When I miscarried

So this post is going to be a doozy.

I might sound a little depressing because i'm going to be posting some old journal entries I wrote a few months ago. Right after my miscarriage. I just think it was an incredibly important time in my life. and one I don't ever want to forget. I want to remember every detail.

Does that sound weird? It probably does. It was a traumatic event! Who wants to remember things like that?

Well, welcome to my life haha. I don't like to forget the scary stuff, because the scary parts of life are what teach us the best lessons. If we forget what we were afraid of, we might repeat the fear and be scared again.

Remembering everything helps me to also remember why I am now a better person. It helps me remember that there is nothing to be scared of anymore when it comes to pregnancy because i've already suffered the worst thing, and I got through it :)

So here goes.

Tuesday June 26th, 2012

Technically, it's WEDNESDAY the 27th, because it's maybe 12:45 AM, but i'm not big on technicalities so lets just forget about it.

OH BOY.

I haven't written in a journal for probably a year or two. I've been married for almost 10 months now. My husband just started breathing heavy while looking at his phone, which probably means he's fallen asleep while holding it in his hands....

...yep.

        I know him too well :)

Do I need to introduce myself? Because i'll be honest, I'm definitely not the type to talk to my journal like it's a person, but I do believe one day, SOMEONE will get their hands on it. So I feel like I need to make sense of everything so that person doesn't get confused. So, if you are perchance reading this right now, i'm not going to tell you to stop. Heck, we all know you won't anyways. In fact, I actually am going to encourage you to keep reading. Because I think all of us in the back of our minds secretly want people to see even our most private thoughts. Because then, they would see us for exactly who we really are. Or at least that's how I feel... I just think it would be nice not to have to explain myself to people. Besides that, probably the first thing to know about me is that I am NOT a very private person. So be prepared to hear some good stuff.

Wednesday June 27th (officially)

My name is Madison Anne Lyman Harward.

I am 21 years old. I will be 22 years old on October 17th.

My husband's name is Casey Scott Harward.

He is 25. He will be 26 on July 9th. (That's in 12 days)

The reason he bought me this journal is because he and I thought it might be a good idea to get my thoughts out on paper. Remember how I said I wasn't a very private person? Well, the down side of that is that it makes me a very openly emotional person.

And the reason why i've been (justifiably) increasingly emotional lately is because we just lost our nine week old baby...

In other words, I had a miscarriage. One week and two days ago.

To be honest, I don't even know where to start with my emotions. Writing them down helps, but for some reason i'm noticing my mind draws a blank every time I pick up the pen. 

Today, however, was a very good day. Casey and I went to Seven Peaks. It felt good to walk a lot and go on all of the slides. It was nice to be reminded that I can still be happy. Until today I really doubted my ability to be happy again. Or at least until I had another chance at a baby. 

I know I will get that chance again someday. And when that day is exactly, I have no idea. You'd think it wouldn't be that way because the decision to try for a baby is completely within our control. But I want to makes sure I'm ready. 

Which isn't like me. At all.

I am so impatient, I drive myself crazy. Usually, I let my emotions control my decisions. But this isn't just ME i'm dealing with in this situation. I'm having to respect my husband's thoughts on the matter as well, besides the fact that we are timing a HUMAN BEING'S LIFE. And if Casey and I aren't mentally or physically prepared to take care of that life yet, we need to wait.

I don't want to just jump into having another baby just because I think it would cover up or get rid of the heartache I have about losing this one. Even though part of me believes it would. 

It's not fair to me or that baby.

I know I have to let myself grieve, but it is SO much harder than people think. Don't get me wrong, feeling sad isn't hard. That's kind of human nature. It's our "default". We naturally go to those feelings during hard times. In my eyes, it's a million times harder to force myself to be HAPPY than it is to just be nothing. Just to feel nothing. Because we, as humans, can do that too. We can shut out our feelings if we want to and not feel at all. But "nothing" isn't necessarily a good feeling either. Because that's when you are numb.

It's just really hard because these sad feelings don't go away during a time like this.

They just keep coming and you can't turn them off.

I mean you can try but it's hard to keep them off. There are far too many things that signal the "on" switch.

It's like being in a room full of  THOUSANDS of light switches. All of the light switches are turned on. There is only ONE off switch clear at the end of the room in the midst of all the other ON switches. So first, you have to FIND the off switch, then you have to have enough energy to keep running to the end of the giant room to just turn everything off. (and it doesn't stay off for long.)

My brain doesn't have that kind of energy.

Because (here's your first big secret) I suffer with a little bit of depression. So my brain has to work about 10 times as hard to be as happy as a normal person. It gets exhausting. Sometimes it's easy to just sit and cry!

But you want to hear the cool part? I didn't cry today!