Two Weeks

On Tuesday I went out to lunch with my sister, and while it felt awkward to be out among people, it felt good to talk to her. We talked about my hospital stay, and about Sawyer, but we also talked about other things. It was a reminder to me that while my world stopped spinning, the rest of the world kept going.
Yesterday marked two weeks since I gave birth to Sawyer. Two weeks since I heard his heartbeat or felt him move. Two weeks since I said goodbye. I had a hard morning thinking about all that happened. Again, the "what ifs" got to me. I had my first appointment with my OB since my hospital stay in the afternoon. The waiting room was hard. There was a woman there with her little boy and she was pregnant. Her little boy was acting up and she was trying to remain calm. All I could think was, I am jealous of your ability to deal with a tantrum. In the appointment, I was reminded that my doctor is an amazing guy. I was prepared for an exam. Instead, he came in and just talked to me. He wanted to know how I was doing both physically and emotionally. He encouraged me to seek someone to talk to, but also to find my own way to heal. He told me to find things that I like doing and not to feel guilty about doing them. He also reassured me that there was nothing I did wrong. I had a perfectly normal pregnancy, and my incompetent cervix was a tragic occurrence. He told me that the infection I had contracted because my membranes were exposed was E. coli. He said that if they had tried to delay labor the infection, even with antibiotics would have continued to grow and that not only would we have lost Sawyer, but probably me as well. He said when I go see him in October he will do an exam, and we will talk about future pregnancies, although he doesn't want me to get pregnant right away (neither do I.)
 None of this makes me miss Sawyer less, I miss feeling him move and knowing he is here. I miss the plans that I had for him. I saw a Halloween commercial this morning and thought about how I had planned to wear one of those funny Halloween maternity shirts to school that day. I got mad, again at my body. It let me down, it let Colin down and it let Sawyer down. Commercials are hard, particularly ones for baby stuff. I emailed BabysRUs the other day to shut down my registry. I deleted my pinterest board of baby stuff. It feels like doing those things are part of letting go of Sawyer and they make me want to punch a wall. I feel angry and empty and heartbroken. I just want to wake up from this nightmare, and there are about ten seconds between sleep and awake where it feels that way. Then I wake up and I am back in this nightmare. I want to remember the good things, the joy that he brought me, but I think it is still too fresh. I remember the pain of contractions and the pain of knowing I couldn't stop them. I remember the pain of holding him, knowing he couldn't be saved. I remember the numbness of the next four days, laying in a hospital bed, being pumped full of antibiotics, and thinking I just needed to get home to grieve. How could I grieve in the same room where I gave birth to my son? I am waiting for a full day where I can remember the joy and not the pain. In the meantime I am trying to take the advice of some of the other moms who have experienced loss, I am trying to be gentle with myself.