Letters for the Broken (Part V)

Dear little three, four & five,

It’s so unfair for me to loop all three of you together, but by this time, I was tapped out.

It was starting to warm up outside and I was starting to get out of the winter blues. It was Spring, 2017 and I was ready to shed all the past heartache. Damn, was I in for a rude fucking awakening.

It’s funny how your mind works. When intense stress or trauma gets too severe, actual neurological changes happen in the brain to enable us to survive the experience. Even now as I’m typing this, I’m having trouble recalling a lot of the events that unfolded with the loss of you three. There wasn’t a single piece of my heart left to break and my brain knew it. My body went into auto pilot while my mind went numb. So here I go. I will try to tell this story to the best of my knowledge.

It was a fucking nightmare. There I was, standing in the bathroom looking at yet another positive pregnancy test. I left my body and found myself thinking about all the trouble we had in the past. It played out in my head like a silent film. When I came back to reality, I wrapped the test in toilet paper and took it outside to the garbage can. He didn’t need to know.

I went back inside and starred at myself in the mirror.

I saw the tears welling up in my eyes and wiped them from my face before they fell. I smiled at the hollow shell gazing back at me and started to give myself a pep talk, although I ended up arguing instead.

“Okay, you’re fine.”

“No, you’re not.”

“He doesn’t know anything is wrong.”

“Yes, he does.”

“Everything will work out!”

“Please, you’re fucked.”

I lowered the volume on the voices and walked downstairs to sit on the couch with Jarrett.

I had a smile on my face as I plopped down on the sofa. He kissed me on the cheek, put his arm around me and rubbed my shoulder. This feeling was familiar, it was numb, but I convinced myself that I was fine.

Everything is okay.

Three days later, I lost you.

Little four and five, I wish the outcome for you was a different story. Unfortunately, I wouldn’t be writing this if it was. I hid you from Jarrett. I hid all of you to protect him. I didn’t know how bad he wanted to be a father until I witnessed the light in his eyes fade to darkness when we lost one and two. I couldn’t watch him go through that again.

I swallowed it down. I did my best to hide the three positive pregnancy tests and the mind-numbing pain of you leaving. I lived with a horrible secret for six months.

In that six months, getting on social media was absolute hell. Everyone was announcing a pregnancy for their first baby. Baby number two, baby number three, twins. Fuck, it was awful. It stung every time I was invited to a baby shower. How was I expected be happy for you when you are celebrating something I want so bad? That wasn’t even the worst part. When you convince yourself to show up and “celebrate”, people feel like they need to, A. Walk on eggshells around you and never mention anything baby related in fear that you are easily triggered. THEY are actually uncomfortable with YOU being there. Or B. They Feel like they need to talk to you about your situation and ask, “Do you think you will try again?” or “There’s always the option of adoption.”

Once again, like I said before, we do not know how to act when we are presented a situation we know nothing about. We have a way of only making it worse.

I was literally exhausted from hiding my feeling and losses from my husband. Six months is a very long time but also feels like an eternity when you are going through it by yourself. I had no idea who the hell I was anymore. I was losing track of time and events that were happening around me due to drowning in my own morbid and horrific thoughts. I could no longer function like a normal human being. I chained myself to a wine or liquor bottle and smoked like freight train to keep myself just numb enough to avoid heartache.

I couldn’t live like this anymore; it was time to tell him.

My littles, I broke your daddy’s heart.

It was a late Saturday night on month seven. Jarrett had just gotten in the shower and I was on the bed with a burning in my throat as I fought back tears. My mind and body couldn’t take holding this secret anymore. I stripped down and got in the shower behind him. Surprised, he turned around as I wrapped my arms around his waist and laid my head on his chest.

“It wasn’t two, it was five.” I finally let it go. It felt good to get it out, but that was short lived.

“What do you mean, it was five?” I took my head off Jarrett’s chest and I saw it; the light faded from his eyes. I had done it; I had broken my husband’s heart.

He put his hands on my face and kissed my forehead as I told him the whole story. It was so hard to look him in the eyes. I was reading the different emotions on his face. There was anger that turned to hurt and then understanding followed by complete sadness. We held each other and grieved for a third and final time that night.

Just like that, we were done with our journey.

We gave up the fight that night.

There were no plans for a baby anymore.

My little's, I think about all of you almost every day.

I love you even though I’ve never met you.

It had been eleven months since I opened up to Jarrett about the losses and the excitement of vacation was weighing on both of our minds as we prepared to go on our first of many trips out of the country. We had it all planned out; Ireland this trip then Germany next year, Tokyo after that and so on and so on. We were happily living our lives without the fear of loss anymore. I had found a way to deal with my depression and get myself in shape before journey across the pond. We were happy and in love.

Three days before boarding the plane, I asked Jarrett if he could go out and grab breakfast while I continued packing.

“What do you want to eat? Bojangles?”

I thought about it and instantly felt sick. “I think I might have a stomach bug or something. I haven’t really felt that great this past week.” I rubbed my tummy and reached for the tums.

Jarrett stood in the doorway of the bedroom, “How long did you say you’ve felt like this?”

“I don’t know, about a week,” I crunched the tums and looked up at him, “What?”

“Do you have any pregnancy tests left?”

My throat tightened and my body got hot. I starred at Jarrett and tried not to cry but I could feel the lump in my throat.

“Do you want me to stay with you while you take it?”

I looked down at my tummy, back up at Jarrett and swallowed hard. I nodded my head and prepared myself for what I thought I would never have to do again.

Three days before boarding the plane to Ireland and we were pregnant.

Scared and slightly heartbroken we made a pact; we would not let this ruin our trip.

I had no Idea what we were in for.

Dear little six…

Scratch that…

Dear little monster…