Blog Song and Dance

I have become increasingly aware of how the blogging world changes for us all. To me it reminds me of song and dance. Sometimes we are feeling at our best and we can dance all night long, so caught up in the moment, we hardly notice how the night just flew by. Sometimes we aren't in the mood or we tire too easily, and so we have to sit a few songs out. Some people decide that going out dancing doesn't fit in with their current lifestyle or doesn't bring the same enjoyment it used to and they stop going.

... and so come the same feelings with blogging. I was kind of shocked and sad to see a few of my favorite people moving on, but realized the bittersweetness of growth. I was also feeling guilty that I have been neglecting to write or comment. In examining my priorities and what is going on in my life, I feel that writing here must be on my terms and when I feel right. My Sacred Insanity was created with the intention of just getting things out. Over time I think it has evolved to be a more in depth story of my past and how I have become who I am today, especially as it relates to addiction and how it almost destroyed me. Right now I need to take a little break from sharing so much, because I am involved in evolving in the present, as I am presented with new life challenges as a parent.

Addiction and loss kind of engulfed My Sacred Insanity and I realized that was okay. I never realized my sharing would help anyone other than me. It just isn't ALL of who I am. I created Acute Verbal Sabbatical as a place where I could share more of me today, and could write in my present struggles and happiness. Every time I want to post, I want to do it here because of the comfort of the people who comment and feel support and give support. I have realized that this isn't the right place for my everyday ramblings and I need some consistency in what is here. 

With that being said, I feel more comfortable saving this space for the right things at the right time. I know when I need to sit a few out. I haven't decided to give up dancing. If you don't see me sharing the music of my soul here, I might just be dancing in my kitchen with my kids over at Acute Verbal Sabbatical.

In case you were wondering...

I have not felt like writing and have been feeling pretty busy and unmotivated lately. I think we are still recovering from spring break with all 3 kids home all day. We are still adjusting to my husband's schedule working days after 3 years of him working nights. The weather has ranged from blizzards to 80 degree days, and back, several times in the past few weeks.

We have had car troubles and I got pulled over and didn't know my license was cancelled for some reason. Not sure if it's a traffic ticket I didn't take care of from back when I was too high to care, or if it's related to my identity being stolen, also back when I was too high to care.

We are sponsoring Bryson's uncle who is on parole. Ironically he used to be our drug dealer and literal partner in crime. When we got arrested and started working our way back out of the hell hole we created, he continued on the wrong path and wasn't so lucky to get probation. He got out over a year ago but still hadn't learned and went right back to selling dope and violated parole in the halfway house. This time he has made it through a more intensive inmate rehabilitation program than he had to. He finished his time in the halfway house and now he needs somewhere to live. The sad reality and irony is that there are no other family members that are clean and can promise to provide a home free from weapons and drugs, but we can. 

I have to admit I am a little nervous, but we have clarified that we are not the one's who need him here and that anything perceived as risky for our family or that is in anyway violating his parole, means we will report him and and revoke his sponsorship. He is doing random ua's and ba's and should he fail even one it would send him back to prison so there is some comfort in that. Feels kind of weird to be on this side. 

I am still struggling with extreme bouts of insomnia which in turn cause me to feel exhausted all the time and I feel short and irritable with my kids. Still waiting for word on our health insurance application so that I can hopefully get to the root of it all.

Taking things one moment at a time and feeling pretty content with that because it allows me to live with hope for a better moment, despite my emotional and physical discomforts of this moment.

Introducing.....

.... my newest addition....  Acute Verbal Sabbatical

unexpected

I'm not in the right place to continue my last series of posts just yet. It is a genuine place of existence that deserves to be portrayed in my coherent reality of that time. Although I have healed, and my broken heart has been repaired, the feelings of visiting that broken heart cannot be endured on a continuous basis. Amazingly so, sharing the birth and death of two chapters in my life has opened me up to the possibility of adding another blog. One that is more for my raw and explicit feelings, often stirred from writing. I didn't think I could manage one blog.

I guess much like the mother who gives her all to her first child, pregnant with her second, and finds it incomprehensible that she can equally devote to another, I realize that I have more to say, and just like I grew a whole 'nother heart for each of my children, so shall come the inspiration for my other blog.

Look forward to a new addition (funny I mistyped that addiction the first time, ha!) as well as a continuation of my last post.

Part III- The Beginning of just Me

I stayed a week in the hospital. It was a full blown kidney infection. We decided to do the amniocentesis. I mostly wanted to know she  was really a she. Selfish 13 year old that I was. The ultrasound techs could not find my kidney. Still. The contractions stopped. I was sent home and expected back in school the next day. I showed up, but I did not feel good. I went to the asst. principle's office and he thought I was faking. He sent me to detention. It was in the basement of the school. There were NO windows. Detention was referred to as "prison" and we all knew that our underfunded school was a fire hazard.

I sat through detention, wondering why being sick from pregnancy was worthy of detention. It felt like she was shamed no matter what I did. I went home that night. My boyfriend was his usual stoned, literally overworked self. I started having regular "cramps." I looked to my book first. I now trusted it more. It said what I was experiencing was an emergency. I called my teen parenting teacher. She immediately began yelling at me, telling me I was going to fail out of school and be nothing for my baby. She told me I was melodramatic. I didn't know what that meant. She said to go to bed and come see her in the morning. I listened to her.

I wish I listened to my book. The pain woke me at 2am. I got up and went to go pee, thinking that was the problem. Immediately I felt the thick and slow decent of the warmth spreading down my thighs. Not pee. I said a short prayer as I walked for the light. I had been having periods for over a year before I got pregnant. I knew the hesitant downfall of blood down my leg by now. I also knew it was not compatible with pregnancy. My book told me that.

I woke my boyfriend because I was screaming. My grandparents came rushing down the stairs. I was already dialing the nurse line. They would give me permission to go to the hospital and take care of myself and her.

On the way the contractions were intolerable. I got there and emergency quickly took me to L&D. I was put on a chair resembling a dentist's chair. I remember thinking, a dentist's chair means minor business, an office visit, she  is going to be ok.


Within seconds there was an official looking person telling me that I needed a room, but it was in fact a state hospital, and there were no rooms. I was checked and was dilated to 4. no turning back, too late. A portable NICU bassinet was brought in and I was told to brace myself. Any minute.  I wish that was true. 16 long and agonizing hours of minute apart contractions and I was not even a 7. An epidural wasn't an option, so they physically and mentally numbed me with stadol. She was breech, but even though they gave me false hope, they didn't acknowledge the fact that a 22 weeker, with next to no chance, could not endure a breech delivery. I was given false hope that every minute inside meant she had a better chance.

Nature didn't help me keep her inside. They broke my water, saying there was no going back and they walked out. She was being born, bottom first, the next contraction. Thankfully there was an awesome orderly there to come catch her. 
Bet she thought she was only going to empty trash that day, not empty a 13 year old girl...

Here she was.

Here she was, yet no one came. Maybe if there were a Dr. in the room they would be working miracles, with this little angel fighting, beyond my sight. Yet she was in my arms and I was helpless. I watched her tiny chest raise and fall, with what seemed like the work of a million miracles each time. I could actually see her heart beneath her fragile and thin skin. It was working hard. Still no one came. I saw tears in the lying cheater's eyes. Even he loved her.

Someone finally came, but they knew, and the let us know. THERE WAS NO MORE HOPE. They didn't take her away. There was no oxygen, there was no NICU, there was no airlifting her to Children's Hospital. After all, her mother was only 13. No hope. A lost soul... two lost souls.

I held her from the moment she took that painful first breath to that moment I saw that last fragile beat, and then, nothing. No one was there to tell me she was gone. They were off tending to live births. I spent a magical, painful, intense, love filled, 84 minutes with her, while her strong little heart beat, but they didn't come. Even when she became still, even then I couldn't let her go. I held her 'til she turned blue and unrecognizable.

The hospital was nice enough to give me a grieving room where I could go see her until I could let go. Even though they didn't try to save her, they didn't disgrace her or downplay my loss like our families were doing. "It is better off this way," is not something you say to someone who just lost a baby. She had a preemie diaper and a little hand-made dress, and she was wrapped snuggly in a receiving blanket that my dear sweet friend had brought for her. They made her a tiny hat. They didn't take her to the morgue 'til I could say okay. They took her hand and footprints for me.... they let us name her.

...to be continued...