Thankful... with tough decisions ahead.

I have to admit, I have had a rough few weeks. My emotions have been all over the place and I am having a hard time keeping up with the extremes. I continue to experience moments of intense sadness and overwhelming pain, but I also know that I might be experiencing joy and excitement in the very next moment. I'm willing to take the good with the bad because all of my emotions represent movement through grief. They are evidence that I am moving through my pain and not getting stuck in bitterness and resentment.

We survived Thanksgiving, which wasn't as difficult as I thought it would be. My parents came to the new house and prepared an awesome dinner for us. Matt and I realized that, in spite of everything that has happened over this past year, we have so much to be thankful for. Our relationship is strong, we just moved into a beautiful home, and we have the love and support of family and friends. There are a lot of blessings around us and we are sincerely grateful for each and every one.

A lot of people struggle with their emotions around the Holidays. In the mental health field, I see my clients work through a variety of emotional stresses during the Christmas season. One reason why I think people struggle so much is simple; during the Holidays, we miss people. We look around our tables, with these big delicious meals, and we notice all of the people who are not there. We miss people around the Holidays and their absence is felt with more intensity than at other times of the year.

I miss Jack most at Thanksgiving. Anyone who knows my family knows the story of the craziest Thanksgiving that we ever had and it's a good story. It was the week before Thanksgiving and Jack was an 8th grader and I was a freshman in high school. Jack and I had both been sick earlier that week and he decided that he wanted to go to school even though I wasn't better yet. My parents weren't home because my dad was having surgery in Billings so I had to drive Jack to school. I didn't scrape my windows off very well and had to drive by looking through a little stripe in the windshield. After I dropped Jack off at school, I promptly ran my car into the broad side of a big yellow school bus. Ug. It was not one of my finer achievements, but it definitely wasn't surprising given my history of clumsiness and blonde moments.

When I called my mom to tell her about my accident, she informed me that she was so sick with an infected tooth, that she was unable to take my dad to his surgery. My aunt had to take care of both of them until they were well enough to come home to Malta and take care of me. When they got home, we sat around the house in our respective misery. Jack, who was feeling fine, prepared himself a beautiful Thanksgiving dinner of spaghetti and meatballs. He sat down to his feast and said to the three of us, "I freaking hate you people! You are pathetic!" I'm sure he meant it lovingly and we really were a pathetic bunch.

After that, Jack and I vowed to make that Christmas the best one ever because Thanksgiving had been such a disaster. That Christmas Eve morning we woke up to the news that our school had burned to the ground. Let's just say that my entire family's perspective on holidays changed after that!

As this Christmas gets closer, Matt and I continue to heal. Even though I know I am making progress, I still have a hard time with the fact that my friends are having their babies. I realize why it is so hard for me to accept my friends giving birth; they are my peers and they are moving forward with life events that I should already be having. I feel like I am being left behind and they are getting to have all of the joys and challenges that I can't experience yet. I was pregnant with my peers but their pregnancies will end much differently than mine did.

In a lot of ways, I feel like one of my friends from Malta who had to repeat the 7th grade. At the end of our 7th grade year, Brian's peers prepared for high school while he stayed back in junior high with us. He didn't completely fit with us, but he no longer fit with his peers either. He was stuck in limbo for awhile until he settled in to our class and was accepted. I now have a deeper understanding of what Brian went through even though my situation is very different from his.

This "left behind" feeling is somewhat unfamiliar to me because I have always been either on target or ahead of my peers. I find that I don't have a whole lot in common with people who haven't experienced pregnancy, but I also don't have a whole lot in common with people who have living children. I'm not really in a position to talk about morning sickness and ultrasounds, but I'm not in the mood to discuss diapers or pediatricians either. I'm in my own separate place in the lifespan and that separateness hurts a lot. It's like the worst kind of exclusion because it can't be overcome even with my best effort.

As Christmas gets closer, Matt and I have some tough decisions to make. We know for a fact that we want to continue our family and give Keller siblings. The question is not if we are going to have more children, the real question is when. Biologically I could be ready any time now. I have now had two cycles and my body feels like it is back to normal. Emotionally, I am torn. Part of me is ready, with the knowledge that I will still have 40 weeks to heal if I do get pregnant. Part of me is scared and not ready because I still miss Keller with an intensity that feels like an anvil is on my chest.

I know that getting pregnant again is not going to make me miss Keller any less. I realize that nothing is going to replace my son and I could have 10 healthy babies and still feel an emptiness in my heart when I think about Keller. I also don't think that getting pregnant again will make me hurt any MORE than I do now. Healing from everything I've experienced is just going to take time. Whether I'm pregnant or not, I just have to accept that I can't rush the healing process and I can't predict the future with any certainty.

As difficult as it is for me to think about going through another pregnancy, I have to remember that I would be facing another pregnancy even if Keller had lived. Keller was never meant to be an only child and Matt and I have always wanted several children in our family. Granted, we had hoped for a year or two between Keller and our next child, but we really have no set schedule for our children. We are willing to accept what the future holds for us and our family.

I sincerely hope that Matt and I are able to continue our family in 2010 and that my next pregnancy is a time of healing and hope. We definitely have a tough road ahead of us and there are no easy answers to the decisions that we have to make. I honestly believe that we are up to the challenge because we have a lot of blessings to take with us on our journey; our commitment to each other, our faith in God, and the support of wonderful people. The future definitely looks difficult... but worth it.