfortable with.

It's been 7 weeks today since my precious little boy was born. I never imagined that I could ever miss someone this much, especially someone that I never had the chance to know. I never imagined that I could love the way that I love him. I am sad and angry that he is gone, but even so I would never want to change the fact that he was with me once. I am such a different person than I was before his existence. I hope that some of those changes go away with time, like thinking a bit more negatively. I have always been an optimist and I do hope that my optimism returns one day. There are other changes that I want to keep forever. Like the empathy that I feel when I see someone else's pain, like the gratitude and appreciation that I have for my husband and my parents and my family and my friends that I have always had, but before Ricky too often took for granted.

I'm starting to see and plan for my future again. I feel that optimistic spirit starting to return, even if only in tiny little pieces. Does that mean I miss him any less?? No, not at all. I miss him more and more every day. Does that mean I love him less?? No, my love for him just keeps growing. My love for him is what is healing me. It fills my heart and makes me want to live again. Often that love touches a part of my heart that is still tender and raw, and then it hurts, and then I sob and I wail and I cry out for mercy! But after the sobbing and wailing comes peace as that part of my heart begins to heal, because this love that I have for him, it is the purest sense of love that I have ever felt. This kind of love, no matter what the circumstances, can only enrich my life and feed my soul. This love transcends my anguish, it overpowers my despair. This love is good and pure and could never be a bad thing to experience.

It's strange how some days are just tougher than others. Today was a tough one in a lot of ways. I just miss him SO MUCH. I saw him today though. There were three little baby birds learning to fly in our back yard this afternoon. One of them landed right on my sleeve as I was trying to take a picture of it. SO beautiful. Anyway, it brought a tear to my eye. As he flew from my sleeve part of me felt like I was letting go of my sweet baby, watching him find his own wings and take flight.

I miss him. *sigh*

Erik and I were just outside looking at the very beautiful night sky. He said, "There's so much I could have taught Ricky about the stars." I started thinking.... it's every parent's dream that their children will know more than they know and be better people than they are, right? Well, I guess that's one dream that I had for him that has happened. He doesn't have the limitations of this earth holding him back. My sweet baby angel, oh how I miss him.

There was a memorial service tonight at the care facility where my mother in law spent her last few days. The service was for all of those residents who had passed on in the first three months of the year. There was a ceremony in which the pastor called the name of the departed and a family member stepped to the front and took a rose with their name on it and put it in a vase. The service wasn't really all that emotional, I mean, most of the deaths were older people who passed on weeks and months ago. I guess we just tend to 'move on' from those deaths a bit easier, when people lived long lives. Anyway, there was a point during the rose ceremony where the pastor called the name of a woman, and an old man stood up to walk forward to collect the rose. I'm in tears just writing about it now. He stood up and he was just frozen, with tears running down his face. Someone else stood up with him and had to help him up to the front. My parents were there too, and of course they were just sitting there not understanding a word (as it was all in dutch,) but when that man stood there, with his sorrow and grief on his face we were all in tears. I guess there are some things that transcends all languages and grief is one of those things.

I do miss him. I feel like I'm missing out on so much. I just wish I could understand everything. I just wish I could see some purpose in it all.

My parents are here! It's nice. It just feels really good to have family around me. There hasn't been a whole lot of bonding time yet, they've got to overcome the jetlag first. I think everyone else in the house is sleeping at the moment. Even the two little piggies are hiding away in their houses.

I've been doing REALLY well lately. I feel like there has been a definate change for the better. I'm still very sad, and I still even cry a lot, but the dark, desperate, lonely grief seems to have lifted.

Yesterday was a sad day, I really couldn't keep my mother-in-law and Ricky off of my mind. I cried a lot while I was cleaning and preparing everything for my parents, but I was actually able to DO the work. Just last week I found myself sitting in a heap of weepiness because I was totally overcome by the work that had to be done. Then yesterday, no problems! No anxiety, no depression, just a few tears that I let freely roll down my face whenever it was necessary.

I'm looking forward to the future. I am starting to SEE a future again. Ricky will go with me through the rest of my life. I will always carry him and always love him. I'm sure there will again be dark days in my future, maybe even tomorrow, I won't know until then. For now I'm just going to enjoy the peace that surrounds me and the way that this smile feels on my face.

Friendship- sometimes in our darkest hours it's easy to forget how important true friendship is in our lives. Yesterday evening a wonderful friend of mine came for a visit. We talked and laughed and cried the entire evening away. Today I am feeling refreshed and renewed. I feel like my soul has been cleansed. My grief is not gone, and probably won't be for awhile, but with the help of my friend it has become lighter. I don't feel like my entire being is weighed down by my grief anymore. Thank you Tera for the hope and the peace that you've brought to me!

Home-
An environment offering security and happiness.
A valued place regarded as a refuge or place of origin


I've been thinking about 'home' all day today. The only thing that feels like home lately is my husband. When he is not here I just feel like I'm passing the day away in this building, when he's here I feel like I'm home. Sometimes I feel like I'm just stuck between two places. When I am here I want to go 'home' to West Virginia. When I am in West Virginia I want to go 'home' to the Netherlands.

In the past year or two I've started to really feel at home here, I've started building my life here. I am to the point that I understand the language well enough to always know what's going on around me, and I speak the language well enough to be involved in conversations and to make myself at least understood in almost all circumstances. I was working, I was creating new relationships, I was enjoying life.

Now I feel like I'm starting all over again. I'm totally dependent on Erik for everything lately. Financially, emotionally, even spiritually in some ways. I'm just feeling so lost and it's not a nice place to be.

Everyone keeps saying that it gets easier, that there will be a day when I don't cry at all. I believed that for awhile, I held on to that for awhile. It's true that I don't wake up in tears every morning the way I did the first week after I lost Ricky. It's true that I don't spend every waking moment feeling sad and alone. It is not, however, feeling any easier. If anything, the pain is only cutting me deeper and deeper as the days pass. I try not to lock myself up in this house, I try to go out and face the world. It's difficult. Mostly I just wish that I could stay in bed all day.

I took this online test, the Goldberg test on a medical site, measuring depression. This is what it has to say about me: You have the symptoms of severe depression. The condition seems to cause serious problems in your everyday life, and you should consult your doctor immediately. Well I guess I knew that answer already, and I guess it's probably even the EXPECTED result in situations like this. Just a few short weeks ago I would have answered all of those questions SO very differently.

I'm thinking I might actually go see my Dr. about this all anyway. He actually made a house call the week I lost Ricky, just to check my general health, check that my uterus felt the way it should, and see where I was psychologically. He gave me some meds then to help me sleep and help me when I felt really anxious and upset. I HATE taking meds, but I'm thinking of asking for something again anyway. I feel like if I could just get my footing a little bit, if I just had a little bit of help somehow dealing with all of this anxiety and stress that keeps eating away at me, that I might actually start to see a light at the end of the tunnel.

I'm starting to feel all of this pressure to "get over it." Not from Erik or from any really close friends, but from the rest of the world. The neighbors are starting to give me strange looks and even my dad said the other day "you're going to have to be strong and just deal with this." I don't think he really meant it the way that I heard it to be honest, but I really feel like he has NO clue where I am right now.

There's more to write, but I'm out of energy.

Things are going well today. I took a few of the suggestions from my comments, and it seems to be working. First of all, before Erik left for work I asked him to give me a few suggestions on exactly what I should do today in order to try and prepare for my parents arrival this weekend. That helped a lot because it helps me NOT feel totally overwhelmed by everything that needs to be done. So after he left I decided to tackle the kitchen. I put on some music and decided that if I could make it through at least 1 song then I had something to be proud of. Well, getting started was the most difficult part. Once I got started it felt quite therapeutic really. Before I knew it the entire kitchen was clean (with the exception of the floors, but that can wait for either later today, or tomorrow.) It always feels better when I'm not surrounded by chaos. I am defiantly no perfectionist, but having order in my home helps bring order to my mind.

A dear friend of mine has a child who is autistic. Yesterday I was researching autism a bit because I feel like the more I know, the better friend I can be to her. I found a web page full of poetry written by an autistic man in his 40's. The poetry wasn't the traditional poetry that we think of. He was just writing, in the most honest way I've ever seen, his thoughts, his fears, his loneliness. I was totally enthralled by his writing. I read so much of it, that after awhile I found myself thinking in that same pattern that he wrote in. It was excruciating really. I feel like I got this tiny little glimpse of exactly what it must be like to live with autism. To be honest, it made me feel like I had so much inside of me, so much that I wanted to express, so much that I wanted to share, but my mind and body wouldn't co-operate with me anymore. Things in my head were moving SO FAST that I couldn't stop long enough to express any of those things in any way that the world could understand. I felt so incredibly frustrated that I broke down into a weeping, blubbering mess and had no idea how to function normally anymore. I'm glad I had that experience. I feel like I learned so much, about myself, about the world, about the way that we treat other human beings that society in general considers 'disabled.' We're really all the same in our core. We all have the basic needs of shelter, food, clothing, and LOVE. We all need to feel like there is someone in this world who understands us and accepts us as we are.

I had so many good intentions today. I was going to scrub away this pain, put everything in it's place, bring order and beauty and happiness again.

Instead I sit here crying and unshowered, the dishes are piled in the sink, the floors are dirty and dust covers everything good and right

I'm sitting here shaking. I don't know how to do it anymore. What do I do with the dirty dishes?
How can there ever be order?

My heart tells me to just break it all, just throw those dishes in the floor and walk over them until my feet are bloody, until they hurt so much I don't feel the pain in my heart.

It's almost 7 o'clock in the evening and families are laughing in the park across the street. I'm just sitting here in my dirty, empty house waiting for someone to tell me what to do next.

I really did have good intentions today. I just don't know where to start anymore.

God, grant me the serenity

to accept the things I cannot change;

the courage to change the things I can;

and the wisdom to know the difference.

Yes, I know it's the prayer they say at AA, I've seen it on TV enough. I also know that this prayer is sometimes so overused that it seems almost cliche, but this prayer has been keeping me going all day.

I realized today, my life has changed SO MUCH in the last few months. I found out I was pregnant, which was terrifying and exhilarating all at once. Only a few days after finding out I was pregnant, my mother in law was diagnosed with terminal cancer and we were told that she had only about 3 months to live. Actually, the last conversation that we had with her outside of the hospital was to tell her that we were expecting. That was Feb. 2. She was admitted to the hospital only a few days after that with severe stomach pain and increasing signs of dementia and alzheimer's. During most of her hospital stay it was difficult to converse with her. Sometimes she would say things like "I have something so important to tell you.... la la la la la la la la." It was SO very difficult seeing her in that state. She was truly the most loving woman that I've ever known and our relationship with each other was very special and unique. Her family, myself included, had to make a very difficult decision to put her into a sort of care facility. She was moved from the hospital to the care facility on March 20. On March 21 she passed away. in about 6 weeks time she went from a very happy and vibrant woman, to a woman who was dependent on morphine for pain relief, a woman who could no longer feed herself and bathe herself. In a lot of ways her death was easier to deal with emotionally than the end of her life was. It was just so terribly heartbreaking to see her that way. This amazing woman whom I loved so much, this amazing woman who raised my husband to be the kind of man that ANY mother would be proud of. After her funeral I was very sad, but I was also happy for her, that she could finally rest, that she would finally have life again with the dignity and grace that she deserves.

Oh yes..... I was talking about all of the changes. Of course the next big change was the most painful on the personal level. That was the loss of my baby. The loss of all of those hopes and dreams. Not being able to know the person that he would grow up to be. Not being able to have Friday night movie nights, where we watched "shark tale" every Friday for two months straight. Not even knowing what color his hair would be, or what color his eyes would be. Not knowing if he would have his daddy's smile.

Of course, then we come to another change in our home. The loss of our beloved pet piggy, Lucy. Yes, she was just a guinea pig, and perhaps those of you who have never had a pet and those of you who are not animal lovers don't quite understand that it can be quite painful. That's ok, we're all different and there's nothing wrong with that. I did love her though, and my house feels like it's missing something now that she's gone.

There have been other more positive changes too. A new car, a different job for my husband (which is why we got the new car) I lost my job. Maybe that doesn't seem positive, and at the time it didn't feel that way either, but NOW it feels positive. I never could have dealt with the pressure that I had there and I'm not sad that I don't have to go there anymore. I do miss a few of my co-workers though, I miss being surrounded by a lot of really good people every day.

I know this entry is quite rambling, I guess I just needed to write all of this down. My point is, my life has been full of changes lately. Some big changes, some small changes. It's sometimes just overwhelming and I wish that things could just stay the same for a few minutes, but the changes are constant, and most of them I have no control over.

I've been trying to control things. I've been feeling guilty thinking that I COULD have controlled things. That's why the prayer has been in my mind so much today. I need to take a step back. I need to stop trying to control the things that I have no control over. I need to make positive changes in my life in the places where I CAN control things. I need to be able to see the difference.

Sympathy cards- I'm drowning in them. Now don't get me wrong, I think it's really kind that people send them to me, I'm just so tired of having reason for people to send me sympathy cards. I have a huge pile that we received after losing Erik's mom, and another huge pile we received after losing Ricky. Today in the mail there was one from our Vet wishing us strength while dealing with the loss of our pet, Lucy. It was enough to send me over the edge for a little while. It was enough to open up the flood gates and send me to the place of the 'ugly cry' for awhile. I feel like I can't breathe, like I don't even want to breathe anymore. I'm paranoid about what's coming next. I've always tried to be positive, but I feel like I can't keep setting myself up anymore. Every time I start believing that I'm going to be alright I get another kick in the stomache. I know that there are so many people in the world who have been through worse than this, but they must be stronger people than I am because for me it's just enough. I can't take anymore, I'm not even sure I can take what I already have.

Today is a very sad day. Sometime in the night, my sweet little piggie Lucy passed away. My grief just keeps piling up, and I feel like I'm going to break. There's just been too much death and too much grief lately and now I feel like even those simple little pleasures, those little things that hold me together, are being taken away too.

Yesterday evening my husband and I took a drive to a little house in the woods, only a few miles away, where he, his parents, and his 7 brothers and sisters spent their summers. It's really nothing more than a tiny little shack in the middle of the woods, but to hear him speak of those times, it's as if they all went to the most wonderful, exotic place on earth every summer. They didn't have electricity or anything, and they got their food fresh from all of the farmers who lived nearby. They didn't have a car at that time, and his father would drive them all there, one by one, on his little moped. When he talks of those innocent days of childhood his eyes light up and I can see that child, still there, underneath the exterior adult shell that he carries.

I wrote a poem this morning about driving through those woods. It's been a very long time since I've tried my hand at poetry, so it is perhaps a bit rough around the edges.


Driving through the countryside

Driving through the countryside
to the place of childhood dreams
where my sweetheart spent long summer days
dancing in the streams

I saw my sweet small angel there
tucked in behind a tree
he smiled and waved and as he played called
"Mama, look! I'm free!"

Behind him was his grandmother
with smiling big blue eyes
she scooped him up and kissed his cheek
they both waved their good-byes

The tears came flowing down my face
but they were not tears of pain
they were tears of hope and promise
that I will see them both again

And as we left that sacred place
that place of innocent dreams
my son played where his father had
dancing in the streams

Lisa J.
May 10, 2006

She's BAaaaaaaaaaaaaCkk! AF has arrived! (If you don't know what AF means then you are probably a guy, and if you are a guy then you probably don't WANT to know what it means so you should just skip this post :P)

I never thought I could be so happy to see that cranky ole girl, but I am SO happy to see her. It makes me feel normal and hopeful. It makes me feel like I've been given permission to move on, even if only a little bit. HORRAYYY for Auntie Flo!!

All day today I've been going slowly up the hill. I've been able to keep my emotions in check for the most part and I've actually accomplished SOMETHING today, even if it's only a little bit. Well, in the last hour, since my last post actually, things have been going quickly downhill again. This is what I want to know. WILL I ever be a mother with a child here to hold and love??? I really wish that I could KNOW that answer. I've wanted to be a mother my ENTIRE life. I just wish I could look into the future and see the answer. If the answer is NO then I'd like to know it now and start dealing with it now so that I can start letting go of those hopes and dreams instead of spending my life heartbroken because all of the attempts of having a child fail.

I don't know if any of this makes any sense, I guess I just needed to vent.

My parents are coming for a visit in 13 days! I've got mixed emotions about it all. I REALLY want to see them, I miss them being a daily part of my life. I think it's the most difficult thing about living on a different continent. At the same time I'm sad about the visit. I'm not sad that they'll be here, but I'm sad that the trip was originally planned as something different. Originally they were coming to help me get prepared for the arrival of Ricky.

The biggest problem I'm having at the moment is just preparing for their arrival. I can't seem to find the energy or motivation to get this place in order. It's been a bigger mess than usual lately. Somehow laundry, dusting, vaccuming, cooking, it all seems so trivial and like a big waste of time. Not that I'm doing anything ELSE with my time besides sitting around on the computer all day. I did get a tiny little corner cleaned out. Maybe if I just do that amount every day until they are here it will all work out alright.

I guess in the long run it all doesn't really matter. My parents will be here. I know that they don't really care how clean my house is, they don't care if everything is 'perfect' for their arrival, they only care about being here and spending time with Erik and I.

The Wadden Sea
A field of flowers
Rescued seal at Pieterburen
The seals who will be released into the wild again soon
Another cutie who was found too thin, and seperated from his mother

There's nothing like a roadtrip to de-stress and put things in a different perspective. As I'm sure you all could tell from my recent blog entries, I've been in a bit of a funk lately. I felt like I was on a downward spiral into depression and didn't know how to work my way back up again.

On Friday evening there was a story on the news about a seal rescue in Pieterburen here in the Netherlands. Erik said, "HEY!! Let's go there tomorrow!" So yesterday morning we made an MP3 disk of traveling music, loaded the piggies cage with food and water, and left on a three hour trip to the northern part of the country.

I had some sad times along the way. I kept thinking about how on our last road trip (a BIG one then, a week long drive from West Virginia to Texas and back again) our little Ricky was conceived. It was sad to think about, but beautiful to think about too. Another sad moment was when a song came on called "Afscheid" (Goodbye) I couldn't figure out how to get it to go away and I was waving my arms around trying to get Erik to turn it off. He just looked at me like I was crazy for a second, and then figured out what I wanted. Then it was also a little bit sad when we were at the seal rescue because I kept thinking about how nice it would be to take Ricky there.

As sad as some moments were I WAS HAPPY! I mean, we had a really good time together. After we left the seal rescue we just drove along the coast line for a few hours. We stopped at the sea and soaked in the beauty of it all. We drove through beautiful farming villages and enjoyed the flowery fields.

It was a beautiful day, and I felt like Ricky was everywhere I looked. He was there in all of nature. In the beauty of the sea, in those beautiful seals that were in need of help, in the hundreds of tiny little lambs that we saw along the way. In all of the beautiful things that God has given us, I saw the face of my son. Not the face of his pain and my pain, that I sometimes can't see through, but the face of beauty and happiness. The face of the child who came to this earth for a purpose and left when he fulfilled that purpose. I don't understand it all yet, it's hard to see what the 'good' could be in this all, but I do firmly believe that my son's presence on this earth has changed it forever.

I'm glad that it's the weekend. It will be nice to NOT be alone for a few days. When I'm alone I start thinking about all of the things that I don't really want to think about. Things like how much Ricky must have suffered in the 24 hours between my water breaking and his delivery. It's just so apparent in the pictures that I have of him that his passing was not easy, and that he really fought to stay with us. It hurts me so deep, knowing that, and it makes me feel guilty that my body couldn't protect him from it.

The last two days have been a bit dark. I feel weak and defeated. I feel lonely and desperate and like I wish I could just disappear.

I would have been 20 weeks today. 20 weeks... halfway through.

Sometimes I feel like I'm just fooling myself when I say that everything's ok. Well, it's 4am, I haven't slept and everytime I try to close my eyes and sleep I only see pictures of my baby in my head. I feel like I'm hanging by a thread here. I just don't know how to do this anymore. How will anything EVER be ok again when I have this big hole in my heart. I feel sad and angry and guilty and I just have NO IDEA how I'm supposed to deal with this, how I'm supposed to ever move on from this.

I just want my baby. I just want to hold him and love him and feed him. I want to teach him and nurture him and guide him and hope that he becomes a GOOD man, like his father.

Please, someone tell me, how do I take this pain away???

Some things that Ricky has taught me:

I've learned that life comes to us one heartbeat at a time, and that is exactly how we must face it.

I've learned that sometimes there is no answer to the question WHY?

I've learned that being a mother has nothing to do with how many children live in your house.

I've learned that I must be open and face the pain involved with the human condition. I must be more sensitive and supportive when those around me are in pain.

I've learned that I should never take for granted the wonderful gift that God gave to me the first day that my life and Erik's crossed paths.

Ok, I'm going to let you all in on a little secret about me. I really really LOVE hard rock/heavy metal music. I don't look like it so much on the outside, but on the inside there is part of me who is tattooed and likes to wear black t-shirts that say OZZY RULES. I'm actually a fan of just about every kind of music ever written, but sometimes there is just nothing better than that sound of electric guitars going crazy and that heavy beat that just permeates through your whole body. So Erik and I went out for a drive to get some Greek food tonight, and AC/DC's Thunderstruck was playing on the stereo. I cranked it up about as loud as it could get. I felt SO FREE!! For the first time in three weeks..... FREEDOM, like a bird soaring through the air. I forgot what that felt like, to displace my grief, even if only temporarily, just felt really good.

Overall it hasn't been a bad day today. I find that confronting myself with my grief is actually helping. Like today, for instance, I looked at the pictures of Ricky and I looked through the baby book that I had started for him. It HURTS to do that, but it also hurts not to. I've decided that it's the only way I can deal with it all. I have to confront myself with it sometimes, and hide from it at other times. I feel like, as soon as I can find the balance between those two that things will really start to get better.

Every time I think "OH, I'm doing well!" I come crashing back down to earth in tiny broken pieces.

I went to the hospital this morning for blood tests. Getting blood from me isn't easy. Apparently I have thin blood vessels??? Anyway, I always tell them beforehand that it's difficult and they always act like 'yeah right, that's what everyone says.' Then they have to stick more than once because the first one never works, or only works for about half of a vile of blood.

Back to the crashing...
After the blood tests I went to the grocery store. Now, during my whole pregnancy I craved peaches. Nice, juicy, fresh peaches. Unfortunately they weren't in season and I never got to enjoy a peach while pregnant. So I walk into the grocery store, I see a tray of apples (that look a bit like peaches from a distance) and I started crying because I thought "Poor little Ricky really wanted to have a peach and never got one." I was able to pull myself together and continue with the shopping. I did alright for the next 10 minutes, until I was on the other side of the store, although I was still feeling quite sad and emotional. Of course, it couldn't be ANY other way, a very pregnant and glowing woman walked right by me. I burst into tears.... Literally. I'm sure she thought that I was a total nut case, she kind of just walked very quickly past me and then Erik was there behind me, whispering in my ear that it was ok and picking up all of the pieces of me so that we can start gluing them all back together again.